A Conversation with Andrew Stanton

We have no idea how to start these, we don't, there's not a format. No. Not a little theme. There's a way that we'll do the theme, but then usually I do a quote from the movie.

“I butcher that, that's how it starts, but we're not talking about a specific film here today.”

You could, like, pretend laugh like you just, we're telling jokes or something before you go started. Oh, you want to, you want to, you want to, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ask about the traffic on the way over here. Yeah, it was the traffic. Did you take this up, way? I took the R. Oh, there you go.

Got here in 25. That's a workmen like train. You know, the R, she's nobody's favorite. It was the 30 seconds from my apartment, and then about, it's very close. 25 seconds from the train. Yeah. From the stop here to get in there. It's just ideal.

Trundles along, though.

Like, you're never on the R, like, great. We're about to pick up speed.

The R does young men's work. It's a young men's work train, but, but I long. Now I free barrows local all the way. You often say that the queue is kind of default the best train. Here's a great train. Now your personal favorite.

Not personal favorite. It's a great train. Why is the queue? It's always an express. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I think that the line it goes down in Brooklyn is very attractive. Like, it's very, it's very nice sort of the curve of that queue. No, it's outside, it's the outside is really nice.

It's a special, if you want me to get really nerdy, there's not a lot of parts of the subway that are like the queue, because the queue was a very, very old steam rail road. So it's just open cut in the ground. So it's not elevated, which, you know, is cute.

But like, you got to go up and down these stairs. And it's not underground. It's really nice, the Brighton line. Since it's a fan of the near transportation. I mean, you're a kid.

Did you know before they put the subway system in? There was a pneumatic tube system between postal stations. But yes, yes.

They inaugurated it with a live cat.

A live cat. To make sure the cat, like, didn't die. Yeah, exactly. I didn't know. Yeah.

The cat was like the, the leica was like the animal cage. Yeah. That's what they say. That's what they say. Okay.

“I think we should go back to pneumatic tubes.”

I do too. They're fast. Yeah. Okay. Grift doesn't have a ticket.

No, it's just fine. Okay. Does anyone still use them? Or I think a lot of places still use it. When we were building the studio for Pixar in the late 90s,

we did a wired magazine was kind of ocarant at the time.

And they did a whole thing about how pneumatic tubes actually still exist

and Boeing uses them in like a huge scale in advanced technology. Send engine parts like half a mile down their property. So we're like, let's put that in the building and Steve was like, no, no, no, no. And then we got wittle down to like, we just have one loop. And then we just go to nowhere.

And we just pay the receptionist to like put a little envelope and into a tube and shoot the capsule and then just do whatever you 15 minutes. And just go back down to her. Yeah. Exactly.

Okay. We just have that. Yeah. I was in Chicago recently. And I bought weed.

The weed shop. You had to have pneumatic tubes. Yeah. Real cool. You know what?

That actually makes a lot of sense.

“I do think that's how we bring the pneumatic tube back.”

It makes sense to go hand in hand with the legalization of weed. Yeah. Those stores shouldn't be pulling a thing out of a drawer. Right. Or going in the back.

Yeah. Even if it's just a guy blowing a thing through a tube from the back. That's what it should be. Pixar. It's in the bay.

Where's Pixar? Pixar is in technically an Emoryville. Right. It's an Emoryville. He's a real estate.

That's about a mile. Maybe a quarter of a mile high and maybe a mile wide. And it connects Oakland and Berkeley. So if you go across the bay bridge from San Francisco, there's a right below. It is a big IKEA store and right behind that.

Is that good being far away from Hollywood? Like one quote far away. That's further away. That's part of the secret sauce. Yes.

That you guys were sort of insulated. Yeah. And it's a lot of other factors. It also kept. It still does keeps most of the employees grounded because when you leave.

The waiters not trying to sell a script or run a role. You know, you're not meeting on the bad. Yeah, right. I mean, it's become kind of tech broy everywhere. But there's nobody trying to make movies.

So it kind of keeps you appreciative of what you get to do every day. We're here with Andrew Stanton, who and this is a fact is the director that we have been covering for the last. Six weeks. That's true. Correct.

Yeah. Just six features. I should have opened with this but. Explain to me. Can art can I just.

Yeah, please can I just say. Can for the rest of this episode. Can I call you flick lever 98? Absolutely. Because that.

Wait, you listen to a Patriot. That's it. Brack me.

Yeah. Sorry, I was that. That's why.

“You should remember that when you met me.”

I was a character. We should have stopped the back 90 years. At first, I thought that we're 97. No, no, no, no. But then I realized.

No, that's the year. Yeah, it was the phone came out. It was the year the phone came out. Yeah, yeah, I needed that flick lever 90. You can indeed call me.

You're the one person who's allowed to call me. Let's clear the error on this. You're the co-director of that film. Yes. Oh, that is a good question.

That does mean you are not the director. Because like some people will sort of say like, "Well, why won't you cover this film? There are a co-director." And I'm like, I think that title.

Like it's being- Signify that you're not the director. Yes, that means the right.

“The way explained is where we came up with it because that's my beer.”

And then that's a question. Because during Toy Story, the team that had been doing commercials together was Jon, a last hit of Peter Dr. and myself. And Jon and I just really clicked. And like I was a really good Jiminy cricket.

Like a good conscience for him.

I was always saying, I'm like the devil on the shoulder and Joe ramps,

who got bus and was like angel on his shoulder. But I was able to kind of always help him keep thinking in the right direction or avoid the wrong direction. And so I kind of was invisibly that role without knowing it. Because we were all learning what the roles were on Toy Story.

So after we said, "Can we make this official?" And so I said, "Well, let's make sure it's not a Disney only new dual directors." I was going to say that. But we didn't want to make up a title that was new. So we just said, "We just know what the role means.

Code director means deputy." And you're just there to be helped the director be in two places at once. Like if you do the role right, if somebody talks to me and say, "What should we do?" I'm not pushing my vision. I'm pushing the vision of the director and I'm helping keep moving along.

Sort of a little different from like an assistant director, which is a different defined. No, assistant directors are very, very, very different role. And so that's unique to Pixar. It's just, it's something people get hung up onto this day.

“But I think because it's an awesome antics.”

But we've always been consistent since the first movie that like sometimes,

we, and I'm the same way. Like I found out on Nemo, I worked better having the Anchorage who I'd always had as an editor to confer with when John was busy to have him at the ready. So he came on board like the last year and a half. Does every Pixar project have no code director?

No, it's a correct choice. It's, it's lit, there is not a stamped way it's done. And it's more like, we are very individual visionary based, like film maker based. And we do whatever will make that filmmaker work better. So the one beef I have that you guys call accidentally into it.

It's my only beef. And it's for the greater good. When you use the word they for Pixar, it's like, you don't do that with Nolan. You don't say they for the Universal Studios. There is no star chamber of people going, you've got to do this.

And everybody wants there to be. Even internally picks up people want that to be with Disney, but there isn't. It's like we are, we take the, the high risk we take is we invest in that visionary filmmaker. Yes. And then we will support them or kind of sometimes cast them and put up a group around them,

so that they will succeed because we can't afford to fail. But we also can't afford not to follow a singular artist vision. We'd learn that from the first movie. So it's Toy Story is a John last to the movie.

You know, so it's always bugs life.

Toy Story 3 is a, is a Lee Anchorage movie. Toy Story 4 is the Josh Kool movie. There's no they, it's not like Pixar had. Nobody knew that they were going to make out to. Nobody knew we were going to make out free.

There isn't a great map. There's one of the great wisdoms of growing up and getting older is realizing, nobody's flying the fucking plane. And you go, oh, and so we're just trying to make the best smart decisions we can at the time. And maybe hopefully not pay for it later.

You know, but it's your victims of your own success. I mean, the reason people including us are like, well, Pixar is because Pixar's run was. So it's treated like a sports team. Yeah.

I know it's a dynasty. So I know I'm fighting a losing battle, but I just, the idea that like there is a, it is a group sport to make a movie, but that's still everybody believes when live action,

that there is a one person that is running that movie. The Barbies of Greta Gerwood movie. Yes. And so so are the pick. I can't speak for any other animation studios,

but I can speak for Pixar and going that individual was the director and visionary of that film. But also that's why, you know, we covered you and we're not a podcast going like, let's do a 25 film series on Pixar.

