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‘Alien: Romulus’ star Cailee Spaeny has revealed that she almost starred in director Sofia Coppola’s “darker” adaption of ‘The Little Mermaid.’

When speaking to Empire, Spaeny recalled on Coppola’s canceled production: “My first-ever callback was through Sofia. It was for [Coppola’s] ‘The Little Mermaid,’ [which] ended up not getting made. I sent this weird self-tape, playing a mermaid with no dialogue. It was very strange and avant-garde.”

In recent memory, Spaeny starred in Sofia Coppola’s ‘Priscilla’ (2023). Prior to that role, the actress auditioned Coppola’s “The Beguiled” (2017).

“That didn’t end up working out. I was crushed because Sofia is the director that I zeroed in on as a young teenage girl, especially living in the Bible Belt,” said Spaeny. “There’s something so freeing [in her work] and something that wasn’t really talked about for young women where I grew up. She took young girls seriously. It really spoke to me on a personal level.”

Spaeny touched on her earlier career, in which she desired to star in teen shows like ‘Hannah Montana.’

“Early on all I wanted to do was be on some sort of teen show, like Miley Cyrus. And I would go to auditions and they’d say, ‘Oh, you’re too dark,'” the actress said. “I couldn’t do the big, funny, sitcom-y beats because I just made it too moody and angsty. I’d like to think I’m also light-hearted and don’t take things too seriously. But in music and film, I just gravitate towards whatever is the most dramatic or dark.”

In regards to Coppola’s shelved ‘The Little Mermaid,’ Coppola herself commented on what kind of movie the Universal Pictures production would’ve been: “It wasn’t the Disney version, it was actually the original fairy tale, which is much darker. I thought it would be fun to do a fairy tale, I’ve always loved fairy tales, so I was curious about doing that.”

The director went on to expose the risks and challenges that Universal had with her feature: “It became too big of a scale. I wanted to shoot it really underwater, which would have been a nightmare. But underwater photography is so beautiful. We even did some tests. It was not very realistic, that approach. But it was interesting to think about.”

Coppola ended up leaving the project all-together in 2015.

Cailee Spaeny stars in ‘Alien: Romulus,’ the seventh franchise instalment, that has opened to rave critic and fans reviews, and predicted to be a box office hit.