I love the film, guys it's so good.
Oh, good.
When I was born, I'm born in 1988, so I guess I'm
roughly the same age, but I just love that sweet spot.
Yeah, I mean, I wasn't a young girl that grew up in Canada
with Chinese parents, but there was something about it
that just really fascinated me. So I thought is fantastic.
But I'm. I don't know. Domee, I'm going to start with you - it's so funny.
I felt like had
I watched this at 13 years old, I'd have taken Mei Lee's side all day long.
And now like 33, I found myself siding with the mother...
when telling this story did you find
you were doing so from a teenage perspective of mainly
and remembering
your own kind of upbringing or now that you've advanced to your own life,
did you find
you were coming at this material more so from the perspective of the mother?
That's yeah, that's a good question.
I think I started the movie more from Mei's point of view and her side,
and I think I ended the movie more from
from from the, the mom's side.
And it was really helpful to have Lindsay in the story room, too, because.
Yeah, because like she has teenage daughter.
So like she was always a good, like, balance to like make sure
that the movie never really skewed too much one way or the other.
And we could see both sides of that relationship and conflict.
Like, objectively,
I don't think you could have made this movie without without having
I mean, meaning,
I don't know how
you could have resolved it well without if you hadn't had an ability
to kind of also shift into looking at it all from your mom, from your mom's side.
But Ming's side of the of the story, too.
So I don't
I don't know how it would have worked had you only stayed on the one side.
And then I think that was part of Mei's growth in the movie, too.
Like her coming of age was like not just seeing her mom as like a monster
or a goddess, but like a flawed human
who went through a lot of the same issues that she went through. So
Lindsay, I was going to I'm
so interested in the kind of assembling of the creative sort of team at Pixar.
I always imagined
imagining it like a montage in a superhero movie
where someone has to kind of get the band back together.
But how would you go about choosing each person for each role
to tell each individual stories that were kind of in-house pitching system?
Or is it is the process a little more organic than that
for that?
For the directors, there's definitely pitching system, right?
They have to pitch their ideas and then, you know, they're kind of
selected is like, Hey,
we'd like to hear you pitch some ideas, and then they pitch their ideas.
But for the for the leadership on the actual films, we've actually
kind of gone from like every there's only a few kind of superstar leaders.
And we use them kind of,
you know, across one or two of the films now that we have so many projects going
and so much experience in the studio and actually they apply.
So it's almost a bit like a job interview which is always a little weird
because you know the person really well
and they're coming in and kind of
trying to represent themselves, but it's mainly for them
to kind of speak to the actual kind of vision of the project.
So they come in
knowing a little bit about the idea and also kind of what Domee is going for.
And then they have the ability to sit and talk about
kind of what they would bring to it
and why they're excited about the stylization or about the story.
And it kind of allows us to to assemble a team
that is it's feels like it's right for the film we're making.
So it's a little more formalized than it's been,
but it's actually a great way for them to really have a creative conversation
at the very, very beginning.
With the director, which is nice.
So what were both of yours of teenage obsessions around the same age
that Mei Lee is in this?
I think when I was really young, I was big into the Spice Girls, but I'm
what was it what was it to you guys?
Yeah, I was definitely into the Spice Girls.
Harry Potter.
Orlando Bloom
in all of it. Yes.
And all of the movies that he was in at the time.
And like Avril Lavigne.
Yeah, I think I mean, I'm your age.
I'm like around the same age as you.
So I think like, yeah, I think I was just also getting into like,
what I thought was punk, but it was not really
like Avril Lavigne, Sum 41 with that type of stuff.
Wearing my dad's tie, like around my neck.
I was... I was into Prince, and I'm
like, Run-D.M.C., Beastie Boys.
So it was a lot of like really hip hop
and then, I mean, and then back to Prince.
Prince was like, this was the end all.
Slight, slightly cooler than the Spice Girls.
My final question, Domee I was going to ask
in the last couple of years, I mean, Disney, we've seen them,
they've sort of made the live action retelling of Mulan.
There's been Shang-Chi in the Marvel Universe.
There's been Raya and the Last Dragon, now Turning Red.
It feels like as a true they're giving great platform to Asian American
and Canadian storytellers and letting the kind of next generation
see themselves on screen when representing a kind of a culture on screen.
With that comes responsibility.
I just wondering when making this do you feel that responsibility
or do you almost have to completely
ignore it and partially offset that so as not to fall under the weight of it?
I both you know, I think it's like I definitely feel
that responsibility making this movie.
So in order to alleviate that responsibility, a little bit,
I found it important to not be the only Asian in a lot of those roles.
So it's important for me to hire Julia Cho, our screenwriter, who's
Korean-American, Rona Liu, our production designer, who's Chinese-American.
And just to make sure that I'm surrounding myself with different kinds
of Asian perspectives.
So it's not just on me
to represent this and like millions of people around the world.
And and you know, I have that
I feel that responsibility to bring up fellow
Asian creatives, too.
And but like you said, like
this is just one movie from one from only a few people's perspective.
And there's no way it can, like, represent
every Asian person or are their story your experience?
All we can do is try to tell a like a meaningful story
that that feels authentic to us and hope that it connects with everybody.
So, yeah, thank you so much for yout time.
Congratulations again on the movie. I think it's wonderful.
Thank you.