Nala
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Nala is the daughter of Sarafina and a unknown male. She is the mate of Simba and the mother of Kiara. Nala appears in all three Lion King movies. She is voiced by Niketa Calame (voice cub) ; Laura Williams (singing cub) ; Moira Kelly (voice adult) and Sally Dworsky (singing adult). "Nala" means "gift" in Swahilli.
It is never mentioned in the film who Nala's father is. At the Lion King Tenth Anniversary Reunion, Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff said that they hoped that "no-one would notice". Eventually, Rob Minkoff admitted that it would be either Mufasa or Scar, as that would be how normal prides work.
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The Lion King
Nala is the mother of Kiara and the mate of Simba. Her mother is Sarafina and her father is unknown, although it is implied that it is either Scar or Mufasa, as this is how normal prides would work, but this is not mentioned in the film because that would make Simba and Nala cousins.
Baby Nala
Baby Nala never appears in The Lion King, but there is clipart illustrating her as an infant.
Cub Nala
Nala first appears in The Lion King when Simba runs down to ask Sarabi if he can go to the Elephant Graveyard. She is being cleaned by her mother, Sarafina. Nala asks her mother if she can accompany Simba to the 'Water Hole'. Sarabi agrees to let the cubs go—as long as Zazu goes with them. In an attempt to ditch Zazu, the two cubs create a frenzy with the other animals in the savannah ("I Just Can't Wait to be King") and manage to lose the bird. In a small disagreement, Nala performs her famous pounce and pins Simba to the floor. The two cubs tumble down a cliff and realise they have stumbled into the Elephant Graveyard. After a quick exploration, Zazu catches up with the two cubs, before finding themselves face to face with three hyenas. After a frantic effort to escape, Zazu alerts Mufasa, who saves the two cubs.
Later on, Scar plots to kill Simba and Mufasa in order to assume the throne. He suceeds in killing Mufasa, and tells the lionesses of the pride that both Mufasa and Simba are dead. Nala mourns over her friend's passing, and years later, after Scar's tyrannical rule destroys the Pridelands, Nala runs off to find help.
Adult Nala
While on her journey, Nala attempts to hunt a warthog. Surprisingly, a lion defends the warthog. Nala angrily pins down the young lion, who recognises her and turns out to be her childhood friend Simba, who she believed to be dead. Nala struggles with the reality of Simba being alive, and after all those years, the two lions realise their friendship has turned into love. But Simba refuses to accept his responsibility of being King, and so Nala gets angry with him, which ends up in an arguement. After the arguement, Nala attempts to find Simba again, and asks Timon and Pumbaa if they know where he is. After she realises Simba's not there, Rafiki informs her that he's gone back to the Pridelands to reclaim his throne. Nala immediately heads off to Pride Rock to help Simba defend his kingdom. She joins him in the Battle of Pride Rock. After Simba defeats Scar, Nala becomes Simba's Queen, and they have a cub, who is presented at the end of the film.
Simba's Pride
Although a fairly major role in The Lion King, Nala appears as a fairly minor character in Simba's Pride. In this film, Nala and Simba have a head-strong daughter named Kiara. Although a fairly relaxed parent, Nala tells an over-protective Simba that Kiara is just like them when they were cubs, and assures him she'll be fine.
It is obvious Nala has a dislike towards Zira, when Zira mockingly greets her and she snarls back in return. Nala also understands the importance of Simba having a heart-to-heart with Kiara and does not interfere. Nala is shown as a caring mother, reassuring Kiara on her first hunt, but also persuading Simba to let her hunt on her own. She is also concerned when Kiara was involved in the fire during her hunt, and is relieved to find Kiara unharmed. She also reminds Simba, when he's reluctant to accept Kovu into the pride, that "You owe him your daughter's life."
Nala takes the back seat in most of Simba's Pride, but continuously reminds Simba to relax and get to know Kovu. Although she is powerless to object when Kovu is exiled, she is seen comforting Kiara and seems in disagreement with Simba's decision. Nala is a more humble character in this film, and lets Simba take over most control of the Pridelands, although she does offer him advice. Nala fights for the pridelands in the final battle, and is frantic when Kiara tumbles down into the gorge with Zira.
Nala is quite different from her first film equivalent; she has a heavier frame, and her eyes are incorrectly coloured blue.