And we did right. We did Ron Clemens and John Musker.

“And we did Brad Bird and we did Brad Bird.”

Yeah. Yeah. We've done like, and I know you get it. Right. No, no, no, no.

You're just using the trap of they. Absolutely. Okay, but here's my big question.

I was read stream never in front of a movie.

Like, what the, like David brings up every. Why can't read have everybody was probably. I can't speak because I, why can't speak for read. No, I just, I wasn't there when it was made. Okay, fair enough, right.

It's a really old. I have a feeling it was because it was a downer ending. It is a downer ending. That they will stuck in the bike shop. You still have to convince Disney,

who has the money and the distribution that you, this is the great, the best choice to put as a short in front of it. Because I get people am. They put all the classic short. Nobody wants to depress the audience right before you start going.

Because that's your favorite. Did we realize it? Look, we loved it on its own. But as a lead into tea up something. Yes.

It was just something that I saw at a young age for some reason. It must have been on some compilers. Yeah, I don't know why. I need to. But I was very taken with.

Well, that just shows you were you were destined for art house. Yes, seriously. It's true. It's like the the French sort of vest. Yes.

It's very much existential movie that the sparked for me. Yeah. I just. But you didn't even work on read. So I won't hound you.

But you were you were the second employee. Is that correct? Second enemy. The animation department. I was the second the ninth employee.

Second enemy. So what was the first thing you worked on? I was hired with this thing that we had no idea that there would be a future of film. We just thought that this is this new thing that they were the inventors of, which is called CGI, which is like what that means.

It means computer graphics. All I knew is it could look photorealistic at the time. We thought it did now our eyes. So trained it looks like crap. But we were the first of maybe only two other houses.

“That could do that medium for a possible advertising was the only way to make an income.”

So they had. I got hired to animate and think up commercials. And so my first thing was a trident commercial with a ice cube that played jazz, well, a mint leaf scat sang on the top of the night. The 90s, this was what we did have it. We had it, we got it.

We had it, we got it. We had it, we got it. What happened to saxophones? The 90s, everything was just like there needs to be a saxophones. And this commercial in this place.

You know, the WB is going to launch all jazz. Why is it a blue M&M? And why isn't he voiced by John Goodman? We had it figured out. I, I know, pay if I can just grind an axe for a second.

I pay for every option I get to remove ads from any streaming service. If the ads were still the ads from the 90s, I pay extra to get them back. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, if it was the, what's the commercial? They need the air conditioner.

I'll call now. What's that one? Sears? You know, I don't remember this one. I'll show you later.

I'm always, I wanted to pitch this to Disney, like the own ABC.

I don't know about the ads of it, but wouldn't it be great if you could just pick a year and just watch ABC with the commercial cuts. Like the actual content. Like I would watch that all the same. The service where it's just, this is June 21st.

Yes. Naomi KGIF. Yeah, 1997. Yes. I want to write the block.

“I want our ball experience of just having it all.”

Exactly. It's really commercial today. Yes, sure. I would think that would be a very profitable thing to do. It would be incredible.

Yeah. I used, yes. I mean, I used to take movies off of TV and watch them over and over again. I rediscovered them when my parents moved those VHSs. And I put it in and immediately knew every word of every commercial.

Isn't that crazy? It's incredible. No. Okay. Are you baseball fan?

This is all clear about it. Fair weather. But I was, you're going to hate me. I was just right because you're up in Oakland. You know, if you feel for the A's, but now you're that, you know, really.

Many people I work with are still in mourning. Yeah. Yeah. And don't want to talk about it. Rip A's.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Can I understand since here in the studio without some David Sims. Are we here in Griffin?

Great. Great. Ben Hossleys here. Hey, they're looking great by the way. Thank you.

So we're just looking you and allow. But I can particularly for the listener. This is our first time seeing Griffin in since end of June. Since we started. Yeah.

I mean, I saw you all. I went away. I come back wearing it. Yes. Mm-hmm.

And Andrew's joining us. Toy Story Five has come out. Come and win. And now it's done great. Not all about Spider-Man.

It is so funny that you just made a cash billion dollars.

And it's like a month later. It's like Spider-Man in the Odyssey. It doesn't mean it cares. You did get to be the highest gross in film of the year. So far.

Yes. I mean, it's, it's not going to be that at the end of this thing. But you got to be, you know, it was an ointed. Sure. Yeah.

You got that little badge. I mean, I think the complaint. It seems the movie did complain about. Beyond expectations. Right.

Highs gross in Toy Story film.

Yeah. Before inflation. Yeah. Made my daughter very sad. Really?

Yeah.

“In a way that she couldn't articulate because she's only five.”

Oh, well. I don't count five as movie going yet. Well, fair enough. I guess she can go. Just a dark theaters can be traumatizing for a child.

In my child's defense, she's a very experienced theater girl. We see lots of movies together. And usually when we exit the theater, she's just kind of like, Best movie. Great.

Love it. Every minute was great. Obviously because we're seeing things like Super Mario or what What are some animals? The great sports drama goat.

Toy Story 5. She was just upset.

She was like, I want mom.

Like, she was just like clearly thrown by it. And because of the friendship stuff. You know, just because it was about interpersonal relationship. Kid drama. Yeah.

And most of the things she sees are more about interpersonal kind of like Star Fox or Mario drama. Minion drama. She's very wrapped up in the Star Fox drama. Flipy.

And like the emotions in Toy Story 5 are subtler. And like our, I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to like tell you something. You don't know here. He's trying to like build you for therapy.

I'm more investigating. It's like my kid walks out of, you know, Star. Super Mario. And it's like, I like that Luigi scared.

Like she gets that. You know, it's just a very loud emotion. Like I think Toy Story 5. She was like trying to process it all. Like what was going on with Bonham.

Hopefully they'll watch the movie again when they're older. And it'll be different form. No, it's great. I'm saying this is a compliment. She liked it.

It's just intense. I said flipy frog and says flipy toad. And yeah, series Jesus. I know. I just need to correct myself from fire from this podcast.

Here's a red stream related question. And then I, and then I want to get more focused on that. What's red stream? Red stream. Red stream.

Yeah. You cited the picks are red stream. I'm sorry. I was hearing red stream. Yes.

Can we get the shorts back in front of the movies? Oh, yeah. Sure. The movies are a little longer. I feel like the the picks are movies have inflated in length.

There was a period of time where we had a lot more being made. And. And just the theatrics experience was a little more. And I think it was a little bit more. And then I think between.

Having to make things. For less and being in a questionable still space of theatrical though. It's starting to feel like a good year. It may come back, but that's that's a lot. They're not cheap to make.

Yeah. And they, they. They take a year and a half to make a short. And that's longer than some live action movies are to take. So it's it's it's it's it's hard and hard to digestify.

It wasn't the. wasn't obvious. Sorry, wasn't often the idea of the like with the shorts. You're testing some sort of sometimes. Sometimes. But we're at a place now where it's high now. You can least.

I mean, the stuff we could do like I was away for 10 years or eight years. But 10 if you can't go in and like when last time I was like in production. And at. And I thought we could do everything. Looks wise.

And then in 20 14 15 and now I just like as a kid in a candy store working on this one. I was just like, wow, we can we can do anything.

“I think while he still looks incredible, but it is while when we do this podcast,”

I often will go back and read the reviews from the time. And at the time, everyone, well, they cracked it.

It's never going to look better than this.

Every single thing has technically been accomplished now on this film. Yeah. Yeah, I, I, I'm of the belief that like about, yeah, maybe 10 years may be a little longer. It's all still costly. Just man power wise.

But you can, if you can think of it, you can make it. It's just in the eye of the beholder now. It's, it's, if you don't like the look of something. You got to blame the artist not the paints. Was it weird though like coming back 10 years later?

Or was it freeing or fun or like cool to open up the old toy box? It was fun. It was fun. It was fun. It was fun to be in the production of it.

It was fun to work. I love, I mean, I love production. I love working with other artists. I've, I've always been that kid that love, love putting on a show in the back yard. Kind of equivalent or making her movies with, with your super eight.

And so that's the drug. What I knew I wouldn't love and was confirmed only about two years in was I don't like how long it takes. Uh, as you, you just mentioned before. I'm not going to give anything away. You're 40.

