[Editor's Note: The following interview contains spoilers to the film "Toy Story 5".]
As a child, Kenna Harris spent hours drawing and re-drawing the scene from Toy Story 2, one of her favorite cartoons, where Jessie sits on the windowsill and tells Woody about her traumatic experiences with her first owner, Emily. Harris's passion for art eventually led her to a career in animation and to the Pixar team, where she directed the short Luca spinoff Ciao Alberto and served as story supervisor on Inside Out 2.
At Pixar's Braintrust meetings, where the studio's creative team brainstorms ideas for future projects, Harris met Andrew Stanton, who presented them with an early draft of the Toy Story 5 script and made what they initially thought was a joke: that he co-direct a film that would expand on the backstory of Jessie that had so captivated them as children.
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«"Toy Story 2 was a really important movie for me. I remember seeing it in the theater. I was so impressed by the quality of it. I thought, 'Wait a minute, movies can be good. This one is really good,'" Harris told IndieWire. "It's so surreal to be a part of a franchise like that, but at the same time, I never felt any pressure because when you grow up with the characters, you get to know them really well, so I was like, 'Oh yeah, these are my friends, and I'll just write a movie about them, no problem.'".
Harris agreed to co-direct, but also asked Stanton if they could contribute to the film's scriptwriting process. The final installment shifts the focus from the relationship between Woody and Buzz to Jessie, telling a story about the increasing role of technology in children's development. Stanton agreed to test Harris, and they soon hit it off as creative partners—Harris calls the director "my best friend and the big brother I never had"—leading to Harris landing his first feature-length screenwriting credit.
«"It turns out Andrew Stanton and I have this weird psychic connection where we can read each other's minds," Harris said. "We were originally paired together, and people were saying, 'It's good that Kenna is with Andrew because he'll bring wisdom and experience, and Kenna will bring a fresh perspective.' And there were certain moments there, but at the same time, Andrew and I immediately connected on what we loved, what we loved as kids, how we played, and what we instinctively wanted to explore dramatically in the film.".
Ahead of the film's release, IndieWire spoke with Harris about the three-year process of bringing the Toy Story franchise back to theaters, what went on behind the scenes, and why there should be more kissing in Pixar films.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.
IndieWire: When you're making a sequel to a beloved franchise like Toy Story, how do you think about making it fresh and new?
Kenna Harris: A lot of it was a playful process with Andrew and our writing team, which is roughly evenly split between people who've been involved with almost every Toy Story film and younger people like me, or even younger, who grew up with these characters. Nostalgia comes naturally. A lot of things are in the DNA of Toy Story, and it doesn't take much effort, but at the same time, how do you keep it fresh? A lot of it came from us, longtime fans of the show, who made a wish list for Andrew: "What if this happened? What if Woody had a bald head, and we made fun of him mercilessly?"«
So, was it your idea for Woody to go bald?
No, I was responsible for most of the Buzz and Jessie romance. But it was our head writer, Steph Waldo, who, during that infamous brainstorming session, drew all those sketches of Woody with a bald head and a little belly. There were other ideas that didn't make it into the movie. We wanted him to be sun-bleached from all the time he spent with the Lost Toys. But during that collaboration… we all thought, "Okay, yeah, Woody's going to be in this movie, we love him and respect him, but what if we give him a good beating?"«
You mentioned Buzz and Jessie's romance. Did you come up with the toy weddings that frame the film?
The idea for the toy wedding started with a pitch from [the story department] that was just for Forky and Karen Beverly's wedding, the first wedding in the film, as a way to showcase Bonnie's games. The next wedding, the climactic one, came from a very vague idea. Early on, on my personal wish list when I came to work on the film with Andrew, I said to him, "I don't know what it is, I don't know what makes me feel this way, but Jessie and Buzz have to kiss. It has to be something huge. I think it'll be part of, I don't know how, the climactic action scene." He agreed, and from there we came up with the idea of ending the film with another wedding between Jessie and Buzz, to celebrate not only Buzz and Jessie but also the newfound friendship between Blaze and Bonnie. But I've always been a big proponent of kisses in almost every Pixar film we make.
The toy wedding scenes and moments where we glimpse into children's imaginations are done in softer, pastel colors. This is a stark departure from what I consider Pixar's signature style. How did you visually create these moments?
From the very beginning, we had the goal of making Bonnie's play experience different from Andy's, and that naturally informed the visuals. We're obviously very literal in illustrating her imagination. It feels artistic and crafty, just like Bonnie herself, but at the same time, it creates a sense of imagination, as opposed to the traditional cinematic style that permeates Andy's imagination. In previous films, Andy played with his toys in an almost Spielbergian style; there's a clear thread running through it, whereas Bonnie is much more chaotic and a bit like a mischievous girl. We had to work hard because photorealistic things are much easier for Pixar. You might think it's a bigger challenge, but as they say, Pixar can make things look like they do in real life in their sleep. We had to assemble a dedicated team to pull this off, to create the necessary tools for these specific scenes. We were chasing something fleeting and ephemeral, so as soon as you move the camera, everything can disappear and change in the blink of an eye. You really play with the rules quite freely, and we had to significantly reduce the attention to detail. Everything has this hand-drawn pastel hue, all these details make it feel as if she designed most of the sets herself.
The main twist in the film is that Woody and Buzz fade into the background, and Jessie becomes the main character, returning to her backstory, which we heard about in Toy Story 2. How did you come up with the idea for ending this storyline?
