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What was the initial idea for the character? Who was Anxiety?<\/strong><\/p>\nKELSEY MANN, director<\/strong> Initially, she was a shape-shifter. She was going to be this person who was lying about who she was. I wanted somebody that was almost made of clay. Kind of a monster character, almost like a lizard. But we eventually got rid of that twist because it made the movie really complicated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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DEANNA MARSIGLIESE, character designer<\/strong> By the time she came to me, other ideas had already been tried, but they weren\u2019t working in the story. They were a little bit more sinister, more antagonistic. I thought maybe we could try to soften the character, see if we could do something a little more approachable. I did about a dozen-and-a-half, maybe two dozen thumbnails \u2014 very tiny sketches. After a few days, I chose 10 and put them in front of Kelsey. He chose the first one I\u2019d ever done.<\/p>\nMANN<\/strong> They were just fun. You don\u2019t want the audience to root for the antagonist, but you do want them to enjoy when they\u2019re onscreen. Whenever the earlier version of the character showed up, I just didn\u2019t like watching it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Where did you look for inspiration?<\/strong><\/p>\nMANN<\/strong> Deanna had a really great idea to link her a little to Fear, because they are kind of distant cousins.<\/p>\nMARSIGLIESE <\/strong>Every time I looked up a definition for anxiety, it always started with \u201cA fear of.\u201d \u201cAnxiety is a fear of what may happen.\u201d So I started to think, \u201cOK, Fear and Anxiety are different, but clearly they\u2019re related,\u201d so I designed her with that in mind.<\/p>\nMANN<\/strong> The more research we did, the more we realized that Anxiety is really there to help and protect us, which encouraged us to lean into a more fun design. Jason Deamer, the production designer, pointed out that the male emotions seemed to be more stylized. Anger is a square and Fear is this kind of raw nerve. I remember him saying it\u2019d be really great if we could do that for a female character.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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MARSIGLIESE<\/strong> Anxiety and Fear share those really expressive, hypervigilant eyes. That was tent pole No. 1. But where Fear is really vertical in design, I decided that for contrast, Anxiety would be more horizontal. That\u2019s where we got that really broad mouth.<\/p>\nMANN<\/strong> I remember one of the animators doing some birdlike references for the fast little movements of her eyes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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EVAN BONIFACIO, animation supervisor<\/strong> The concept was that somebody who was anxious would be constantly scanning the room trying to look for problems and plan for the future.<\/p>\nMARSIGLIESE <\/strong>To me, it\u2019s almost like a kettle. There\u2019s this simmering, constant nervous energy just below the surface that very gradually builds. And like the steam in a kettle, it\u2019s going to need avenues for release.<\/p>\nMANN<\/strong> She\u2019s the opposite of Ennui. Where Ennui is like, \u201cI barely need to move unless I have to,\u201d Anxiety is just constantly moving. We always said she\u2019s got restless leg syndrome.<\/p>\nBONIFACIO<\/strong> The animators did a lot of explorations of how she would move in the environment that ended up influencing the story. Her apologetic nature is an example \u2014 the idea that she\u2019s touching the console and taking over headquarters but she\u2019s sorry but she can\u2019t help herself.<\/p>\nWhat other physical traits did you use to express her personality?<\/strong><\/p>\nMARSIGLIESE <\/strong>I chose a lot of features that would support nervous tics and habits, her clothing being one of them.<\/p>\nMANN<\/strong> I remember somebody had the great idea that she\u2019s going to have a really itchy sweater. If you look at Sadness, the sweater, it\u2019s very warm. It\u2019s very cozy. It feels like it\u2019s cashmere. But Anxiety, she has this itchy wool that kind of added to her anxiousness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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MARSIGLIESE<\/strong> She\u2019s got the high collar, which I imagine she\u2019d be tugging on a lot. It\u2019s a little suffocating. She\u2019s got stretched-out sleeves, which is her doing. She\u2019s got her pants hiked up, which isn\u2019t the most comfortable. And her boots are just a little too tight. Everything is built to aggravate her just a little bit.<\/p>\nMANN <\/strong>Her hair was a big part of the character, too. It\u2019s wild even when she\u2019s trying to present herself as together, like she\u2019s trying to tame the chaos. The simulation department, who does hair and cloth, added a lot.<\/p>\nMARSIGLIESE<\/strong> I used the top of a carrot as a reference. The way the leafy bits exit the carrot top really stiff and strong but then get flimsy and light toward the tips. I wanted it to be a conduit for all her trembling and twitching.<\/p>\nBONIFACIO<\/strong> The hair itself had a bunch of poses, probably five to eight: Stiff and straight up, a more relaxed groom, a softer groom, a wiry groom. If Anxiety screamed in the script, the animators could say, \u201cGo from a soft groom to a stiff, more upright groom at this exact second.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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What was the hardest part of the character to animate?<\/strong><\/p>\nBONIFACIO<\/strong> The mouth. Building the rig \u2014 the thing that\u2019s underneath the skin of the character that allows the animators to pose out the arms, the head and the face.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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MARSIGLIESE <\/strong>The teeth were a big thing. They were meant to rattle and move around the mouth. It\u2019s unsettling. A lot of my choices were about asymmetry: being off-center, off-kilter. She was put together in a way to make you be like, \u201cAre you OK? Are you going to fall apart? Can you stand up<\/em>?\u201d I really wanted her to make the other emotions and the audience feel a little bit nervous by proxy.<\/p>\nDOVI ANDERSON, animation supervisor<\/strong> We were curious what it was going to look like when the character was talking. Are the teeth going to be moving too much? How can we make it so it\u2019s not too hard to follow the dialogue?<\/p>\nBONIFACIO<\/strong> If you look at the drawings, there\u2019s no denture. There\u2019s no jawbone. It\u2019s just this sort of big, open shape. We had to figure out a way to give her a wide range of expressions but still have the teeth anchored to something.<\/p>\nANDERSON<\/strong> A standard mouth rig has like 300 controls. For Anxiety, we probably had 1,000.<\/p>\nBONIFACIO<\/strong> There were two full sets of controls for the mouth, and each tooth could be controlled individually if needed.<\/p>\nANDERSON<\/strong> Even though she had a very challenging design, the fundamentals of animating her were the same as anyone else. The animators are performers \u2014 it\u2019s their job to figure out what the performance is going to be. What am I? What is the subtext? What\u2019s going on inside the character\u2019s head? How do I communicate that to the audience?<\/em> Many would go into an acting room, turn on a camera and act the scene out with their own human anatomy and limitations. Then the question is, \u201cHow do I translate that into this design?\u201d<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s your favorite Anxiety scene?<\/strong><\/p>\nMANN<\/strong> There\u2019s a scene where Riley experiences a panic attack at the end of the film. I wanted Anxiety to come in and take over the console and drive too hard on Riley.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n