Hakuna Matata
Nala barely makes an appearance in this midquel, although she is still voiced by her original voice actress. She is seen in "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", in which clips of the original movie are incorporated into new sequences in which Timon and Pumbaa try very drastic diversions to stop Simba and Nala falling in love. Although only appearing for a couple of minutes, it reveals more of the lions' love for each other.
She also appears in another scene in which she's explaining to Timon and Pumbaa why Simba has left, which leaves her angry as they still don't seem to understand after she's explained it twice. She retorts angrily, "Don't you get it? Simba needs us—now!" before running off into the jungle, back to Pride Rock.
Although her eyes are back to their original colour, Nala's heavy face frame from Simba's Pride still remains.
The Lion King Musical
Following the success of The Lion King, Julie Taymor created the musical The Lion King on Broadway. In this production, we have an insight on events that were not explored in the original film.
Nala gets the same role as a cub in the musical as she does in the film. She has a slightly larger singing role in "I Just Can't Wait to Be King", but only by a couple of lines. She has the same role again in the Elephant Graveyard scene, but in this adaptation it is the fault of Nala which leads to her and Simba being cornered by the hyenas.
In "The Madness of King Scar", we see the adult Nala pleading with Scar to control his hyenas, while he seems more interested in her becoming his mate. She lashes out and scratches Scar before leaving the Pridelands. Here, the sequence "Shadowlands" shows Nala leaving her homeland after being blessed by Rafiki. This song was inspired by "Lea Halalela" from the Rhythm of the Pride Lands CD, and much of the tune is identical.
"Can You Feel the Love Tonight" gives Nala basically the same role as she had in the film. She and Adult Simba realize that their friendship has blossomed into love.
Heather Headley played Adult Nala, and Kajuana Shuford played Young Nala in the original Broadway cast of The Lion King.
Early Production
In early production sketches of Young Nala, you can still see Nala's character the same. Her determination as a cub shows through in the sketches, and even though her design changes for the final film, the initial sketches are very similar to those of the final ones. These sketches also has an original Disney style about it, which is softened down in the final designs of all the lions in The Lion King.
In this original sketch, Nala has black earmarks similar to those Simba has in the final film.
Mheetu
In early production, Nala had a younger brother called Mheetu. He was dropped from production during the early stages. Mheetu has been mentioned in The Art of The Lion King, although refered to as "Mee-too". He was designed by Thom Enriquez, and was designed to be Nala's 'tag-along' little brother.
An original device for Mheetu was Scar luring him into a wildebeest stampede so teenage Simba had to go and save him.
The Lion King: Six New Adventures
The Lion King: Six New Adventures (or TLK6NA) is a third-party book series centered around Simba and Nala's son Kopa. Nala appears in nearly every book as a caring mother for Kopa, although she does have a major character role in the book Nala's Dare, in which she tells Kopa a story about her when she was a cub.
A Tale of Two Brothers
Nala has a very minor role in this story. Firstly, she asks Kopa about playing with Pimbi the hyrax, and says to him she can see him wherever he is on the plains. Kopa's reply to this statement is creepy. She also explains to Kopa that there's a crisis at the water hole and Simba cannot take him up to the summit of Pride Rock because as King he has important responsibilties. She also scolds Kopa after Rafiki tells him the story of Mufasa and Taka because he calls Scar a 'creep'.
Vulture Shock
In this story, Kopa is kidnapped by three vultures who hold him for ransom. At the beginning of the book, Nala asks where Kopa is going, and laughs when he replies the same location of where Simba is. When he replies that he's got to learn important things from Simba, she jokes about suggesting to learn to hunt. Kopa retorts with "Mo-om! That's girls' stuff!"
After Kopa has been kidnapped by the vultures, Nala is extremely worried for her son and frantic to send a search party out for him. Concerned that he he's starving and thirsty, she also helps in the rescue of Kopa along with Simba. She questions the vultures on the location of her son. She also picks up one of the vultures by the leg and shakes him upside down to convince him to go back to his old eating habits. Afterwards, she thanks the "Buzzard Boyz" for helping them find Kopa.
A Snake in the Grass
In the story, Nala follows Kopa when he comes across Pumbaa. Nala laughs and compares Kopa to Simba when he was a cub. Kopa is grouchy and Nala knows something is wrong with him, but Kopa insists everything is fine. In the end, she leaves Kopa with Timon and Pumbaa to talk out his problems. After Kopa has sorted out his problem with a little help from his "uncles", Nala asks Timon and Pumbaa what the problem was. They explain it was a quarrel between Kopa and his friend Afua. She thanks the meerkat and warthog by giving them a kiss. As she walks away, Nala hears the two friends argueing, and knows that nothing can come between true friends for long.
