Time Magazine has named broadway singer Lea Salonga as one of its TIME100 Impact Awardees for 2022, calling her a "life-long role model for children of color."
In its feature, Time Magazine dubbed the Filipina singer and actress as the “voice of Disney princesses,” for playing the singing voices of Disney’s Jasmine and Mulan from the animated films Aladdin and Mulan.
"In her four-decade award-winning career as an actress and singer, Salonga has emerged not only as a Disney and Broadway icon but a role model for children of color. Salonga prides herself on promoting representation in Hollywood and on Broadway and showing underrepresented groups that their stories matter," the magazine said.
"All of a sudden, the people that look like me had a princess," Salonga remembers thinking at the time she played Mulan. "She brings honor to herself and to her family… and she does it with grace."
Time also recognized some of Salonga’s notable roles, including starring in the Filipino production of The King and I, her Tony Award-winning performance as Kim in Miss Saigon, and being the first Asian woman to play Eponine in the Broadway musical Les Misérables, and being part of the movie Yellow Rose.
Salonga’s most recent role is in HBO Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.
Time Magazine’s Time100 Impact Awards recognizes “global leaders who have gone above and beyond to move their industries – and the world – forward.” Other 2022 awardees include English singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding, and American rapper Will.i.am.