The biggest change in our vision for Jessie's story over the past three years was actually her story. On the one hand, we had to really dive deep into her character and try to ask ourselves, "What would it take for me to be in her shoes, to feel this burden and this guilt from being rejected by someone I loved in the past?" But another big thing that opened our path was discovering a central theme—the idea that even in the shortest amount of time, you can influence someone or create a relationship that changes everything, and you might not even realize you've given that gift to them. That's when we started thinking, "Okay, what does Jessie need that would reflect that message?" In the last year of filming, we landed on the scene by the tree where she finds out Emily named her daughter Jessie. That felt satisfying to us, like it represented the entire movie, not just Jessie fan fiction. It was something that could hold the entire Toy Story film together.
I'm surprised it took until the last year of production to develop this scene. What replaced it?
Essentially, there were different versions. When we were filming Toy Story 5, in particular, we had about seven or eight screenings—that is, we showed the film to audiences seven or eight times, all to get feedback. Each time, we tried different ways to develop Jessie's storyline, and overall, it all came down to resolving the conflict between Emily and Jesse, but the specific details emerged later in the process.
The film's biggest plot twist is the subplot about the Buzz hordes, which intersects with the main story only in the third act. How did this plotline develop, and why does it resonate with the film's themes?
In the first draft of the script, there were 50 Buzzes, and frankly, it took me a while to believe that. Andrew kept saying, "No, they're definitely going to be in the movie," and I was like, "Really? Are we sure about that, Mr. Stanton?" Once we started really digging into Jesse and these technology-related themes we're talking about, with the balance between simple toys and high-tech, it became increasingly clear what the Buzzes should represent.
My doubts were allayed when I started watching clips of these scenes with Buzz, because Andrew always had a very clear vision for these scenes, and they're prime examples of visual storytelling. They're breaks in the film where you can watch these characters with a very simple goal, and you see them striving towards that goal in a funny way. You're not burdened, as is typical in many of our films, with the need for constant conversation or context. From a cinematographic standpoint, it's really nice to have that as a refreshing moment throughout the film, and then there's Multi-Buzz—that's what we always called them on the crew, Multi-Buzz—ultimately a way for Buzz to express himself as Jessie's sidekick and to embody the reverence we have for Jessie. I'm glad we figured out how to do that, because at the first screening, I was like, "I have no idea how this is going to work.".
You mentioned the themes of high technology versus simple toys. How often did the team discuss the role of technology in children's lives while working on the film?
Early on in the film's development, it became very clear that we all—filmmakers, young people, and parents alike—have very strong feelings about technology. Many people instinctively thought, "Couldn't we just make Lilypad the villain, make her evil, and wouldn't it be great to just throw her into a burning trash heap at the end, and all our problems would be solved?" There were a lot of problems with that. It didn't sound very exciting or very fun—a movie about "devices are bad." It also didn't reflect the honest truth about our lives now, which is that we're attached to our devices, there's no escape from that, and they're a very important part of children's lives. Overuse of technology can have consequences, but it's through devices that children connect with each other, learn, and play. It was that connection aspect that really unlocked the rest of the film for us. That's when we started thinking, "Do you know what toys and imagination do?" It connects us to our human desire to be curious and playful. It connects us with other people in a truly authentic way. And in that same spirit, we simply wanted to show the nuances of how communication happens through devices.
At the beginning of the film, when the audience sees things from Jesse's perspective, they genuinely hate Lily and view her as a villain. But over time, we gain a more nuanced understanding of her. How did you develop her arc in the film, where she evolves from an antagonist to a champion of the toys?
It all started with the question, "What does Lily want?" Right off the bat, we assume she wants to do right by Bonnie, she wants to raise her child right. She approaches this from a technological standpoint. She has data that shows her what to do in different situations for Bonnie. She knows that her purpose is to help Bonnie connect with her friends, and that's obviously what she needs if she's lonely. And Lily can do that in seconds, she's superior to the toys in every way, and all she really lacks is experience, which Jesse and the toys have in spades. The only thing she lacks is time with Bonnie, time to understand her child and how her child might be different from all the other children in the dataset.
Casting Greta Lee as Lilypad in the film was incredibly important because, as a writer, when you're writing characters who are a bit of a control freak, you ask yourself, "How do I make her interesting, but also how do I make her relatable and heartfelt?" And Greta was perfect. She brilliantly played a character who I think is really like a robotic opportunist, with this precise pacing that feels a bit binary and programmed. But she's also, I thought from the first recording, funny. She's very naturally funny, and she was also thrilled to be able to immerse herself in this character because she, too, has young children who are learning about life through gadgets. I think casting her in this role really brought out the full spectrum of Lilypad's appeal in the film.
Do you have a favorite moment or character that was cut from the film at some point during production?
We had a cut Tamagotchi character who was supposed to be part of a group of legacy gadgets, along with Smarty Pants, Atlas, and Snappy. For a few practical business reasons—we decided the deal probably wouldn't go through—we had to remove him. But there's a version of Blaze and Jessie's game where Smarty is the unexpected villain in her spy story and kidnaps the Tamagotchi, which in that game was a baby. So we had Conan O'Brien record this crazy line with a ridiculous accent: "I'm going to do something really bad to this baby." We had it all recorded and ready, and then finally, after watching it, we realized we needed to redo the games section. That's something I regret. It would have been so great to keep that.
Toy Story 5 is now in theaters.