Hello.
I'm Rosalie Chiang, and I play Meilin Lee in Disney and Pixar's
Turning Red.
What I love
most about acting is just being able to express myself
and take on these different characters and roles because it's always fun to
pick up a script and look at the character and find out who is this person,
what are her motivations and what does she like, what does she dislike,
and why is she here in this moment?
Just being so familiar with the Pixar campus,
I've been to the studio so many times that I know my way around,
and just to walk in so confidently and just be like, Oh, hi, hi. Hi.
Because like, I know people by their names
In the morning, I wake up,
I gargle and brush my teeth, and I just make sure my voice is in its prime.
I would not just say tongue twisters, but just start talking excessively
so my voice is all warmed up.
I stand in front the microphone and then and in that case, Domee Shi
she takes over and she starts giving me insight about the script.
I'm learning these new things about the movie
because I don't get the script before each session.
So each session is completely ice cold.
I've never seen any of the lines
The audition process for me particularly, it's
usually not this long, but it was super long for me. At the callback
it was at the actual Pixar campus, and that's
when I realized, Oh, this is a really big deal.
After the callback, a few days later, I got an email saying,
You booked it for scratch.
And I'm like,
what is scratch? What scratch recording is, it's actually just pre-production.
So they're still figuring out the plot, the design, the characters,
but I haven't officially booked the role.
They just needed a voice to animate off of. Then two years later into scratch
at the end of one of my recording sessions, Domee Shi
brought in a camera saying, Oh, we're just doing this documentary
behind the scenes thing.
And then she gave me a script, and at the end of the script,
Domee said, "We love your voice.
Will you please be Mei?"
I'd say, don't be embarrassed of yourself. In acting
you're going to do a lot of weird
and crazy things that you may not be comfortable with.
I certainly did, especially in Turning Red.
They made me do so many embarrassing things.
You might be able to see it in the actual movie.
Just don't be afraid to go all out
My favorite school subject besides performing arts, probably history.
I really like history because I feel like history is just one.
I like learning about my past for one thing.
And history is just one long, complicated story.
My number one
tip at balancing school
other activities and acting
is to just rest.
I feel like when you have so many things you don't think about resting,
but just to rest so you have more energy to complete
all the things you want to do in the day
the best you can.
To all the Imagination Campus
students and teachers
I just want to say I hope you enjoy Turning Red.
It's a huge, fun, emotional rollercoaster, and I hope you learn something
from it too.