One minute, Academy Award-winning director Pete Docter was sitting on the floor enjoying pretend tea parties with his daughter, Elie. In what seemed like the next minute, she was 11 and expressing sadness for reasons she found hard to articulate. He tried to understand and help the best way he could: He made a movie about it.
"When you're young, it's easy to be happy if you believe everything is possible," he says, sitting next to his producer, Jonas Rivera, on a publicity tour for Inside Out, the animated Pixar-Disney film, at the Ritz Carlton in Dallas. The film opens Friday.
"Then all of a sudden, you realize bullies exist, that life is full of difficulties and nuance and confusion."
Most of Inside Out takes place inside the mind of Riley, where five emotions manage her control panel of feelings. Joy, voiced by perky Amy Poehler, is in charge, trying to keep Riley happy.
Also hard at work are Anger (Lewis Black), who makes Riley speak up when things are unfair; Fear (Bill Hader), who warns Riley of danger; Disgust (Mindy Kaling), who is Riley's guide to avoiding embarrassing choices; and Sadness (Phyllis Smith), the emotion that Joy keeps trying to push out of the way.
Everything goes swimmingly until Riley turns 11 and her family moves from Minneapolis to San Francisco, and Riley has to leave friends, activity and familiarity behind. Joy and her team scramble into crisis management mode.
Docter, who is from Minnesota, is one of the original members of the Disney-Pixar team. He helped develop the script and characters for Toy Story, which launched Pixar to acclaim 20 years ago. He made his directing debut with Monsters, Inc., which was nominated for an Academy Award. He directed Up, which Rivera produced. Up won the Academy Award for animated feature film, and featured his daughter Elie's voice as the young Ellie. Docter also has a son, Nicholas, 19, who is in college.
Docter and Rivera did a lot of brain research and labored over numerous script revisions before settling on the five emotions. At one point, they had more than 20, including Ennui, Pride, Hope and Schadenfreude. Rivera's biggest pang was losing Empathy.
"We were going to use it as a booster, to make the other emotions stronger."
The journey to make the film, which took five years, helped both of them as parents, they say. Rivera, who has three children, ages 3, 7 and 9, says he's learned to check himself when he goes into "Joy" mode.
"My daughter started to cry when our dog died and I tried to cut off the tears, saying, 'It's OK, she's OK, she's going to puppy heaven.' Afterwards, I started thinking, 'Wait. It's OK to be sad about this.'"
As for Docter, one minute father and daughter were dealing with tumultuous pre-adolescent changes. Now Elie is 16 and they're enjoying Inside Out together. She's proud of the movie she inspired and he feels good about what he's learned, he says.
"People want to be happy, but I've learned you don't need to fix everything. You need to listen," Docter says.
"Sometime when there's nothing to say, all you need to do is be with the person you love. By acknowledging loss, sadness can provide a connection that brings closeness and comfort."