Yeah. No, no, I'm not. I'm getting faster at 40 and then it gets even faster at 50 and or or and so four years at 60 is just too long because it then suddenly half a decades practically over and I can count on one hand how many more times I could do this like it's time that's made me kind of anti animation at this point. Here's a kind of anything children should have be fun or have fun or be happy.

“So your aunt, oh, oh, oh, no, no, I think children should have a lot of fun.”

But I'm not worried about being the bearer of that. Yes, it's not your responsibility anymore.

The press, you did the press runs for the two movies you had this year.

You, you talked about this a lot and how growing up you never specifically were interested in animation in a singular way that was never the exclusive goal of what you wanted to do and how you feel like this might be your last animated film because of the time issue. This is maybe a very stupidly broad question. But how did you realize you had the capacity to do animation because it is the kind of thing unlike live action directing where it starts with needing to have some facility at doing the technical.

It's easy to look back 2020 now go I was jack of all trades and master of none like I love I was going to be an actor I was going to be a musician I was going to be an artist like it do all three of those things and none of them it great. So to such mastery in my teens that I knew that this was calling me and I didn't but I like doing all of them and I definitely love the arts and I went to the movies like brick and church every it was in your in Massachusetts yeah it's so it's like what sports are for sometimes to bond parents and the kids and the family.

movies where that our our whole family would jump into the station when I can go up what we set up the line to the movieplex and they we didn't even think about what was that playing we would just go see it and you worked at an art house theater as well. Yeah by the time I got old enough to be employed yeah and and so all of that I didn't want to give up and so it's because I found out and this is you got to remember so far before the internet for knowledge of anything.

“You know they have handbooks was the only way you could find out about colleges or somebody when somewhere and told you about something and so it was my junior year of high school and my guidance counselor.”

Had to meet with a say what I'm going to do with my life where am I going to go I didn't know and he was late to the office I sat there and I stared at this bookcase and there was this binder with fluorescent. hot fluorescent orange binder and I pulled it out and it was for call arts and I learned that I learned oh my god they teach animation I draw which is sort of like acting I like to act. It's all about timing and I've got a good rhythm like like music and it's ultimately on film and I love film and I was like suddenly I was like I don't have to give up any of it was literally all in that one it was it was all in that one and then I became like devil's tower like I had to go and because I had fucked off most of my high school and I was.

I was really bad student I didn't get in and so I spent the next I got into one school just heard Hartford Hartford art school which is basically a business school and there's this one little racist that took me and I learned and it kicked my ass foundations wise. I was probably their best student because I was trying to make a portfolio just get the hell out and so the next year I got into Cali so I have the rejection letter from one year and so. The conclusion to that story is you jump to 2003 Nemo comes out Cali wants to give me an award at the Red Cat Theatre.

My sweet mate for one year was Don Sheetle, Don Sheetle is doing well and so Don starts to. Let me with their award and I give this same speech about how I found out about Cali arts and then I say at the end of it I said so whoever in 1982 in the admissions department decided to make a binder fluorescent orange. Thank you and this guy in the back went. That was nice. Wow, so it's very nice to close your pop.

That's closure. Was he what was he doing?

“What made me drop out I went for for live action film directing which I think was the wrong choice for me and school and I also think I didn't want to be in school.”

He was running the program then Steve Anchor Sandy McHendrick was running it when I was there. Okay, I believe that. I mean, who was on sweet smell of success?

Monty helmet was teaching at the Harvard Hill mob and James Benning, it was like an incredible faculty.

You also didn't drive. I didn't run. That's a problem. Yeah, California.

“Andrew, it was maybe 50% of the reason I dropped out.”

I was in school in the north. Why didn't you go to the idea of going to a school where I could come back home and get the same people on the weekend. I got that. And almost everyone I knew was doing that. And I was feeling very defiant about I'm going to go somewhere different.

I'm going to make a new life for myself. And I got locked on the callers because I thought I wanted to be animating.

So I'm facility for it, but I didn't have the discipline I found ultimately.

I think I could have done experimental. But I had locked into character. And then when I felt like I'm not good enough at this, then I shifted to live action.

And so it was also a weird transitional time in my life.

“But I'm very familiar with all of the places you're listing.”

And I knew the alumni are at Harris. David also went to callers. P. We Herman. Yes, Paul Rubens. Yes.

I'm so I don't know how long that we were a hot minute with David Hasselhoff. Really? Yeah. That's true.

These parents are incredible.

And somebody should write a book. Yes. Yeah. And I know it just like what was it like. You know.

My roommate was a Josh Glennney Smith, who was an actor. He's a soulwork an actor. Great. Should we just stick on this? No.

Absolutely not. But but I you're calling out a thing that I think isn't discussed enough, which is how much of animation is acting. Yeah.

No. I always have to explain to the actors that I'm working with that you're half the equation.

You know, and that I'm going to have a conversation with what I recall. The shy actors, which are the animators not in front of the camera. And but they have to be cast as appropriately as anybody. You know, they've that old adage of if you can get the script in the casting rights for a movie, then they're halfway there. It's kind of true also for your animators.

You know, they have the things that their strengths are and aren't.

“And it's almost a little tougher because you have to you usually have a team.”

So like there's not one person animating Woody or one person animating Jesse. It's it's a group of people. So we adopted at the very beginning of the whole studio was what Disney did, which you have days every morning where all the animators watch everybody's work in the middle of their project middle of their working on it. So that if there's notes from me about what I would think the character would or wouldn't do. So everybody hears it. So they all think the same. And but that's also a chance to be inspired and you and you get a little competitive you like wow look at what they did with the smarty pants in that shot.

I never knew you could do that with the handle and that you could make it look like he's you know flipping them off or something.

And that would inspire them to like go and so it's just a win win. And so there's this sort of it's almost like summer stock like everybody's got to learn all the roles. And but it's actors you talk to them just like actors. This is your mark. This is where you're coming from. This is where you're going to. And and you're not trying to get into it too much, you know, because you don't want to get too much into their head. This is something that I feel like is a defining aspect of your films in particular is and it may be it goes back to that kicking yourself in the ass you're at Hartford.

But by design giving yourself characters who are going to be incredibly difficult to animate. I feel like there's a lot of self imposed challenges of like you go to the double a gang and toy story five is three characters that do not lend themselves. Animation their characters that don't have traditional limbs, you know, two of them don't one of them doesn't have a traditional face, while he and Eve certainly you talked a lot about with Nemo not wanting to cheat.

“And I think like sometimes in the opposite direction you have a character like like Hank where the challenge is a different one. Yeah, yeah, yeah of extremity, but that's not a thing you consciously sort of throw it yourself.”

I'm not I'm not in the I mean, I'm sure there's an element of challenge that I just want for anything. I think I'm a little bit more it's it's more that I'm just not afraid of it. I just go with what logically makes sense to look at I was charmed like everybody else at least that was around at the time that they first saw that Luxo lamp I was like there's so much personality in this simple. You with this mic right now and I felt seen because I felt like I had been anthropomorphizing everything as since I was a little kid like my bike was cold and the rain as far as I was concerned.

And my that leaf falling was afraid of heights when it fell like that just was how I thought I didn't like learn that. And so I realized I had a tribe and these are these are my people and I also was locked out that I was the first generation Sesame Street kids that came out in 69 I was four years old. And to me the muppets just always existed. Yeah, I learned everything entertainment and timing wise and and and and if you go back and watch on YouTube any of the original first season like they were little adults there was nothing kidified like I always have this there the Elmo fucked it up for everything.

And everybody started thinking about the kids and I'm like nobody thought about the kids. At least and it's still good and without it was clever like and so like I were open to your New Yorkers. Yes, they've tighteneders and they're opening up their jackets say like you want to buy a cube. I mean we're talking to you. It's really. But anyway what I was quickly going to connect to is how much personality came of just doing an open mouth with your hand.

I just like it's always existed and so I've never really thought about it but I do have arguments with not arguments but I have to like convince animators sometimes I realize oh they don't all think like that they they have to logic it out and I'm I'm clearly I'm clearly more right brain. And then left brain because people want to go down rabbit holes about like well if they did this, why did they did that and I just go well I'm already starting with a story that Fisher talking so I'm not going I'm not going to I'm not going to left brain this like it's an illness though about Pixar the people are like well I want to impose reality on it's like but we're outside of reality.

