Turning Red, premiering through Disney+ on March 11, tackles the trials and tribulations of becoming a young woman through the eyes of protagonist Meilin Lee. Thirteen-year-old Mei (voiced by rising star Rosalie Chiang) is perfectly content with her life until the day she begins transforming into a giant Red Panda every time her emotions get too strong.
Pixar artist Domee Shi, who was responsible for the Oscar-winning Raya and the Last Dragon) changes.
Shi and Collins spoke to Screen Rant about the inspiration for and research that went into Turning Red, and how they each connect to the characters and time period of the red panda-filed adventure.
Screen Rant: Domee, what first inspired you to tell the story? It feels like such a natural evolution from Bao.
Domee Shi: I felt like I had a lot more to unpack and explore in that mother-child relationship, especially between a mom and a daughter. When I was first asked to pitch three ideas as a feature film, I knew all of them were going to be girl coming-of-age stories. I was really ionate and wanting to make a story to help girls Mei's age and guide them through this tumultuous time in their lives.
I really wanted to dive deeper into that mother-daughter relationship, especially from the point of view of an Asian kid, and really explored that nuance of how she looks up to her mom. She loves her mom; she actually genuinely is her best friend in the beginning of the movie, and they enjoy spending time together. But then she's changing; nature setting in, she's changing, and she's getting all of these new feelings and new interests. She's starting to get into boy bands and hanging out with her friends more, and she doesn't know how to deal with that.
The red panda comes in and just brings her struggle to the surface. I thought that was just a really a juicy topic to explore.
Lindsey, what were the first steps that you needed to do to prepare yourself to take on Turning Red? What research did you do or conversations did you have with Domee about the story?
Lindsey Collins: The first thing that's super important in the process is actually assembling your key creative team, because certainly every story has different challenges. Every director has a different style and different experiences. And I think what we're always trying to do is get a good sense of where the strengths are and where we can really do a good job of ing a director in the process.
First and foremost was [finding] a writer, which is always really hard. It's hard, because it's such a collaborative relationship. You're bringing somebody into a weird Pixar process that is not necessarily intuitive for writers, because we're weird and we do things very differently here. So, finding a great writer to partner with Domee on the script was first and foremost. And then, obviously, finding a great production designer and visual effects supervisor, an editor and head of story - all those people that are responsible for crafting the film in the first year or year and a half of its life. It's a very small team, so that was the first thing in front of us.
And then getting to know Domee. We hadn't worked together before, so we were getting a sense of what her style was. How did she like to work? Does she like big rooms or small rooms? Is she comfortable in front of a group of people talking, or does she like to let other people take the reins? It sounds very mundane, but it is all about assembling a team, because that's the team that's obviously going to carry you through the next four years of making this movie and making sure it's the best version of itself on the screen.
Speaking of teams, Mei doesn't just have her mother on hers, she also has her best friends. They're all iconic in their own right and full of their own idiosyncrasies. How did you balance the traits of each of these girls and give them their own unique experience while growing up in the same time and place?
Domee Shi: I just drew inspiration from a lot of my closest girlfriends growing up. It was important for us to make sure each girl was distinctive - that immediately, if they say one line, you knew exactly who said it.
Every girl represents a friend that I feel like I've had in my life. Miriam's that tomboy-ish, super playful and goofy girl. She's that friend that pulls you out of your comfort zone to start doing more rebellious things. She probably was the one that introduced Mei to 4-Town and just got her the first steps out of her mom's world. Priya represents all of the girls - and myself - who are really into vampires. We all have a goth, vampire monster boyfriend phase in our lives, and we just thought that'd be really fun if she was super deadpan as well. Just to contrast the energy of the other girls.
And for Abby, she's actually a direct inspiration from the voice actress Hyein Park, who's my colleague and fellow Pixar artists. We actually went to college together, and she's always been that friend who's your ride-or-die; she would get angry for you in situations and is your greatest defender. I just always loved how loud her voice is, because we would often go to karaoke together and would belt everything out. So, we thought it'd be fun to have for Mei to have a friend who was that that loud, ride-or-die friend who would get angry for you in any circumstance.
I love all these callbacks to 2002, which I did not realize was such a specific year for me personally until I watched Turning Red. Lindsey, was there any aspect of the setting that made it either easier or more challenging to sort of help when it came to crafting this story?
Lindsey Collins: Yeah, I think I was having my first kid in 2002 or early 2003. So, I was like, "Oh, right. I vaguely that timeframe." It made it, in a weird way, such a great way to ground this story. It's just another way to ground it, to put it in this very specific time and place.
I think it's really great when you're able to do that. When there's magic involved or mythology involved, you have this flip side of a very real grounded moment in space and time. And it helps make the story feel more real. You're like, "Oh, this is in Toronto." All of those little things that are specific to that timeframe make anybody who's lived through it be like, "Oh, right!" I do think that there's something to that. It's really great, when you have a story that's maybe a little more fantastical, to be able to counterbalance that with a very tangible time and place.
Probably 70% of our crew was at least somewhere around the sweet spot [of the right] age at that time. They all were like, "Oh, yeah!" about the outfits and the bracelets and the backpacks and the buttons and stickers and stuff like that. It was like everybody was instantly able to throw in about eight things that were very specific to use.
