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'Inside Out 2' filmmakers on what Fil-Am actress Liza Lapira brings as voice of Disgust
When families all around the world watch Disney's latest offering "Inside Out 2," the sequel to the 2015 original film, they will have Fil-Am actress Liza Lapira doing the voice of Disgust. She replaces Mindy Kaling who voiced the character in the first film.
Lapira, who appeared in 2011 with Emma Stone in "Crazy, Stupid, Love" and in 2021 in Dante Basco's directorial debut "The Fabulous Filipino Brothers," also has a recurring role as Mia in the limited series "Unbelievable" and was cast as Melody "Mel" Bayani, a lead role, in "The Equalizer" with Queen Latifah and Chris Noth.
"Inside Out 2," which follows the story of a young girl named Riley who is now a teenager, also introduces new complex emotion characters like Anxiety, Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment.
The sequel is being directed by Kelsey Mann in his directorial debut and produced by Mark Nielsen from the screenplay of Meg LeFauve and Dave Hostein.
Aside from Lapira, the other members of the cast include Amy Poehler (Joy), Phyllis Smith (Sadness), Lewis Black (Anger), Tony Hale (Fear), Maya Hawke (Anxiety), Ayo Edebiri (Envy), Adele Exarchopoulos (Ennui), Paul Walter Hauser (Embarrassment) and Kensington Tallman (Riley Anderson).
We spoke to director Mann and producer Nielsen and below are excerpts from that interview held in a recent press conference. They talked about the diverse cast, Liza Lapira as Disgust and what qualities she brought to that character, the addition of new emotions, and why the movie speaks not only to teenagers but also parents, among others.
Can you talk about the diverse cast and elaborate on the thought process behind ensuring diversity in the cast? How did you approach brainstorming and selecting voices to represent various races and communities? And how did you think that would enrich the storytelling?
Mark Nielsen (MN): It's a great question. The film was set in San Francisco, which helps just automatically add diversity. Because it's such a diverse city, right? And that's where Riley lives. So when you're talking about the human world story of who Riley's friend group is, and who the girls are that are playing on the team, we very much wanted to reflect the Bay Area and the diversity that's within our schools and that we see the friends our kids have at school. And the diversity even within ice hockey.
Often people will think of that as a white sport from the North. But it's not. If you look at the youth hockey scene in the Bay Area, we wanted to reflect that as well.
Kelsey Mann (KM): Casting is one of my favorite things. We met with our casting department at Pixar, a talented group of folks. We talked about the characters. We talk about who they are and what we're looking for. We want to make sure that we have a diverse cast.
Most of the time we're spending time talking about the character and who the character is and what we're thinking, and who they are. I've got a picture of the character. They have a list, and they give Mark and me a list that literally says, "Actor One," "Actor Two," "Actor Three," "Actor Four." There are no names on it at all.
And they're like, "OK, here we go." And we just listen to the voice of the actor blindly. We have no idea who they are, and we just look at the character. And we see, like, does it fit? And it's a really fun game because, one, you're just thinking about the characters and who they are. But two, you don't know who it is. Then when they tell you who it is, sometimes you're like, "Oh, now that you told me, now I can hear it." There are some actors and actresses that you could tell immediately. I know exactly who that is because they just have a distinct voice.
But we try to think about it blindly, so that we can just cast, just from what voice fits the right character.
MN: You also need to find a lane for each voice, right? Because there are nine emotions. They're all speaking at once that's bouncing back and forth. So, we really looked to differentiate them from each other to find a vocal range that they're within where it's not like, "Oh, that kinda sounds like Joy if you close your eyes." But they're very distinct if you watch the film.
KM: It's very much like the way we design them too. Because they're all colors, you know? Red and green and blue. And we do that with not only the colors, but they're shapes. Our production designer, Jason Deamer, and his team did this on the first film too, they boiled down all five emotions to a basic shape. Deamer even pulled that backup. Albert Lozano did that and in the first film.
He pulled that back up. He added shapes around it to make sure that everybody had their own lane like Mark is talking about. So, we did the same thing with the voice. We would go, "Oh, can you play that against Amy? Does she sound too similar to Amy?" And so, you wanted everybody to have their own musical vocal note that they're playing, and make sure that they were distinct from one another.