And it makes me like maybe they're right and I'm wrong but like I never think like that so I'm not going to start thinking like that I just want to have fun and I want to just not be distracted while I'm watching it and I feel really bad for somebody that is that's a curse is I just want to go along for the ride or any movie I'm watching. So I'm just going like all right there. Look at one of the arguments I said goes that's the key to the people I know because like there's an ASAP's fable of that starts out there once was a sausage in a bird in a mouse and lives in a house and you go and it's amazing if you start that way everybody goes okay.

And you like and so it just shows you that if you made if you made people have questions about it then you're just telling the story badly this is not the story is bad you're just telling it badly.

I think what Pixar movies sometimes do and again I am using Pixar monolithically here so feel pretty all me but right but it doesn't post some logic which is part of the fun right it's like let's. But let's just enough let's we end up the world exactly like we live in a we we're inside of a child's you know brain like let's what would what could that look like we're we know we're inside of the axiom or you know like whatever like let's there'll be some logic.

“You need to you know embrace the fantasy as well like you guys can speak better this but I can only surmise that because the gaming world is so immersive and and thorough that you will want that same truth to be on any movie you want.”

I've been thinking about this a lot look I mean cars is the one I think the broke everyone's brand but no but I've been thinking about this a lot that I do think there is as games became more cinematic and less their own art form entirely they start working more of the language of films into that.

Which affirms into them and people have control an autonomy within. Yes, yes, Nolan did this interview recently I just saw the Chinese interviewed.

Right where he said like I think there is this problem of people feel like if they're able to recognize a trope of storytelling that invalidates it. I mean I that's sad yeah but it's so true and it's such a sickness and sort of modern media of now that we can slow everything down and look everything a million ways and you know like you know I I've can look at you too but any clip I want you guess I can show you patterns and then you'll be smart you'll see the patterns like I see the patterns and it's like.

“There's nothing interesting about you seeing the patterns of course there's patterns to story tell and when you're playing the patterns you compliment them if they work properly because you go that's fun that this pattern challenge.”

I said this on blues guy like an idiot you know I made a social media post like I don't really do that anymore where I was just like if you're critic the least interesting thing that any the last thing anyone wants to hear from you is I'm smarter than the movie. Like that's not criticism that's just you talking about yourself who cares like I don't care if you're smarter than the movie I want you to tell me what this movie means either to you or to the culture or to what you may be perceiving the filmmaker would you know like that's fine I don't care that you you're like well this is these are tropes I know.

So I'm smart you know like that's not you're not telling anyone an interesting story that's all I agree with I'm sure great I guess I get out of here.

Okay if I can put my my flick lover 98 hat back on because we had we have you know there was the argument whether not to include a bug's life and a lot of it for me was just I wanted to cover bug's life right I mean you could you could almost get away because we. John was very gracious and we were team on that even more so but at the end of the day you know I I it's it was it's his movie.

“I it was not to discredit that but it was more that I thought it was an important step in your arc in sort of the the journey of screenwriter yeah it was a second step.”

I mean bugs life was a chore for you or for everybody for all of us only in comparison to how. I'm complaining like I wish I was as dumb and as eager as I was making toy story because we knew nothing and so we kept saying we were like the young engineers that put a man on the moon and NASA we just didn't know you couldn't do it yeah and that got us through that was our fuel so even though I bet you on paper it was harder.

The the well of like what like I remember us and the story changed five different ways after this but this didn't it was what if it was your favorite toy on a top of bed and suddenly a new toy got brought in for a birthday and it got thrown off like just that sense like you suddenly realized the it evoked such.

“Feelings of empathy about jealousy and and how that felt when you're you're an excipling came in when a new kid came on the playground like it just was so organic and natural it became was like literally striking oil and so.”

We never had that on a bug's life it was an intellectual exercise like what if we turned the ant and the grass up around its head.

It could go a little seven summer I could go a lot of other things but like just that was an intellectual left brain didn't know. It didn't have the emotion and I learned and so it was we got there but it was always like trying to draw water out of a stone so I learned like oh. It's too our benefit especially if we're going to work on it for three to four years and you're going to get out of bed with it not working most days. You got to be ideally on top of a well of something that is more natural of a geyser of emotion and or not do it not do it yet.

“Yeah, so that's why a lot of items will be sometimes take forever before we really start committing to them because we haven't found that well I'm not going to want to spend five years on this.”

Exactly and then toy store to you guys made like five minutes right. That was in the course the one you know the more the more I look back at that I'm realize that the perfect storm of that was they had tried so many other versions that there was about 30% of the movie that was worth keeping not in not in linear but like yes little bits and then the other was.

We literally got I had two versions two other versions of Toy Story we thrown at like two other not not like whole whole there was so much in the costume box left from the first and then.

The biggest factor was we got literally the band back together we got everybody back from stem to stern that had made the first one so we were psychic. You just put us in we had a costume box of leftover material we had building blocks that made a lot of sense but I looked I was cleaning out my email last year like I goes all the way back to 92 but like it's less and less because we weren't using it so much then. And I was freaked myself out like I'm talking about. I it's November of 98 I'm doing post at Skywalker on bugs life but I'm being asked to help do the outline for this monster movie that.

So I'm doing that on the side by December there's rumblings in the email that something's a miss across the street with the other production by the holidays John's calling me into like we got to talk by the January we're like we are going to have to take it all over by the end of February I've written the whole thing. March I'm off and I'm starting to help this thing that's now called monsters incorporated and I have this idea for a fish like that and I had two kids I had two little kids. And I look under like and I just go I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't I'd like I always put all those things in that era but not so tightly together and just clarify for the listener choice where it comes out November of that same year you're describing like of 99 yeah right it's made like we I was writing pages on a Monday it was delivered to story by the end of Monday like top of the day Monday Tuesday morning at the latest by Wednesday Thursday it's cut in by Friday it's being refined.

So it was just isn't saying I don't know how we did it is my default incredible like the movie is so good.

But it just doesn't really make sense that the movie is so it's like if you said you all have the story and play it so hard and then left and do something else and they said come back and do exactly what you did before and just keep it going that's why. It's not only my favorite toy store movie it's maybe my favorite movie I often defaulted that as my answer I answer this recently when the five drunk finance pros and Madrid asked me you like movies what movie like.

“And then proceeded to drop three beers while I answered but I think I've always been pointed is that there is a feeling of media to that movie well that's also a reflection of us because we were left.”

Disney said basically go with God yeah let you and nobody was there to stop us that's us left alone like that was the core original group and all we cared about was cracking each other up.

being sad is to emulate what it's like to be empty nester fascinating so that's why you don't get with it right now.

“John's because you haven't had to be in it.”

Who's who's that drawing from well there was a range of people of ages yeah we had we had people that were already grandparents people that were not single that was all over the map. We were just going with the truth of the arc of rife of giving up your kid and having to see them go away Mike Mike kids not going anywhere she's.

You just keep telling yourself that she's going to go to our joke in the family is like she'll go to mega average just like the community college industry basically like yeah now she can move there.

She's gonna go to Sims universe exactly like go to college you can go to college like one neighborhood over massive larry. The twins all just they'll live in the basement right they'll just I don't know because I brought up to you David having twins. I have twins yeah I have three kids I have an older daughter and younger sons and how old are the sons.

“They did just turn to okay so my younger brothers are identical twins.”

Oh so and you're so what happened to me happened to your and what's going to happen to your daughter I'm telling you now okay said we're going to look back at photos. Yeah when they're little and toddlers to your twins and you're not going to be able to say who's who right and she will. Yeah that's like I can still look at photos with just the back of their heads and I go that's my brother. That's my brother Nathan. Wait so what's the age difference between my brothers okay yeah so you really my daughter was like three and a half like I don't know what the minutes apart but my brothers were born ten minutes apart.

And that might as well have been ten years apart so whenever there was a lineup of us the pecking order was who was came out first.

It's great my kids were born one minute apart and yet it there's a sea section you know just one then the other and it is nonetheless crazy that the the the the younger one is the baby.

“You refer to the baby oh of course he's the baby but my baby and every way is little or he's like you know whatever and they do they by brother one brother has all the signs of the baby brother one has all the signs of middle child.”

