- From the beginning to the end,
it is like a rocket ship taking off
and you're kind of taken around
in this whole world of emotion.
- You just sit there and go, "This is so cool.
Look how amazing this looks."
- You can tell that there was
a wealth of love that went into making this film,
so I hope people can take just a little bit
of that love out with them.
- We're about to go behind the animation of "Nimona."
(person screaming)
- So Nimona is this shapeshifting punk teen girl.
She's very enthusiastic about everything,
especially murder and fire,
and she's also incredibly powerful.
- Metal.
- So it's about a kind of unlikely friendship
between two outcasts. Really,
two people who are really misunderstood
by society at large, and also who kind of
misunderstand each other when they first meet.
- Wait, are you saying that you're not a villain?
- Yes!
- Look, I can get us out of here
but things are about to get weird.
- About to get weird?
- Promise me you won't freak out.
- One of the first scenes to be animated
was the breakout scene and it's the first time
you see Nimona's shapeshifting in action.
(wall crashing)
- This is the part where you run.
- It's a really big moment for Nimona
when she first shapeshifts,
because she's showing him who she actually is,
and she's baring her soul in a lot of ways.
She's begging him basically not to lose sight
of the Nimona that he knows.
- Nimona looks like a 15-year-old girl,
but she's actually just a being
that we're not sure what shape she originates in.
- When it came to the shapeshifting,
we really put it to the animator to say,
make this feel believable if you didn't get
the benefit of any effects work on top.
- As an animation director, you're like "Oh my god."
it's super exciting, because you're starting to picture
what animals, how do we transform from one
to the other, shape-wise?
- Animation was able to, in most of these transformations,
really kind of match up one character that transforms
into another and do it so well that even without
the effects on top, it almost just worked as it was.
The motion graphics department actually kind of defined
these little, you'll notice they're little
almost like kaleidoscope little particles in there.
- It's a magical transformation
as much as it is an emotional one.
How do you meet the challenge of making it very wolf-like,
gorilla-like, bear-like,
and yet keep the core of who she is?
You keep her behaviors, her eye shapes,
her gestures very similar, but adding in little bits
of who she is in the animal because she's having fun too.
- Something, something, something, we win.
- I've lost everything.
The man I love, my best friend.
Ambrosius Goldenloin changed the most, I think,
from all of the main characters between the graphic novel
to this film adaptation.
- Because it was the last character design,
we could really tailor it to the casting
in a way that was was super specific.
- When they decided that he would be of Asian descent,
the lead animators who were designing him
were pulling references of notable queer Asian American men,
and so that was actually how my name got put into the ring
was because the animator was using my photos
to model parts of the character off of,
which is just such a humbling and wild story.
- They're gonna love you.
Like I do.
- He's so smart, he's so funny.
He knows how to say things and find the heart
of moments that feel more real and sometimes it was
throwing away the lines that we had written
just to have him play.
- Hey, thinky face? Look at me.
(director chuckling)
Look deep into my eyes.
Don't fall in love.
- Your sidekick has arrived!
- I don't need a side-
- Every villain needs a sidekick.
Nimona is one of my favorite characters
that I've had the opportunity to play,
to be honest, and I'm not just saying that.
Every time I got into the booth to record her,
it was like trying to solve a Rubik's cube of emotions
with pretty much every sentence.
She has these high highs and these low lows
and no matter what she does, she's unabashedly herself.
Because once everyone sees you as a villain,
that's what you are.
They only see you one way no matter how hard you try.
- Chloe Grace Moretz kills it in this role.
She's able to play the mischievous side
of Nimona with the more vulnerable side.
You kind of need someone at the caliber of Chloe
to be able to deliver that role believably
- But we're still gonna break stuff.
- For the record, there, that-
Is nothing like me!
- Riz Ahmed has the perfect voice for Ballister.
- It was so perfect that I'm pretty sure
that all of my memories of the character from the comic
were just replaced with Riz Ahmed after that point.
I truly loved the way that he brought so much empathy
and so much heart and so much humor to Ballister.
- Oh look, it's me on a rhinoceros,
skewering several guards like a human kebab.
- I think Riz Ahmed is one of the most tender actors
out there, and he just has so much dimension
to his characters and to hear him in a voiceover role
is really cool because you can still feel his spirit
so much in Bal, and it really comes across so vulnerable.
- One decision that was important to me
was to try and play the role
in something close to my own accent.
I felt when this story is all about someone
who wants to be accepted and is afraid of not fitting in,
it would be almost hypocritical of me
to try and cover up my accent,
thought it would be good if he kinda stands out in that way.
- I'm not brooding, I'm just, I'm thinking.
This is my thinking face.
- Hey thinky face, look at me.
The idea that I could be able to inform this character
in a lot of ways with my own experience,
it's a really wonderful process.
We actually had so many conversations,
myself, Troy, Nick, about queer experience,
my experience growing up as a young man
in the American South, how that relates
to a lot of the struggles that these protagonists
also go through with their identities,
about feeling somewhere in between,
and I hope that you feel his struggle
based on me imparting a lot of what I have been through
into the storyline that he's experiencing.
- It's time to rewrite this story.
- Nimona!
Nimona!
- I think fans of the graphic novel
will really like the film because it still holds
all the core values of the story and exactly who Nimona is
in the graphic novel, I think is imparted into the movie.
- So Nimona started as an idea that I had
when I was in high school, actually,
and it was the idea of this shapeshifter
who could be literally anything,
that was a big power fantasy for me at the time
'cause it was just something that I really wanted,
the ability to control my body and my presentation.
She became a way for me to voice those complicated,
often really messy feelings in a way
that I just didn't have any other way to do at that time.
It was really great to see that they were willing
to reexamine certain parts of the story
and figure out how to bring it into the future.
Their use of lighting and color is really,
really gorgeous and unique and I've never
seen anything like it.
- You basically have this really wonderfully wild adventure
and a very heartfelt story about people really discovering
not only the truth of what happened in the narrative,
but the truths of their own identities.
- One of the central themes of this film
is about acceptance.
I think that as important as it is to try and find
that acceptance from other people,
you'll never get it until you really
accept and love yourself.
Sometimes you need just one person
to really extend you that hug
before you can give it to yourself.
- This is a story for anyone that's ever felt other than,
anyone that's ever felt ostracized or villainized
for how they present themselves or who they wanna be.
By the end of it, I just felt really seen.
Ah, I love us.
- Make sure to check out "Nimona," only on Netflix.
(bright music)