Directors Examine Animated Characters From a Sentient Robot to a Villainous Penguin

variety.com:

Carolyn Giardina Directors of some of of the year’s most notable animated features talk about the design and inspiration behind key characters including a sentient robot, expressive cat and villainous penguin. Anxiety – “Inside Out 2“ In the sequel to Pixar’s Oscar-winner “Inside Out,” Headquarters is disrupted by new emotions, particularly scene-stealer Anxiety, which director Kelsey Mann says was the hardest of the new emotions to design. “It was really [character art director] Deanna Marsigliese that cracked the final design.

She not only found the right feeling of anxiousness, but she did it through a fun and whimsical design,” Mann says of the orange emotion, citing key features such as her ultra-wide mouth, “which is perfect for her grinding teeth,” and floppy hair that could “showcase her nervous energy.” Mann also wanted to make Anxiety — despite some of her choices in shaping a now-teenage Riley — a character that the audience could get behind. “Anxiety’s the antagonist in the film but she doesn’t really see herself that way.

She’s just trying to protect Riley.” Of Anxiety voice actor Maya Hawke, he says, “It’s thinking at an incredible rate, calculating millions of possible threats that could occur.

So I knew I wanted someone that could speak incredibly fast. … But my favorite part of Maya’s performance is the heart you can hear behind her voice.