And I understand it it's very strange so far but yes no the older is the pecking one is the alpha. Yeah well your parents survived though they barely survived yes yeah I get barely hear that and there was a story once were. They figured out in their separate crits had a one to push their crits across the room and my mother came in and the dresser drawers have been used like steps and they got into the Vaseline and baby powder. And that it was just like hard find we plan better for like the combined intelligence and that was when they they would speak baby talked together and you could hear in the inflections that they were actually having a back and forth conversation.

My kids do that. Yeah it's weird it's right they they they they they right they babble stuff at each other and you're like oh right this is like communication like that we will never understand it's it's very strange having twins.

A twin parents get at me is that in the family in any not at all on either side no and we always joke right because it's like I should wear a t shirt like not in the family.

We didn't do I be happy already because like those are the questions right it's the same thing is when someone says like oh I am sick right and you're like oh I'm so sorry so do you like smoke cigarette you know like people immediately are like is it going to happen to me what happened to you know like they just nicely start to ask questions like and is it genetically like do you guys have that. And it's the same with the twins people like does it run your family nope just happened we are older parent like you know it was an old apparently it's more common the older you get because your body basically just sort of starts.

You know getting rid of all the eggs not to be like biological about it but yeah that's all I don't know. There's a part of Africa where people eat a certain yam that makes twin pregnancies incredibly common I learned that. I'm not I can send it to wow yeah what's the ham how do I how do I get so much wins. I know it's working really well for you. Little it's working out okay they're crazy.

Yes it's a yeah parts of Africa particularly the Europa people in Nigeria have a diet rich in native yams and they have hormones called. Fytode just legends which some people stimulate multiple egg production anyway we have interested in you. We're talking twins we're talking twins not the movie not the movie. Okay so we talked bugs life we talk. We say the oh did the crunch is right.

A bugs life you're consciously coming in as a screenwriter from the get I get like yeah I. Learned a screenwriting by watching just we didn't do it for the year and a half he worked with us. Right.

He was rising right.

“He was still rising but it was obvious because we had had script writers before that failed miserably.”

And so we were getting a lesson on what good screenwriting was and what would be fascinating is we'd sit in a room together the four five of us including Josh and we.

Spitball something and we played out for ourselves he'd nod he'd go off into a room play soundtrack music really loud for a while and then come back out and you'd read these two or three pages. And the way they were written you were just compelled to see it exactly the way we had talked about it. It wasn't and it wasn't and it sucked you in like it inspired me like oh there is a way to do I called it cinematic dictation like oh I failed in English in high school so I thought that writing was for smart people no offense.

But then I realized oh it's cinematic dictation yeah it's like I've always seen the movie there's just a way to do it that makes other people see it the way you want to see it and it can be done specifically.

And if it's done poorly you don't see it the way that they want even though you had it in your head.

“So that's what I just became determined to be good at that and I and I was honest with somebody recently I said some of it was self preservation because there was no guarantee this company was going to last and that we were going to be beyond.”

We were such a startup so we didn't know how the movie was going to do with the time and I was like I need to learn to trade I can use something where else. So I thought screenwriting is applies to other places beyond just don't know how to computer animate and so I just started doing without anybody asking nobody was asking me to be the writer after Josh left for the last year. And by the time it was done they weren't going to give me credit so I went to the current script of everything and I highlight everything that I they had kept and it was 75% of the script was what I didn't so I convinced them and then.

Then they said okay so bugs life was like the first time the officially okay that I could play that role and from the beginning yeah yeah yeah and right because you're credited on twice for your credit on monster think as a writer right that was that just you and. Pete or no Daniel Gerson Ray okay. And I just was part of their helping I mean I didn't I wasn't the founder of any of that. Was there a moment where you were supposed to direct that idea in a different form no okay they had real trouble at the beginning.

“And I think that's not going to be a little bit outlining and getting it to have an engine and the only thing I can really take credit for the engine is screams.”

Well David that's what it like that's really yeah I came up with us had you need a motivation that creates greed and all the emotions that happened in the real world. And so scream is got a what if you put scream in there so that it's treated like oil is in this country. It was the movie before that because that does feel foundational to like well it's why the monsters do this you're right right but you're smarter and right now than any of us but we were all in our 20s just learning how to do it. So it was a new story it wasn't a buddy film and we just had to learn how to you know I was we were still reading every screen writing book going to McKee classes like we were just we were you're watching our learn as you watch those first three movies.

A lot of what why I watch those movies incessantly and also why I think people sometimes will ask because I dropped out of call arts like where did I learn story structure stuff. When I ran away from academia trying to teach me that kind of thing and so much of it is from watching all of the DVDs that you guys put together the talks that you guys have done the commentary we were so excited to learn. We wanted to pass it on because that's for a long time.

For like almost the first 20 years, but definitely the first 15 it just felt like we just got to continue film school and so we just promoted that atmosphere and anything we did.

Maybe this is a dumb question but you talking about the the identification of the oil spring that you had from the beginning with toy story that you felt like you couldn't find with a bug's life for a while. How do you know when you found it is it just from the reaction from other people is it within yourself you just go I the story now kind of explains itself. You can definitely tell you just feel it it usually evokes an involuntary response for not only yourself but when you use and you put the peanut butter with the chocolate and you pitch just the basics to somebody else even in its rarest golden book form you see.

You know, the investment happening from the person you're pitching to and that that tends to be the proofens that there's there's golden then hills.

For an hour you start coming up with new ideas of what could happen in that universe and it does feel like.

And it's a very fertile playground for somebody I've one of the reasons I think I get pulled in. Is because they've skipped the ABCs like they've gone straight to like other letters in the alphabet and they've just made. Understandably they're trying to be different or trying to be interesting trying to go they think literally going to new territory will give us new ideas and I'm like.

“What was free in the beginning was just the fact that toys came to life like just like that was like wow and I get to win this and you have to and now we've kind of.”

From that movie on messed up for generations everybody thinks toys come to life like this that there is no wow factor for go watch.

With a game of it's a given now so the other thing that's behind that that I have to remind them on is that the secret sauce is in the mundane.

I said if you take collectively the hours spent watching toy store movies even if you put five with it now. It's about what six hours maybe seven that seven hours of a toys life that's one day. And they have spent if their toys in your life like for five years or six years or maybe even eight in your house that's a lot of hours in the day not accounted for. I used to like I remember thinking would there be a lot of humor when we were trying to come up with the first movie of like just the boredom of being in the room while the kids gone and making a treating like jury duty.

We had a joke of like if I have to read poke a little puppy one more time I'm going to kill somebody and like just put like that's where the humor starts to come from is like the the mundane.

“And seeing it from that perspective 100% and it's just respectful we're being right now.”

Yeah, you could do a whole sequence just about being trapped in that Ziplock it's why those movies make people dizzy sometimes right because these are intellectually developed conscious creatures that are basically little grownups living in the child's room. Yeah, kind of board all day right one day they might be trash or they might be in a box or you know yeah the way people described seem stars and theaters for the first time and and seeing the runner go over and feeling like the roles exploded like my mind explosion moment was what he starting the meeting in the first toy story.

Yeah, there's something that just activated in me and oh they're acting like grownups this isn't for me we did a sequence early on. Before we had all whether we had that scene. Where we thought we'd start with the birthday party but because this had recently happened to Pixar there would been two layoffs a couple years prior so everybody was kind of very savvy now to what layoffs felt like a company and it was getting. So we treated we did a scene of introducing Woody in the and his bedroom with everybody going is it me you know who am I going to you know and and we suddenly loved like that we were capturing something about adult life.

But the metaphor of what it's like for the toys and it made complete sense and we were told it was too juvenile by Disney at the time so we had to.

“And everybody knows about the black Friday and it not going well and everything like that and that's whenever that was your you know months of going down to what was supposed to be like adult humor or fight the no.”

Yeah, and when we had to like rescue the film and to say our asses and we had like two weeks to like try to resurrect it we went back to that layoff scene and we said there's something Muppity and just really. Which is now we all know is toy story now, but we said that we think our gut was right on that mojo and we're going back and it became Woody's. Meeting classic version awareness I mean all that stuff which is just not none of it is inappropriate. And even as a small child I recognize there was something funny and why are the cartoon characters talking like my parents.

