Who played Mowgli in the 2016 film The Jungle Book?

Neel Sethi played Mowgli in the 2016 film The Jungle Book.

Sethi was selected from thousands of candidates for the role, making his performance the film’s central live-action element. Most of the environments and animal characters were created digitally, so he often performed against green-screen backgrounds rather than alongside real jungle animals.

The film follows Mowgli as he travels through the jungle while being pursued by Shere Khan. Director Jon Favreau and the visual-effects team built the surrounding world digitally, then integrated Sethi into those scenes through compositing and extensive post-production work.

Sethi’s performance was notable because he was the only visible human character for much of the film. The voice cast supplied the animals, including Bill Murray as Baloo, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera, Idris Elba as Shere Khan, and Scarlett Johansson as Kaa. The production’s visual-effects achievement earned an Academy Award.