As the dulcet tones of the string quartet kick into gear and the camera pans out, a woman twirls on the dancefloor in a grey jumpsuit.
She’s the voice of the latest Disney Christmas advert, Jessica Darrow – and her song, A Little More, will be soundtracking the festive season for millions of fans this year, both in the advert and as a specially-recorded single.
But who is she? With her career poised to take off, here’s everything you need to know about the star.
Starting off
Born in 1995 in Florida, Darrow is of Cuban descent and grew up watching Disney films – though she has said that she considers her sister to be the bigger fan – and listening to songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda. As you might expect from a Disney actress, she was also involved in musical theatre from a young age.
Speaking about her childhood in an interview with Out, she’s said that she “grew up with a lot of food, a lot of colours, a lot of music, and a lot of different characters in my family for sure”.
A career on the rise
Darrow’s familiarity with Disney made her the perfect choice for her breakthrough role as one of the magical Madrigal sisters, Luisa, in Disney’s 2021 smash hit Encanto (which also featured songs by Miranda).
In fact, Darrow sang the hit song Surface Pressure, which became one of the film’s breakout hits and peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US.
Darrow has also been upfront about her sexuality. When a fan asked her on TikTok if she liked girls, she replied, “Y’all are funny. You see this haircut?”, resulting in a flood of marriage proposals.
She has also spoken out about her on-screen Encanto character, Luisa, and the importance of seeing characters like her in popular culture.
“I think what feels most relatable is, honestly, the softness that Luisa has, and the fact that she doesn’t talk about herself, about her romantic life, or anything else for that matter,” Darrow told Out.
“And I feel like a lot of women, and especially queer women, were actually relating with that story specifically… I think she spoke up for a lot of soft-spoken, queer Latina women and just children in general who have always needed to be the strong one.”
Post-Disney
With Encanto under her belt, Darrow is in demand for acting roles. After the Christmas Disney advert, her next on-screen appearance will be in the upcoming series Fifteen-Love.
Starring Ella Lily Hyland and Poldark’s Aidan Turner, the series will follow the battle between a tennis star and her former coach after she makes some explosive allegations against him, years after her career was cut short by injury.
As a musical artist, Darrow has also been upfront about her plans to release her own work, telling Billboard in January that “I am currently working on an EP. It’s crazy to say that. I was not expecting that sentence to come out of my mouth any time soon, but this movie has made a lot of sentences come out of my mouth that I never expected.”
Earlier this year, she also released new single Make it Clean.