KM: Liza is amazing. It was really important to us that we find somebody who embodied the character of Disgust. Mark and I weren't interested in somebody to make an impression. We wanted somebody to just be who they are and fit the character. That's how we cast it for Disgust, and how we found Liza. Liza's fantastic because she just inherently can embody the attitude of the character.
She did this great thing when we were recording with her, she has longer hair, and we would every once in a while, catch her, looking at her hair. She was like, "Yeah, I'm not gonna do that." I'm like, "What are you doing there? What are you doing there with your hair?" She goes, "Oh, I'm looking for split ends at the end of my hair." I go, "That's fantastic." I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna give you that direction." So, every once in a while, I would just say, "OK, split ends." And she knew exactly how to go to the split ends take, which is more of like an attitude thing to it, you know? Where, like, "Yeah, no, that's not gonna happen." It just totally dialed in the character. Man, is she funny.
She is hilarious. She needs to get more comedy roles. She was in "Crazy, Stupid, Love." She's able to flex some of her comedy chops. She does a lot of action and drama. Sometimes she would come in, she would be like, "Oh, I really hurt myself doing a fighting stunt last night," because she's on the "Equalizer." She does a lot of stunts there. But her comedy is hilarious.
I'll tell you the secret of directing voice acting on "Inside Out 2." The best direction I could give is to tell the talent, "OK, now say it however you want." After we worked it for a while, I threw them that, and I just backed up, and I let them go. Then I riff and I play with them. There are so many great lines that are from just that simple direction. It's because of the talent that we've got in the film. All of the wonderful talent that Pete Docter who directed the original, and Jonas Rivera's who's the producer on the original, it gets such a great cast. A lot of times, I just have to tell them what we're going for, and then get out of their way.
Why the focus on Anxiety? Does it have as much to do with the time of life when it manifests? Or is it to do with where we all were mentally and emotionally at the time you started writing this during the pandemic?
KM: It's funny you ask that. It's a little bit of both. I started on this movie in January of 2020.
And I knew one of the ideas I was gonna explore was Riley being a teenager. The first film ends with this perfect tee-up. The last line is Joy saying, "After all, Riley's 12 now. What could happen?" It was so teed-up to go into the teenage years. So, I knew I would explore that. I started to look at what happens at that time when we become teenagers. I looked at myself at that time. Mark and I both have teenagers. We've got boys and girls.
We're looking at what happens in our own houses at the time. I was doing a lot of research on what goes on in our brains and what's going on in the world, and at that time, anxiety was on the rise in teenagers. This was before the pandemic. I knew new emotions would show up and that Riley and Joy would be dealing with these new emotions that show up in headquarters. I was drawn to anxiety because it was something I dealt with at this age. It was something that was on the rise in teens, especially teen girls.
Then we narrowed in on that. We went into the pandemic. If anything, it got dialed up even more. I knew it was something that was very prevalent at this age and something that a lot of people would relate to.
KM: It comes exactly from the science of it. Because that's one of the first things I did. I need to look into what happens in our brains during that time. I brought back a lot of experts from the first film. Dacher Keltner was a big help to us, not only in this film but the previous film.
He's a professor over at UC Berkeley and is our emotional expert. I brought him in. I go, "All right, Dacher, what happens?" He's like, "Oh my goodness, there's a lot." I remember doing a lot of reading, a lot of research about it. There's a lot of change that goes on in our brains. New pathways are being torn down, or new pathways are being built, old ones are being torn down. Sometimes the neural pathways aren't even connected at all yet. There's just a lot of change.
I got really excited for it because I think that's really good for a sequel. My favorite sequels are the ones that evolve and grow versus copy, paste, and repeat, you know? And so, I'm like, well, inherently built into what happens in the brains is so good for telling a story. I continue a story that was, you know, started from the original film. And I just got this idea as I was reading the research into what happens, I'm like, "Oh, a wrecking ball."
A wrecking ball should come smashing through headquarters. At the time too, I was working at home. We're all trying to do two things at once. You're working at home while you have stuff going on in the background behind you. I got the idea of demolition and demo day. I'm like, oh my gosh, the whole crew. A whole crew should come in with sledgehammers, chainsaws, crowbars and just cause change and havoc all around Joy as she's trying to navigate this new world of Riley being a teenager.
