Halle Bailey says it took a 'whole day' to get the iconic Ariel hair-flip shot right for 'The Little Mermaid'

• Halle Bailey said it took a "whole day" to pull off the hair flip shot.
• "My hair was really, really heavy," Bailey told Entertainment Weekly of her locs that she's had since she was 5.

A lot of work went into getting one of the most famous shots from the 1989 Disney animated classic, "The Little Mermaid," to work for the upcoming live-action remake.

The movie's star, Halle Bailey, who plays Ariel, recently told Entertainment Weekly why getting the hair-flip shot was so challenging.

"That scene was so fun to do. It was definitely hard, though, because my hair was really, really heavy," she said. "I have my locs, which are my favorite thing. I've had my locs since I was 5. It feels like wool when it's wet. So it gets heavier. It kind of almost doubles the weight when they're heavy."

In the animated version, once Ariel signs her voice away to the evil Ursula to change from mermaid to human, she frantically swims to the surface before running out of breath, leading to the now-famous hair-flip shot as her head whips out of the water.

But it wasn't just her own locs she had to flip. Bailey had curly hair strands interwoven into her hair for the role, which added to the weight of it all.

"It was just a lot of hair on my head," Bailey told EW. "So whenever I would get in the water, it would be heavy. So that one scene, it was really funny: that whole day we were trying to get it right, get it right, and finally they got a take that they really liked."

The movie, which recently had its star-studded premiere and will open in theaters on May 26, also stars Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, Awkwafina as Scuttle, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, and Javier Bardem as King Triton.