Right right right yeah that there yeah that there there is a kind of clocking clock out vibe. We asked about finding Nemo if there's one of the movies he's directed I mean he's we're asking a lot of general good but yes finding Nemo is perfect movie in my opinion. Yeah, I was just downhill from after that. Not true. Yeah, you followed up with Wally or you think in that you know piece of junk you would have thought you would have thought I had at the time was that the feeling at the previous screening.

For Wally there was a lot of anxiety it got the lower marks and like Pixar generally right tended to I mean and you'd had and that's when I had to swap. I was going to say I did this before there was a final. Yeah, yeah and you know again learning curve. Wait wait remember I'm sorry I'm sure. The final act.

Well I'll let you explain. Oh sure. I did the phone wallet. It pretty much.

The scene-wise played out similar but it was missing two things we kept treating Wally and the third act like he had to be the hero.

Or no no no no he got still got smashed by the time he got to the leader deck but we also didn't have him. Like losing his losing now. Which is the the true kind of like oh my god like in your stomach. So we knew it you could feel it and so but I was at a I was just three and a half years or four years by now and I was just being done I didn't know. Just felt like I'd come try to everything.

And but it was the same guys that I'd always had in the room to like cover my ass before and so we really just stayed in the room and thought and hammered it out until we realized.

“So while he's more like chaplain like he changes everybody else and then you have to have the payoff of that.”

And then losing his identity at the end. It all seems obvious now. No it does. The losing is identity thing it feels so obvious that it's so it's making movies is crazy because like you telling me that wasn't always part of the movie. I'm like I can't believe that.

But but but but if you think about it when you start writing a movie nothing was in the movie and so of course it's just that's why I always.

Equate writing to an archaeological dig and that's very. The ethereal where you just feel like yours you're saying that the story already exists out there but I really do believe that it's it's very much like. The angel in the marble and eventually or when a Michelangelo chipping it away and letting it fly and he always saw it in the cube of marble and and I've just seen that happens so many times. It picks our word. You've uncovered these bones you're just digging all the time trying to build this dinosaur that you claim is in the ground or the story and then.

You don't have a safe for what you find and when you find it you can only give yourself credit for digging in the right place and for how hard you're working at digging things up.

“But you have to be sort of open minded to like the answers don't come when you want them to you just got to be ready to do something about it when they do.”

I saw Rashida Jones was doing press for the invite and she cited something that you said to her. Okay, when you're trying to figure out the path around the mountain going to go up it around it down at whatever just move the mountain. You're right, you can just be like, you know what the maximum in the mountain place. Yeah, you can easily trick yourself into thinking like that's cheating or that your failure for not.

And there are the other live action films that you've been attached to over the years, which were almost always scripts that were out there in the ether.

Have you ever tried sitting down and starting a live action script on your own is there a reason why you like you're more attracted to or is that just the nature. Okay, it's so fucking hard taken out. I all I've known my career mostly is stuff that I either was a party to very from the get go or was mine. You're right, it just takes so much out of you emotionally. And once I found out you could actually I said, wait a minute, some of my favorite directors never wrote what they worked on and and I and I realized, oh, I don't have to like die on this hill every time I make something.

And so I started looking at things some of it was television some of it was scripts and us and there were a lot of scripts I tried to get made that were other people that never got picked up. And just kind of did the more traditional route of like I would love to see this film I couldn't totally see how this film should be made and it was still hard, but it was so much it was so easy not to make it about me it was so easy to be objective.

“Does TV feel particularly liberating in that sense?”

It is in the just that I enjoy the doing right and just the mind. Enjoy being on set I enjoy the making up. The older you get the less you're like, I'm not here to like talk about my career or look it back like I've got this much time left while I'm still standing I'm still healthy and I'm loving you look back at your plan. You know, I mean like I love the doing and like yeah and I was like it takes four years and then I finally you know.

And I just love the the camaraderie and the summer camp put on a show that you get on and I love the brevity I mean.

“So I've gone away to do TV, which is about two to three months max and I've come back to Pixar and nobody knew I left like that's happened several times and I equated to being a session player like oh I get it I'm basically somebody else's album.”

This is how they want or you know this is how they want to play it and they they're asking me to come in as a session player and play on this one song out of there all their tracks. I thrive because I just feel so unshackled and unburdened by is it about me what does it say about me what do I think like I just you're doing the opposite it's right must be so easy it's not even easy but it's it's enjoyable it's taking a lot of things that I thought were burdensome. Making them enjoyable because I realized telling the joke for me is half the fun not just having to write the joke so a lot of times it's freeing and and and I get to use my muscles and I get to get outside.

“To just work on a TV show try different stuff yeah yeah are you going to do any more of that or yeah I'm going to be on one this fall that can't talk about right now.”

But I wasn't looking for but it's one of my favorite shows so I was like sight and and so I don't know if I'll do more but because it's it's also no life for two months three months because it's just.

We're as animation to be fair it's bankers hours nine to six nine to five you can be got to go to the doctor's that day you can be like but it's for your four years yeah and and not only that just must be a frustration and like oh I want to fix this okay well yeah that's in your take a while versus like hey you've an actor direction and the next take they do a different or whatever it might mean but they're on a heart on a day where I'm frustrated with another show I'm going like you kind of have no excuse not to fix this guys.

You have all the time in the world so let's put a time limit on like if you haven't gotten somewhere by the end of the month or the end of the week like but that's the other thing that I took back to toy like toy story five is the fastest we've ever made a movie. Realite of toy story two which was under Dores yeah right how quick what do we talk three and a half months I've three and a half years three and a half years with me away for half for six months of that to finish up and yeah and because I learned on TV to measure time differently like in TV.

In any problem any issue they go you talk in the terms of minutes days minutes hours days and if you're talking days you know you're trouble so you're always talking like can we fix it in minutes in hours.

“In animation you're talking days weeks months and so the it's too easy to just push it down the road or take longer than you need to so I applied the minutes days hours I mean it's hours days to coming back and it was a little”

I grow little aggressive but it was still a better place to be we people were excited that they were getting things solved and getting more times at bat and figuring things out you know when you have to fix walley how long does that take me a fix but you know what I mean when it was under Dores because yeah our our all our audience previews are usually set with about six months left to release which means only three months left in production. And that's like your last week you know in regular terms that's like you've got Friday left so you hope you know that you're going to change something you have you you have it on the books it's almost like reshoots built in you know there's going to be something you're going to change hopefully about 10% of the movie max or less and it's strategic where and what you do.

And that was about a 30% change yeah no that was house that but every it was a hard it was worth it was a hard conversation had with my crew who was ready to be done.

Yeah I feel like there's video on on there's probably video everything I don't want to know about you apologizing before the demand. And yeah where they're probably put that on the DVD. But those two movies in the 2000s between your between Nemo and while you've got incredible's on ratitude and those you release he's pretty up front about like I'm a pain in the ass like I'm really yeah I'm really demanding and like you know and like. I as a kid or as a teen I was a teen and I was just in movie making I was it fascinated watching them being like this is very upfront about like it's not just like oh yeah we're all so happy to be doing.

Yeah but obviously in Brad's movies you see that in his movies right like it's like that character like makes it across the line you know in terms of the story details or whatever emotions he's driven by or you know and I feel like.

It's it's because at the end of the day with that's what comes out of us naturally it's it's like.

“I was talking on another podcast and I was saying like I don't feel worthy equating us to the Beatles but you nobody nobody do questions that the Beatles were just making.”

They just made like if they never got out of their basement or the or Paul McCartney's family bathroom they would make.

It's like it's just a comfortable tune that everybody would remember immediately like that's just what came out of them yeah they didn't change for the audience they just tapped into something that they naturally did that worked. Great for the rest of the world and and so when you put us together the infamous brain trust everything we did got more entertaining like we just naturally entertainers and people discredit that they treated like. the fact but we're like if you do it right it's essential like you the joke is telling the story is being part of the machinery and part of the entertainment in the core of it.

The sequence in Nemo of the story getting spread across the ocean which leads into Nigel telling the night which that this is the thing I feel like this is one of those legendary stories in your career of.

“What is the word get from one side of the ocean to the other and you end up voicing like three different characters in that sequence?”

