‘Encanto’ Writers on Bruno’s Viral Popularity and the Madrigal’s Complex Family Dynamics: ‘We Spoke to a Lot of Therapists’
variety.comTim Gray Senior Vice PresidentThe team behind Disney Animation’s “Encanto” gave themselves a high degree of difficulty: In a development/production process that took five years of constant rewrites, they insisted on a film with a family of 12 principals, while most animated films center on half that number.The film is about 15-year-old Mirabel Madrigal (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz) and her family; the breakout star for fans and social media is Bruno, the exiled uncle voiced by John Leguizamo. “Encanto” was written by Jared Bush and Charise Castro Smith from a story credited to six writers, including those two.
Castro Smith and Bush directed alongside Byron Howard.“We knew he was someone people would gravitate towards,” Bush says on Bruno. “John was so spectacular: funny, lovable and weird — and in not a lot of screen time!” Bruno is part of a long line of family outcasts, starting with Greek tragedies through Shakespeare to Buster Keaton, James Dean and Peter Parker.
Those characters have always been embraced by audiences, though none got a song as popular as “We Don’t Talk About Bruno.”Castro Smith says: “Every family has an outcast or someone who feels like an outcast.
I think it’s one of the reasons the character has taken off. A lot of people feel like a black sheep.”They did intensive research early on, says Bush: “We spoke to a lot of therapists and psychologists.
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