Disney and Pixar’s “Turning Red” Press Conference

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This week, the latest offering from Disney and Pixar turn red airs exclusively on Disney+ on March 11.

In turn red, we meet 13-year-old Mei Lee, whose carefully constructed life as a devoted daughter to her overbearing mother Ming completely unravels with the onset of puberty. Along with the typical changes that occur in her interests, body, and relationships, Mei gets an added level of difficulty when her emotional volatility begins to manifest as a transformation into a giant red panda.

As Mei learns what it means to grow old and decides what kind of adult she wants to be, she must navigate by a mother who refuses to let anything change the close relationship they have in place and growing passions. of the teenager. heart that gives preference to friends, freedom and 4-Town.

To discuss the manufacture of turn red, some of the filmmakers gathered for a virtual press conference to talk about the characters, tiger moms and puberty. The first half featured the talented voices Sandra (Ming) Oh, Rosalie (Mei) Chiang, Ava (Miriam) Morse, Maitreyi (Priya) Ramakrishnan and Hyein (Abby) Park while the second half featured director Domee Shi, producer Lindsey Collins and screenwriter Julia Cho.

Highlights from the press conference:

On their characters:

walrus“Miriam is the best friend you could want. She’s funny, she’s always there for you, she’s a party girl and she always knows how to cheer you up when you’re down.

Ramakrishnan: “Priya is quite sarcastic, dry, very tongue-in-cheek… but you know what? She is really cool. I think he’s a cool cat. And, yes, she’s always ready to clown around, but always with a cool attitude.

Park“Abby is like this little ball of energy, very loving. Very passionate, but sometimes a little too explosive. I would say she loves her friends so much, especially when they are fluffy.

Oh“I play Ming, Mei’s mother, who is… I’d like to call her a hypervigilant and loving mother. We basically go through this shift in our relationship… a natural shift between mothers and daughters when daughters have to become their own independent person.

Chang“I voice Meilin Lee. She’s a 13-year-old Chinese Canadian who is confident, ambitious, a little silly and a little overachieving. In this film, she goes through these huge changes and she deals with them, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to get lost…either.

To dispel negative tropes of female friendship:

Park: “…Because I’m also a story artist at Pixar… that’s actually really important. When we finally had the chance to form this feminine friendship, it was very important that it be genuine. So Domee talked a lot about her own experiences with her friendships, and how she would hate to add to those tropes… So we actually shared a lot of different stories of the times we love in terms of female friendships. Then she also asked a lot of different people within the studios to get a really authentic look at what girlfriends are like.

Oh“I’m just going to jump in. I think this question is extremely important, because having young women and young girls in my life, watching TV and movies with them over the years, you realize I don’t know who puts it up that girls are like that. Because I don’t think that’s very true…I think it’s a very good representation of deep friendships, ups and downs.

Ramakrishnan: “Yeah, but also on that, I think with TV and film, we always portray that your love interest is the one you should be closest with. You know, like, it’s, the real bind. It always made me skeptical, because wouldn’t a childhood best friend know you better?

On Tiger Moms:

Oh“…I’m also not afraid of this mother tiger concept. I mean, I love my mom, and she’s a fierce, fierce person. Tiny. Tiny, but fierce. You know, I actually have something that I posted a long time ago on Instagram because it was such an amazing quote my mom said in the kitchen. I had to write it on a post-it, then I posted it on Instagram. Basically, she said (I’m not kidding) ‘If only you were cleaner, I’d love you more.’

“I happen to have a really good relationship with my mom, and I know not everyone does, but I do, and…I can’t stop her from being her- even and i’m not going to stop her, and i’m going to take advantage of her… So, i’m not going to do what she wants me to do because it’s just not me, but there, inside of that, there is this attraction that we always have, I think, with our mothers and with our Asian mothers that it is very, very difficult to satisfy them.

On Pixar Easter Eggs:

collins: “There are many in there. I mean, there are all the standards…

Shi: “We have the Luxo ball.”

collins: “You know, we have a Luxo ball in there, we have A113 in there… I don’t want to spoil them all, because I mean… you have to watch it. We have a few that are super fun , however, that come from the Spark Shorts. You see Pearl in Mei’s office and there’s… a Burrow bunny.

Shi: “…Rabbit on a notepad.”

collins: “Yeah. And then we also obviously, like we always do, a nod to the next movie… Obviously ours is a nod to Light year, which is coming, and if you look closely, you can actually see this one on Miriam’s skateboard. So yes, they are all in there. You come from
must look. »

On the normalization of female puberty:

Shi: “Why was he never normal?” »

collins“…It’s not even Pixar. It’s just not shown…ever.

Shi: “But it never seemed, when we made it up…it didn’t seem like a big deal. It was funny and it felt real.

Cho: “Well, that seems very timely, because I think we’re living in this cultural shift…where it’s gone from being something to be embarrassed and ashamed of, to being really embraced. I mean, there are now graphic novels that are about that, and my daughter is reading books, and it’s like this whole new generation, to them it’s just normal. And so writing a movie that reflects that, I love that.

On what the public can take away:

Shi: “That was the point of making the movie. To make it for the 13-year-old me, who was like what is happening to me? Nobody tells me anything.

Collins: “I think one of the worst things about going through all of this is how lonely it makes you feel. Like, because it feels so alien, and so sudden, and so personal, and kinda off. You feel like you don’t quite understand your own behavior. You know, you’re supposed to be the expert on yourself, and it’s very weird and you feel out of place.

“And so, I hope this movie kind of dispels that and is like, no, no, no, everyone feels that way when they go through it. Either they have felt it before, or they are about to feel it, or they are actively feeling it right now. And that’s actually super normal. It’s part of growing up, and it’s part of you becoming an adult. All of these weird feelings are actually a huge time of evolutionary growth in your life, and that’s really good.

Cho: “I think that when I entered a Pixar project, I had this sense of It’s someone’s collective generational memory law? It’s how I’ve been impacted by Pixar movies and how my kids are impacted by them.

“And I think the thing I’m most proud of is that we’ve hopefully created a film that makes anyone who watches it, girl or not, child or parent, feel seen and understood. For me, that was always the goal. Fingers crossed, we landed it.