Well just for the just for the the proof of concept my co-writer was Bob Peterson is one of the funniest men I've ever met and he makes me funny or brings out the funny in me that I can't seem to access fully on my own. It's no different than being with a great improv partner like you just throw me the challenge you know so we like we were like how do we do this and we it was like six o'clock or something five o'clock in the afternoon and we had.

They have something up on the reels the next morning and so it was you treated like an improv challenge like how would you make the news get across and then then you just were like.

All right, you got to solve this exact problem and you got to do it in an entertaining way and we've done plenty of those where they didn't stick but this one stuck. I mean, but equating it's improv.

“Ben and I both come from improv backgrounds among other things many things we've done but but it makes sense in that sort of the game is how quickly can you identify the truth and what has now been set up in front of you.”

And that sequence is such a dynamic like speed rounding of well what would that type of fish and what would they do and how would they do it and what would they sound like. And the escalation of that in the build of that and the series of correct identifications. That all feel right to the audience which then leads into the most emotional moment in the movie to me, which are more effective because coming off of me my realizing marlins coming for right. That was Steve Jobs favorite part of them because it should just be the most like shoe leathery kind of this is this is just story weight how to get from point A to point B and instead all of it is is personal.

Well, I got to give most of the comedy props to Bob Bob's just so funny. Yeah, I think again when we're together we're both able to like speak each other's language, but we're able to like I was just know how does this build was my probably by biggest driver, even though I'm still trying to be funny bouncing off of him and he's like how to make it funnier. And but he cares just as much about building, but we because the emphasis on the sentence was different for us. That's just showed you how strong we work chemistry wise working together and then I'm such a I'm such a film score not.

Always thinking about is there a way the music can do this is there a way the music can be involved is there a way and it's one of Thomas Newman's best scores.

Our two composers all the time for Nemo and that was 90% of the time or 80% of the time was anything Thomas Newman had scored because I was just was like any so you became a character in my mind. And I'm pretty in particular though any jam Shawshank and but particularly meat Joe Black. Oh, that's a great meat score score. Yeah, I mean it goes over the top at the end and that's why I'm in that movie's crazy. And then and then I would listen to nine inch nails the fragile. Because I kept saying, I'm this is is never met trend. Yeah, yeah, I told him that I told him that on the red carpet at the Wally permit and that's so funny year, but I just was so afraid my biggest fear of making that movie was that it was going to be

I grew up being scared of the ocean, but fascinated by at the same time, I remember putting on a little diving mask and you know in needy, shallow water and ducking my head under and then being freaked out because things started to disappear so quickly in the void and you didn't know what was behind you.

And that was the first thing I ever typed was and it's the I think it's still in the first page of script, I just typed the void and I wanted that.

I wanted like not do the circle of life fuck that. It doesn't exist things are how to live is one of the most banana sequence ever it's gorgeous very impressively like the animals have a king the theory that some of them don't talk. I just like things are out to get you it's a predatory world and there's a reason we're always scared about our kid crossing the street and so the ocean is the perfect you have to live in it, but you have to be afraid of the old time so I said can I keep that alive throughout the movie and then the other thing was can I make the parent the main character not the kid and that seemed radical at the time it's a fair point.

It's like the kid loses the parent either permanently or temporarily and has to figure something that's actually grow up.

“So that's and that happens in emo and that's why I listened to the fragile because it would remind me how dark the and I found out from him that he wrote that album listening to Lamar.”

And debussy was suicidal when he wrote Lamar by the ocean side and so the whole thing has this dark dark deep connection but it would ground me like that I've that's that 10 20% would just bring me back to go and don't be afraid to speak scary don't be afraid to be tense don't be afraid to be unpredictable because that's part of the point of this movies that you're in the real world and the whole driving thing this main characters fear and we have to be afraid to or else it's just theory. So it's it it provides the movie but not to you know like it doesn't overwhelm it which obviously I know with a lot of the movies you guys make that can happen right where it's like oh what he's what he's coming off a little too.

Adjutated or villainous or what you know anxious and same with the marlin marlin's too worked up like he's too negative what I think like it's a balance every time I watch an emo and he gets lost I go this is impossible.

Right like he'll never fucking find the stakes couldn't feel I remember I'm more instrumental I was still trying to solve the movie and.

“Bob Peterson came on about a year or two in and he was like.”

The thing that blows me a mind about this movie is all you just spend the whole time going how yeah yeah yeah which is I mean which is the magic of a lot of this you know like did or he too. Just like you know I'm wally like these movies where it's like a great distance is going to be traveled by a tiny thing every time you're kind of like I don't know how they're going to do and characters with him to a story obviously pretty much always. It's like hey the toy got taken across the street and you're like across the screen.

The the machinations of the moving truck chase and toy story was mine it's so good. And I boarded that out roughly and then everybody came into clean it up because we had to do it under a dress and I realized then and it's only proven all the way. We're going to have a couple of toy story five that that comes more readily to me is the crazy. Engineering of how things will all fit did you in monsters think too did you have any because a monster think also has the like we're somehow crossing dimensions and they know all that and there's not the only person but that's just if you had to get down to what what comes out of me the easiest not easy but easiest is.

This going to ultimately pay off how can I hide it as a set up how can it like not be seen right away.

Is that the right brain thing is that I don't know my dad was that yeah was an engineer chemical engineer who was basically work for a skunks work. Top secret company that could solve had to solve things for the government when they run out of time. So I think I got that myself. So what did your mom do my mom was a frustrated actress so you're like spillberg.

“And but I realized I don't know science and math like my dad did so that part of the muscle goes towards abstract story building yeah story structure so I think that's why.”

People would love me to stay in that lane because I'm good at it but. You live long enough and you're not interested in scratching the same age all the time like I'm also a hopeless romantic I'm also a sci-fi not. I'm also love drama just good drama in in in in in new ways of finding tension and drama and so exploring stuff that wouldn't come readily to me but I would love to see as a as an audience member.

Making me feel as adventure some and satisfied as I was on the first two animated movies I ever got to touch is there an ultimate at at least I shouldn't say ultimate is there at this moment and it's your most eager to scratch that you haven't gotten to within your films.

“Because you've mostly worked in sci-fi when you've done my action even even in the TV you've done some like you did three body and you did a yeah I also already that toy story is low key sci-fi yeah a little bit something.”

I clearly lean that way. I try not to think too hard about it. I've been enjoying. Not having anything planned I didn't plan to a story five it in planning the TV shows that got offered to me and I didn't plan the scripts that suddenly I read and I was like oh I want to try and make that you know. There's for a long time I was trying to get this movie made called revolver that was written by key tree five yeah we that came up in a research is that that's the Beatles like still stopping in the last thing yeah it's great script and and I got I got Paul like I got the Beatles the state okay for four songs I got Ethan and Maya Hawks yeah which songs they were pre revolver because it's all about because that Alaska moment happened and they hadn't really revolve yet nobody knew.

But they were making that and so it was like stuff from rubber soul and and stuff like that and but I got Ethan it was a kind of a paper moon relationship father and daughter so I got Ethan Hawking mind hoc to attach to it. But and nobody bit this was this was right before and then during the pandemic and so there's the whole world just rock and nobody bit yeah and it's still to me like such an obvious winner movie the you never see the Beatles in it.

right which is always it's all about here because this really happened there was a.

Yeah but there was they were still in recovery a year later and there was one functioning hotel that you could stay and the Beatles were flying to Japan to do to do their last nobody knew their last touring. And they got rerouted by typhoon had the land in Alaska and they stayed for a night in the day in this hotel in the Anchorage in 1965 and so the Kate tree faced from Anchorage and her mother was there when that happened and so she's sort of elaborated because her mother had a crush on George Harrison so.

I think it's the first time for her to work main heroin character is just her goal is to get into that hotel and sleep with George Harrison and it's this beautiful coming of age story just beautiful and I still wish I could make it and was it chairman spaceman what was that was something search light asked me to be involved in okay and so I was heavy on the.

“But it was my my shot at getting something else made and so it was from an up based on an article.”

From the New Yorker and and we worked on many iterations of the script with the author of of the of the piece and and he's a great scriptwriter and it just it was clear what he wanted and and what search light wanted weren't matching and to be fair the world changed like to do something about. In the end they're going into space is was. Fascinating and then it just came off putting and then it became reality. And so it's just was one of those ill time things those those ill time thanks. Now I'm seeing here 1994 you worked on the episode cookies, cookies, cookies, cookies, what a TV show to stupid dogs.

