Beyoncé Was ‘Mom First’ When Working with Daughter Blue Ivy on ‘Mufasa’

Beyoncé and her daughter Blue Ivy drew from their real-life relationship as mother and daughter when tapped to star in Mufasa: The Lion King.

On Monday, April 29, the film’s director Barry Jenkins spoke with Good Morning America about working with the Cowboy Carter singer and her 12-year-old daughter, who play mother and daughter in the new movie.

“Beyoncé is this larger-than-life figure, but when she’s working with her daughter, when she’s in the room with her daughter, she’s a mom first,” Jenkins told the outlet. “So much of that energy bled into the film.”

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Jenkins continued, sharing that their relationship helped form the relationship between the two characters.

“I think for them, too, they just approached it that they both wanted to perform and do the best they could. And yet, they didn’t have to pretend very much because they really are mother and daughter.”

The director added that working with the two was “really special,” calling the preteen a “professional” after hearing her narrate the audiobook version of “Hair Love.”

“I could just hear that Blue could do it, that she could play this character, Kiara,” Jenkins said.

Mufasa: The Lion King, Disney’s new prequel to the 2019 blockbuster live-action Lion King, debuted its first trailer on Monday, April 29. Beyoncé reprises her role as Nala from the 2019 film, while Blue Ivy voices the daughter of King Simba (a returning Donald Glover) and Queen Nala, named Kiara — a character who last appeared in 1998’s animated The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride.

Jenkins told PEOPLE exclusively that watching Beyoncé, “both on the screen and behind the screen, get to be a mother — and how that affected and impacted for the better the work that we were all doing — was just really awesome.”

Beyoncé is mom to daughter Blue Ivy and twins Rumi and Sir, 6, whom she shares with husband Jay-Z, 54.