Pixar’s latest, Inside Out, takes place in the control room of a young girl’s mind. Her emotions are embodied by five distinct characters – Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Sadness – who collectively make up a human personality. As her name suggests, Joy is the sprightliest of the bunch, but things go awry when she and Sadness find themselves far across the mental landscape from the controls needed to navigate a life. We spoke with the ever-awesome Amy Poehler about bringing Joy to (our) life.
FLICKS: ‘Inside Out’ has got some very sophisticated concepts. I think that’s one of the things that I really enjoyed about it, it’s a very confident decision to make.
AMY POEHLER: Yeah, it’s like this high concept idea, right? Which is like, “Let’s talk about feelings and emotions.” And what they did is they just brought it down to this very human level, this very funny, slapstick workplace comedy. But what happens is, you’re laughing, and you’re feeling these feelings, and then you walk away and you think, “Hmm, what are my core memories? What are the things that drive me? What emotion is in charge?” That’s what Pixar does so well, they constantly try to show us a world that we didn’t think we wanted to see next.
That’s really well put. Thinking about things like the core memories, many concepts in the film have a strong visual concept attached to them. Were you privy to this? Or did you have to just use your imagination?
Yeah, I came on last, and so they had recorded a couple of voices, and they had a lot of art done, and ideas. It’s so funny, whenever you’re with animators, they’re like, “We’re going to show you this thing and it’s in really bad shape. And you’re sitting there like, “This is beautiful!” They’re like, “Oh, we’re years away from being done.” But yeah, they had a lot of ideas already in place certainly, and when they told me the idea for the film I thought, “Oh my gosh, if they pull this off, this is going to be the best Pixar movie ever.”
That just begs the question, did they?
Oh yeah. Did they? I think they did, I think that this is an Oscar-worthy film. I think it’s this really big, sweeping idea, beautifully – beautifully – animated, with an amazing score, funny characters, and just feels very new. Pete Docter, the writer and director who did Up, and did Monsters, Inc., is just really interested in this idea of what’s going on in our subconscious mind. What are the things that we mourn or yearn for, or don’t want to give up?
Those ideas and themes would be almost secondary in a broad appeal film. That’s brave of Pixar.
Yeah, and you find in films that people assume children are ready for violence. There’s just not as much conversation about, “Are the kids going to be able to handle this” with people cutting each other’s heads off. What I like is that what Pixar decided is, “We’re going to also assume that children are more emotionally intelligent than we think they are. That they’re ready to think about and talk about this stuff.” It’s just so cool, because you can’t sit your kid down and say, “How are you feeling? What are you feeling?” You just don’t get answers [chuckles]. But you can say things like, “Isn’t it funny how you acted like Anger today? Isn’t Fear kind of like the character that you feel like the most when we go to the first day of school?” Whatever it is, it’s just one step removed where they get to talk about what they’re thinking and feeling. It’s a really accessible, interesting tool.
That’s really interesting; I was thinking about kids for the first time being able to give voice to some of their own internal conversations. But yeah, it provides parents with that vocabulary as well.
Yeah. I find Joy to be the most American of all the emotions. She’s a bad listener, she’s very energetic, and she’s skipping over major details. It’s this pursuit of happiness that we are constantly obsessed with, whether we’re a parent, or just a human being in the world, and I love that Pixar’s not afraid of making sadness the anti-hero, the one that reminds us all sometimes you have to sit in the place that you’re in, and that’s the only thing that you can do.
As far as Joy being American, was that how you cracked her character?
I tried to play her almost with a 1950’s go-get-em attitude, just this, “Here we go!” Almost like a tiny soldier who is everyday having to inspire the troops. And she just won’t rest until Riley is quote-unquote happy. What’s so great as an actor getting to do this part is Joy gets sad for the first time, and feels these feelings, and realizes she’s not always going to be up-up-up. Just like Riley, it’s a devastating thing for her to go through, and the arc of a character like that in an animated film is very rare.
Now that the film’s out in the world, what hopes do you have for it?
It feels like this film will just resonate, and I’m excited about everyone seeing it, and the conversations that it spurns, and the joy that people will feel – maybe – from watching Joy. It’s a long project and process, these animated films, and Pete and Jonas Rivera, the producers, they’ve been working on this film for five plus years now, so I’m just really excited that it will be out in the world. And not alone, it’s pretty special.