Oh, wow. Okay. That was a while I was working on toy story. Sure days. So I had friends. Now there were two stupid dogs in that show one big one long time. I tried the Griffin David release.

It was a friend of Pete doctors that was working on that show and he needed some boarding done and we just wanted to help out.

So it is always so funny way the animators would like you look back in their career.

It's like all this great work and it's like yeah, and also just a random cartoon. That was a funny show.

“So the secret squirrel segments on that.”

So you were the prime audience. I mean we were like, he's seven years old or whatever. You worked on the back sheet. Oh yeah, right. That was that experience.

That was a murderous row of people on that show.

If you could you couldn't hire that's pretty much your first credit.

Yeah. Yeah. I read out a college. My friend Jim Merden who would go on to be a major director on Simpsons. And Rich Moore were working on it and Rich Moore, who did Ben record Ralph.

Yeah. That's right. I love it. We all went to school together.

Fame or Lord of the Rings fame and get money.

Enough to get something started and then burn all this bridges and then leave town once it failed and then wait for the regime change, which would happen about every five years until nobody knew who he was again. Except for his credits and then he'd come back out to California and start over again. And we were on this iteration because he had worked on the original mighty mouse as a young guy. Okay.

“And I think those cartoons was here in New York.”

I think if I ever write he worked on it in New York. Wasn't it was it in Terry town? Maybe maybe you guys are in front of the yeah we got we got devices. But anyway, he got the rights to it and wanted to be remade. So John Chris Felucci was his was his guy Bruce Tim was there.

Vicky Jensen worked there. Oh, those are like all of us became somebody in animation. But no, but we were all nobody's then crazy. It was a crazy time. We worked in an abandoned preschool in Van Eyre.

That's what that show feels like. Yeah. It feels like it. It came out. It escaped something.

And the intercom system was still working and he took it. Ralph took the principal's office and he was this huge guy from the Bronx. I don't want to if he's Bronx or Brooklyn. Yeah, that's the vibe we had out of burr. I had a bit of a less than you he considered us 20 something.

He wanted striters cheap. So this is like 86 87. So we would have legal pads and pencils and we'd sit in this windowless Teachers lounge that clearly had still all the smoke from cigarettes from all the previous teachers that had ever worked there in it. And he didn't he would just hit the intercom go.

Guy to my office right now.

“And and he said they pick up and you'd go into his office.”

But he would he pulling out his old friends that he had made in the 70s. So one day he was like, Guy, this is Frank for that. Like you know me, Frank for that. And we're like, and it's guys change smoke and comes in. We're like eating Frank for that. And then then they go to the same as he sells cookies.

And it's like, and famous. It comes in dressed exactly dressed exactly like he is on the package. Yeah. With the samples in a bag. And it turns out he works in in post and sound when he worked on.

And he was one of the sound engineers are thinking for one of his movies in L.A. And then he was he and he said and Ralph was saying like, Yeah, he's trying to tell me he's going to start the cookie business. And I'm like, get out of here. And like you want to put money in the cookie business.

I'm not going to put money in the cookie business. He was like a music manager. And he made the cookies as like gifts to his clients. Yeah. And everyone's like, yeah.

So the cookies, my guy. And he made a killing. Jim would say was everyday was an interesting story working. Yeah.

Is there anything I want to let you go because we already have a second.

We're going to chat with you a little more in depth about John Carter. Oh, yeah. Screening tonight. So obviously we can sort of dip into that more there. But yes.

Anything else you wanted to bug him? Because you terribly. Two stupid dogs question. Yeah. That was really important.

That was high on those. It's been sitting. I don't remember it at all. Really? No.

No. You text with me after finding me. And you said, you guys got things mostly. Oh, sure. Yes.

I'm wondering if there is a thing because we were talking right before we started

“recording about how when you do these press tours, you have to condense stories.”

And then you create a myth that then circulates for decades. And you have to correct your own myth. Is there a thing that you've heard us say as you terrifyingly have been listening to the episodes on you? Yeah. Please don't do that.

That you feel like we have helped. To be fair. I haven't listened to the Carter or the blank. Okay. I can't mind too soon.

Therapy too soon for minutes. Yes. Yes. But I can't remember what the Nemo things were. Because there was nothing agriaches.

It was just more like, oh, that's a little off. It can be, is there a myth that you with. You could correct here. We're trying to get you to say something so we can fire JJ. We're really trying to fire.

Yeah. Yes. He spelled your name. Pandruse Stanton. Can we fire him?

Yeah. Nope. He is silent. P.S. Island. I would have texted you with the correction.

Okay.

Now I always let JJ know that he did a good job.

He's a good guy. He's a good guy. And you're very, very, very nice to bless us with your presence on this show. It's a really nice show. It's a really nice show.

I'm showing my age. I don't get half the references half the time. Please. Anytime you want to get one of the references. But that's just text me.

And I'll just like the references. But I'm impressed. I'm impressed with your film. Thanks. I'm impressed with your film analysis.

That's all right. Thank you. Press with your running gags. As I said, I mean, I truly. A lot of the analysis comes like backwards retrofit from hearing you explain things over the

years. Like a wildly disproportionate amount of it comes from the way you have kind of open source

Well, again, I keep going back to. I have a six grade education.

“And if I can get it, then I feel there's hope for anybody else to get it.”

So I kind of kind of pass it on. That's about it. That's our podcast with like a second grade education. Thank you for doing this. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. And looking forward to tonight. I'm excited.

I've never seen the film on the screen sense.

And I'm going to do it. Are you going to tough it out? Oh, yeah. All right. It's not hard for me to watch.

Okay. Not hard for me to watch any of my movies. I know why I made them. And I know why I made the choices. And I don't usually regret the choices.

I just some people are like, no, no, no. I'll never watch my stuff back. I'm like that. About the most cut. Like I can't watch Toy Story 5 again.

Sure. Because you've just watched it like five million times. Yeah.

One of our editors assistants kept track and I'd seen it 95 times.

Oh, my God. So I mean, to be fair, I've seen some of your movies close to 70 times. Because I'm happy to be fair. I've seen it 91 times. Like, like, Nemo took me seven years before I was ago.

But some of it's just because you just want to see it.

“Like, do I have even fighting chance of seeing as a movie?”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of them are a yearbook. They're just a yearbook. Like, I remember where I was when I shot that. I remember the every choice.

And when it's long enough of a time passing, you, uh, it becomes fun memories. It's like opening up an old photo album and you're just like, oh, yeah. And it triggers memories that you would forgotten about. It's so it's very just great. That's just great.

Yeah, that's lovely. But like just collecting all the photos that I'll show them. Oh, yeah. It was like, I found stuff I forgot I had, which was exciting. Are you in touch with anyone left on that way?

Oh, yeah. It's made them more than I just, uh, and she's having some shame. I gave her such Pudos, uh, for Cersei. Pretty incredible. It's probably the highlight highlight of the movie.

And it's a great movie. And she's so happy for her.

“It's like, it's like a whole another generation is learning how great she is.”

Absolutely. And, um, um, um, Friends to the foe. I have a talk to him in a while. But, uh, he's a good New Yorker, pal.

And, um, we all loved working on that movie. And it was hard, but it was, we enjoyed it. Tell the day again. And then. And, uh, we all had plans, which I'll talk about tonight about what we were.

I found that outlines for the other two. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, we really knew what we were going to do. And so there's any, there's a lot of, not a lot. But the critiques, some of the critiques about the first one are actually because we just knew where we were going with the second one.

And we were going to give away all the marbles. Or, or do what you would normally do in a standalone film. So, which, you know, is a naive mistake of ours to have done, but. I'm excited to see you. I'm excited to see you.

I'm excited to see all the stuff you dug up. Especially with an appreciative crowd.

I realized this may never happen again.

I mean, it's sold out. So that right away. Right away. As a second showing. He's excited.

We're doing a second showing. Yeah. Sweet. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Like check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin, Newman, and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas.

And our associate producer is AJ McKeean. This show is mixed in edited by AJ McKeean and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American novel. With additional music by Alex Mitchell.

Our work by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Munich. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Mae Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, blankcheck special features for exclusive franchise

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