Follow the Leader
In this story, Nala is found by Zazu resting after hunting. After she learns that Rafiki has just taken off on his own, she offers to go and find Simba to tell him. Just before she leaves, Kopa turns up. She asks Zazu to cub-sit Kopa for a while, and then sets off to find Simba. Nala finds Simba sorting out an arguement between two animals. At first, Simba refuses to go and help Rafiki. Nala is shocked by Simba's reluctance and asks him, "Are you forgetting your responsilities?" Simba then realises that he should go and admits that Nala was right. He then leaves to find Rafiki. She is then not mentioned until the end of the book, where she is supposedly waiting with Kopa for Simba to return.
Nala is also described in this book as having amber eyes, which is obviously a mistake on the writer's part.
How True, Zazu?
Nala does not appear in this story at all, but Kopa is described as copying her saying to Simba, "I'm all ears."
Nala's Dare
The story starts with Kopa hearing about a story about Nala from Rafiki. He runs to his mother and asks her to tell it to him.
In the story, the time is set after Simba has been "killed". Nala goes off to play with her two best friends, who are called Kula and Chumvi. Chumvi starts telling the two girls why he thinks lions are the most superior beings, to which Nala counter argues for each animal he identifies as being lesser-beings. In the end, Chumvi comes up with another theory: that the lions in their pride are better than lions in other prides. Nala says to him that she thinks that they're probably pretty much the same.
Chumvi dares her to ask another rogue lion to see who's right. Nala accepts the dare, thinking that the chances of her meeting a rogue lion are thin. However, Chumvi aleady has spotted a thin, dirty rogue lion on the outskirts of the Pridelands, and challenges her to talk to him. Scared, Nala prepares herself to approach the rogue, but just before she can do so, three roars echo from Pride Rock, indicating an emergency, and the three lion cubs rush back. As the cubs run back, they hear a lion approaching them. They all hide behind a rock, before Nala recognises the lion as her mother. Sarafina explains that the emergency was that there was a rogue lion. The cubs explain that they actually saw the lion.
After Sarafina walks with the cubs back to Pride Rock, Chumvi tells Nala that she was lucky she got out of the dare, and he didn't think she was brave enough to talk to him anyway. Offended, Nala replies that she is brave enough, and hopes that one day she will be brave enough to do something about Scar. When Chumvi leaves, Nala tells Kula that she plans to do the dare anyway, as only cowards drop dares; and she wants to surprise Chumvi. Kula pleads with her friend not to do the dare, but Nala is determined to do it anyway. The next morning, after a terrible nightmare, Nala wakes up. Kula is awake as well, and tries to persuade her again not to do the dare. Nala tells her she's got to do it for herself and to get back at Chumvi.
As she wanders through the Pridelands, she is surprised when the rogue lion appears behind her and lunges at her. Nala screams, but the lion jumps past her onto a hyena who was ready to attack her. He knocks the hyena flying and yells at Nala to run. Nala follows the rogue up a tree, where the lion introduces himself as Ni. Much to Nala's annoyance, he calls her "flaky." Nala asks him why he he's a rogue. Ni explains that all young male lions have to leave their pride one day. Nala persuades him to come back with her to Pride Rock. Ni is reluctant to do so because, as he says to Nala, the pride tried to scare him off before, but agrees to go.
Just as they are walking back, five hyenas surround Ni and Nala. Just as the hyenas are about to attack, Sarafina appears with Kula and Chumvi behind her. Sarafina and Ni scare the hyenas off. Before Sarafina scolds Nala for going through with the dare, she thanks Ni for saving her daughter, and then takes him back to Pride Rock. Chumvi apologises for teasing Nala and admits he was worried about her. Kula and Nala admit that they think Ni would look cute if he wasn't so scruffy and dirty.
After Nala and her friends show Ni around the Pridelands, he decides to depart. Nala pleads with him to see the summit before he leaves. While there, Ni tells Nala that "Lions who listen to the monkeys chattering will never learn to roar." Nala doesn't understand, but Ni leaves and bids her goodbye.
Kopa asks Nala if she ever saw Ni again, but Nala says no.
Again, in this book Nala is referred to as having amber coloured eyes.