One of the first drawings I did is a wrecking ball coming through headquarters because I thought it was true to what it's like to be at this age. It could be funny and fun.
MN: It even inspired how we thought about the aspect ratio of this film. We want to take advantage of the wide screen that theaters have. But also, because it's about the expansion of Riley's mind. At the end of the first film, they installed that new console. And it's wider, and it's got more buttons on it.
The first film was more of a dissent. It was Joy at her low point in the memory dump at the very bottom. This film is an expansion of Riley's mind. We've got new emotions to fit onto the screen. It's a journey horizontally out to the very outer reaches of Riley's mind.
KM: It's honestly one of the first decisions that I had to make on the film, which is I'm just beginning, and they're like, "What aspect ratio do you want?" I'm like, oh my gosh, I've barely figured out my story. I have to figure out an aspect ratio to go in? I totally leaned into what Mark is talking about. I'm so glad I did because the console is just so much longer. They expanded it. There are nine emotions, and to fit them all on the screen, I was so glad we made that decision a long time ago. Plus, it just looks awesome.
Why is Ennui French in the film?
MN: It was an idea we had early on. First of all, just on the nose, it is a French word, right? So, there was fun to be had in that. We explored a lot of other emotions and auditioned other emotions to be in the film that didn't end up making the final cut. One of those was Schadenfreude.
KM: That's true. I still think that's a great idea. It should be in something in the future.
MN: We had toyed, right? With someone with a German accent for that role, and it was really funny. So, we thought, what if this person, what if the actress that plays this role speaks French? Part of the appeal in this is these new emotions are coming in, and we're playing them as more complex emotions. They know what Riley needs as a teenager. That's why they're showing up, is because she's become a teenager. They're a little more sophisticated.
And we love that one of them would be even bilingual. Just make Joy and the other emotions feel a little bit more out of place like they're being replaced by more sophisticated, complex versions of themselves.
KM: A lot of this film has to deal with the feeling of comparing yourselves to others. It's a big reason why I wanted to make this movie. Because you end up becoming hard on yourself at this age. We're hardwired. I've learned a lot about what happens to us as teenagers and why we're wired to do what we do.
There's a reason why we push away our family and our caregivers at this time and we embrace our friends. It's about you becoming an independent person who needs to take care of themselves. They need to be able to exist in society on their own independent from their caregivers. It's funny, one of the first drawings I ever did was Friendship Island being gigantic and Family Island being tiny. It's a funny joke because I think you could relate to it because that's certainly what's going on in my house.
I know Mark's house too. A lot of people's houses. There's a scientific reason. It's for that. You have to start to push away your caregivers so that you can care for yourself. A lot of that is making sure that you fit. You need to be able to fit in and survive. That's why we're wired to compare ourselves to others, because we're so concerned about fitting in at this age. You worry that you don't. You become incredibly critical and hard of yourself.
Especially between anxiety and Joy, they're two parents arguing on how to best take care of their child. They're both realizing at the end that they've done it wrong, and that they need to adjust how they parent and love their child. But they're both coming to it from a place of love for their girl. They're both coming for a good place, but they end up doing harm to their daughter. That's embedded in the joke of Ennui. It comes down to that kind of overall theme.
The film also speaks to parents as much as it is to teenagers. You are parents yourselves. Was that always the plan when you started?
MN: If you go back to the first film, Pete Docter, it was based on his observations of his daughter as he saw changes going on in her. So, the protagonist of Joy, who is also the protagonist in this film, really approaches everything, as do the other emotions as a parent and from that perspective. It's almost coming from that perspective more than any other because the primary story is what's going on inside? Even though Riley is a teenager, she's also the set that is through this whole process.
It was important to us to be authentic with Riley and her story, and we did a lot of things and worked with a lot of groups to make sure we were being truthful to what it is to be a teenage girl at this stage of life. But the parental aspect is going to be relatable to a lot of people and connect to this because Joy's love for Riley and Anxiety's love for Riley in this film, are both coming from a very pure, parental place where they are trying to do their very best that they think is what Riley needs.
What the conflict in this movie is that Joy and Anxiety both have very different ideas on how to do that. That conflict flares up when Riley gets some earth-shaking news from her best friends when she's on the way to hockey camp.
"Inside Out 2" will be released in theaters on June 14.
—MGP, GMA Integrated News
