Although her personality isn't fully developed and didn't have much of a proactive role, Leah is shown to be a caring individual and a loving mother to her daughter, Aurora and her family, kingdom, and all of the palace servants.
Physical appearance[]
Leah is a slender woman with fair skin, short dark blonde hair, brown eyes, and pink lips. She wears a dark pink-and-lavender dress, a gold crown, a aqua veil, and a dark magenta cape.
Queen Leah and her husband are the monarch and consort of an unnamed European kingdom (possibly in France during the late 1300's). After many years of marriage, she gives birth to a beautiful baby daughter which she and her husband name Aurora, after the goddess of dawn. Her happiness is shortened when Maleficent crashes the party. Failing to provide a proper explanation to Maleficent of why they didn't invite her, Leah asks Maleficent if she's not offended, to which the latter pretended she wasn't. After Maleficent cursed Aurora, a frightened Leah hurries to the cradle and protects her infant daughter in fright, while an enraged Stefan furiously orders his guards to arrest Maleficent, who disappears. After Merryweather softens the curse, Leah and Stefan have to give up their daughter to the fairies in order to protect her. Like Aurora and Phillip, Leah does not speak again for the rest of the film. Sixteen years later, she is waiting for the return of her daughter. But when Aurora touches the spindle, the Queen, her husband, King Hubert, the servants, and the entire kingdom are put to sleep by the Good Fairies to prevent them from becoming heartbroken with the revelation.
Like Aurora, Stefan, and Hubert, Leah is not seen again until the end of the film when she, along with daughter, her husband, and everyone else in the realm, wakes up from their eternal slumber, thanks to Prince Phillip, who defeated Maleficent and broke the curse on Aurora. Leah and Stefan finally reunite with their daughter, whom she embraces and cries tears of happiness when she sees her with Phillip.
In the short segment, Queen Leah, King Stefan, King Hubert, and Prince Phillip all leave town to a royal ceremony where Hubert is due to give a speech. Trusting their daughter, Stefan and Leah give Aurora the "keys to the kingdom" while they're away, leaving Aurora as temporary ruler of the kingdom and aided by their fussbudget majordomo, Lord Duke. When they come back to town from a royal ceremony, Duke warns them about the magic incident. So as they enter the throne room, no green pigs, giant chickens, and cows are shown, as a result of Aurora solving her problem. Leah is seen at the end of the segment when she attends a royal banquet that is hosted by Aurora, along with Duke, Stefan, Hubert, Phillip, Merryweather, Flora, and Fauna.
In the ABC fantasy drama series Once Upon a Time, she's called Briar Rose (as a reference to Sleeping Beauty). The original Sleeping Beauty, she had incurred Maleficent's wrath, and was cursed by her into an eternal sleep before King Stefan awakens her with true love's kiss. While Maleficent falls into ruin, destroyed by her failed revenge, King Stefan and Briar Rose marry and have a daughter named Aurora. Years later, when their daughter is set to wed Prince Phillip, King Stefan seeks to get rid of Maleficent permanently to keep Aurora safe from her. Instead, Maleficent regains her lost ability to morph into a dragon and gains the upper-hand over the king, but the latter managed to survive. Later, Maleficent gains retribution against Briar Rose by cursing Aurora into an eternal sleep.
Queen Leah appeared in the film under the name of Leila and was portrayed by Hannah New. She is the daughter of the ruthless King Henry. She remains loyal to her father who performs her duties as a princess by becoming Stefan's wife and later bearing his child. She would soon witness Maleficent, her husband's former friend whom he betrayed would place a curse on her daughter Aurora.
During the course of the film, she becomes gravely ill [implied from the heartbreak of her situation] and eventually dies. Stefan shows no grief over her death as he has become paranoid and obsessed with hunting Maleficent down.
Queen Leah appeared in the Disney Channel Original Movie played by Judith Maxie. By that time she is a grandmother to Audrey. She is shown to be apathetic toward the villains, but especially Mal in particular, because her mother caused Leah to miss out on her own daughter's entire childhood. After the incident at the coronation, she appears to have accepted Mal and the others; she observes as Audrey thanks Mal for stopping her mom.
Queen Leah attends an announcement made by Ben, and watches him ask Mal to be his queen. She chides Audrey for not being able to win Ben over, stating that Aurora managed to hold onto a prince in her sleep. After Audrey is defeated by Mal, Leah watches Hades awaken her from a deep sleep, and apologizes to Mal. She later claps as Mal declares that the Isle's barrier will be taken down.
In real life, Leah's position as queen would not be secure after giving birth to Aurora; it was customary for most queens to give birth to at least two sons first.
Aurora looks pretty much identical to Leah, with the only real differences being that Aurora has longer and lighter-colored hair and a slightly rounder face compared to Leah.
Despite having less lines and screen time, as well as not having a proactive role, Queen Leah is the first mother of a Disney Princess to be alive in the film, though she and King Stefan both die in Maleficent. The second is Fa Li (Mulan's mother), the third is Eudora (Tiana's mother), the fourth is Queen Arianna (Rapunzel's mother) the fifth is Elinor (Merida's mother), and the sixth is Sina (Moana's mother).
Though King Stefan and Queen Leah do not appear in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, the thrones on which they sit are present in the hall of the castle, where Terra faces the Wheel Master Unversed.
Like Aurora and Phillip, Leah is muted in the second half of the film, due to her having only two lines in the original film.
Although it is often suggested by fans that the late Verna Felton, who voiced Flora in the same film, might have provided two lines Queen Leah, the truth may still never be known because the studio still has no specific records of who had really voiced Leah. The same goes for both the unnamed herald and Diablo.
