I'm Ally Maki, and I'm originally from a small suburb of Washington State called Kirkland.
You may know it from a Costco fame - the infamous Kirkland line. That is where I'm from.
I really started early, doing dance, and singing, and acting,
I was kind of this activities girl, cuz I had two older brothers. I was the only girl. So my mom was just like,
thrust you into all these activities to see what you love,
and give you something to do, so you're not just hanging out at home alone all the time.
I loved doing all the after school things. I started out with dance, and we tapped, and modern, and lyrical, and ballet -
All the good stuff.
And then I eventually started doing musical theater, when I was about 8 years old.
First show I ever did was called "The Magical Story Circus," which was very fun.
And I just remember - I got to put on this really fun disco rainbow outfit that had glitter all over it.
And a little tiny hat. And we would go out and perform these really fun numbers.
And it was just the first time in my life where I was like - this is home. This is where I feel truly myself.
I think I was the only Japanese-American girl. Like -
Your first ever Japanese-American Dorthy, Japanese-American Wendy, so I got to do all of the fun roles.
That was kind of where I started.
My role models were truly the women in my family. So my mom was -
She went back to work right after I was born. And so I would - Monday through Friday - I would stay with my grandparents.
And my grandma is like - the strongest woman in my life.
My grandmother was actually - when she was 16 years old, she was in the internment camps.
She came from a sharecropper's family. Like - my great-grandfather was a sharecropper. Because at that time,
There was the alien land law acts, and you couldn't actually own property.
After the war, they were released with basically $25 and a bus ticket,
And that was kind of how they restarted their life. She created this amazing family after that, with my grandfather,
And she never let that hold her down. So I think her stories - growing up with those stories of her resilience,
of being in the camps, and after that, building up a life out of nothing,
I think was really inspiring to me.
When I was doing musical theater in Seattle, I was playing all these variety of roles,
I didn't feel like I had any kind of boxes surrounding me.
And I grew up watching "TGIF," and I feel like, "That's me! I'm Tiffani Amber Thiessen,"
I'm your normal, all-American girl going through the struggles of
dating, and school, and life, and parents, and all these kind of everyday issues.
And so, I kind of went out there with that attitude of like, "I can be anything, and do anything really."
It wasn't until I got to LA, that I started to realize: Oh no, the world doesn't see me as that.
The world doesn't see me as the hero.
And I started to slowly realize that I was different. And I started to feel a little bit more different.
So all of a sudden it was like -
Oh no no no, you're the nerdy girl that loves math;
Or you're the overly sexualized driving lady who does kung fu, and it was kind of -
These kind of polar opposite identities, that I didn't fit into either one of them.
At that point, most of my teenage life was struggling to figure out how to fit in to these -
outside boxes that I didn't feel internally, that I was at all.
And that specific identity of being an Asian-American female
is something that I've been working my whole life to discover what that is.
I think "Wrecked" was hugely life-changing for me,
because I remember going to the audition itself, and saying: "I know I'm not gonna get this."
Because I think we are a little bit trained to think -
If it's one of the lead roles, it's not even gonna be an option for you.
And that's kind of where my head was at, at that time.
So when I actually booked that role, it kind of knocked down all of those barriers for me.
I was like: "Wait, if this is true, if I can play this, what else can I play?"
So that was the first step for me, in kicking down a door of -
Of doing something that previously, in the industry, wouldn't have accepted me to play.
So, wow. The whole experience with "Toy Story 4" has been absolutely mind-blowing to me.
That is the one project where my 14 year old self would never have even believed how any of this happened,
and that I was part of the Pixar Universe.
I mean, it's just so crazy.
Voiceovers, it takes you back to why I even loved performing in the first place.
Because you feel like you're just at home again, in your room, alone, doing voices.
That's exactly what I grew up doing, and what I loved doing.
And the way that they had even found me was so crazy, because
the casting director has said that they had found a random YouTube video that I made
on a weekend, with my friends, and my dog, and my nephew, and we were just out there having fun,
making things that we thought was cool, or that we thought was funny.
And they had found that, randomly, and said: "Wow, this is the girl."
So that's why I always tell people, go out and make your own content,
Because you don't know who's watching it. That video barely had any views, and I was like -
This video is a failure. But one of those views was someone that really connected with, and said -
Oh! That's Giggle! That's Giggle, the character, and that's really essentially kind of like,
Where the start was of how I got this role. So...
I think there's something about - just being your true self,
and continue to make content. Put stuff out there that you can stand by, that makes you laugh.
Who cares what anyone else thinks?
If it resonates with you, and it makes you laugh, and it makes you feel like this is your story,
I think that's the most important thing. So just go out there and do it.