What’s Donny Osmond’s Favorite Disney Movie?

Lauren Novak April 2, 12:39 pm

Donny Osmond custom image — ABC/Lou Rocco

Donny Osmond shared a look at his live shows — and some info on his Disney faves — in a recent Instagram post. In the video, Osmond can be seen wearing a costume and doing a dance number while singing “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from the Disney animated film Mulan (1998). In the caption, he joked, “Can you guess what my favorite Disney movie is? 😂😉”

“I’ll Make a Man Out of You” is a song written for the film by composer Matthew Wilder and lyricist David Zippel; it was performed by Osmond as the singing voice of Captain Li Shang. The song is now a classic, but in its original version, the lyrics were slightly different. The film’s original songwriter, Stephen Schwartz, wrote it as “We’ll Make a Man of You,” but left the film in order to work on DreamWorks’ The Prince of Egypt instead.

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Osmond was cast for the singing voice in the film because his voice was similar to the Li Shang actor BD Wong’s speaking voice. Oddly enough, a year prior, Osmond had auditioned for the role of Hercules in Disney’s Hercules (1997), but was turned down because they thought he sounded too old. Osmond once said in an interview that the entire experience was embarrassing for him and he nearly ended his singing career because of it.

It all worked out in the end though, as Osmond’s version of “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” is often considered the best song in the beloved movie, and went on to be recorded and covered in many other languages, including by Jackie Chan.

MULAN, Mushu (left, voice: Eddie Murphy), Mulan (center, voice: Ming-Na), Shang (front right, voice: Donny Osmond), 1998

Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collection

Fun fact: Do you the part in the song where the character Li Shang is hit in the stomach while singing? To make that part sound as realistic as possible, Osmond reportedly hit himself in the stomach while recording. Now that’s commitment! In 2020, Osmond and his grandkids reunited virtually to sing the song for ABC’s The Disney Family Singalong, and he now often performs the song as a part of his Las Vegas show.