Disney’s animated film Pocahontas (1995) is actually based on a real story of the real-life Powhatan woman Pocahontas when the English colonial settlers came to North America. The inspiration for the female protagonist’s appearance was her voice actress Irene Bedard who has played mostly lead Native American roles in several movies.

There was another live-action model for the character, a Filipina college student, Dyna Taylor. She was not credited and in fact she considered suing Disney for it, but didn’t go through with it as her lawyer advised not to. Animator Glen Keane told The New York Times that Taylor didn’t have that much influence on how the character looked and didn’t think her contribution was worthy of a screen credit.