“Topsy-turvy 2”: a French-speaking character for the new Pixar!

The promise of the end of the first upside down is held… because Riley, dubbed here by Ludivine Reding, is now a teenager whose new emotions jostle at the gate to the delight of young and old alike.

ANAHEIM – Almost 40 km from Los Angeles is the city of Anaheim, known for being the place where Walt Disney decided to build Disneyland, his first amusement park, which opened in 1955. First employer of the city with its nearly 20,000 employees, Disneyland, is also Pixar. Because it is also at Disneyland that the Pixar Fest has been held since 2018, a celebration of all that is Pixar with parades and other events, and it is therefore there that the company created as a division of Lucasfilm and then became the property of Steve Jobs before being purchased by Disney Studios in 2006 received journalists to present Upside Down 2 and the continuation of the adventures of young Riley.

In 2015, upside down ended with the promise that the little girl would enter adolescence. And it is indeed the case, the panic button (and the alarm that goes with it) of puberty starts flashing furiously. Riley’s old emotions (voice of Ludivine Reding), Joy (voice of Charlotte Le Bon), Sadness (voice of Sonia Vachon), Fear (voice of Xavier Dolan), Anger (voice of Réal Bossé) and Disgust (voice of Edith Cochrane), are quickly overwhelmed by the tsunami created by Anxiety (voice of Laurianne S. Thibodeau), Envy (voice of Emma Bao Linh) and Ennui (voice of Adèle Exarchopoulos).

Because Riley finds himself at a hockey camp for three days at the suggestion of the team coach (voice of Florence Blain Mbaye). There she meets Valentina (voice of Léa Roy), another teenager, whose friend she hopes to become…

Anxiety, the number 1 emotion…

“I wanted to follow what we did in the first part where we took three women and two men to dub the voices of Riley’s emotions,” says director Kelsey Mann during an interview with the QMI Agency. Anxiety was a woman from the start of the project without it being a conscious decision on our part.”

“We wanted to hear Anxiety in Riley’s head while having the impression that it was about her,” explains Mark Nielsen, the producer of the animated feature film. We want her to tell herself that she wasn’t good enough and for that little voice to come from her.”

In the original version, the voice of Anxiety, the dominant emotion of this sequel, is provided by Maya Hawke, daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, who at 25 is not yet a star recognizable by her voice alone. But that’s not why Kelsey Mann chose her. Each finishing each other’s sentences, the tandem explains their approach.

“One of Maya Hawke’s great qualities is that she speaks very quickly! We asked ourselves the question of who Anxiety was, what kind of character she was. Anxiety is this fear of unknown danger. She is always in fight-flight response because she sees risks everywhere. She thinks very quickly, she can think of five things at the same time. When we conducted the hearings, we noticed that anxious people not only talk quickly, but spend their time making lists of everything that could go wrong.”

“Maya does all that. But that’s not its only quality. Maya can also infuse empathy and love into her voice. Anxiety is there to protect us, even if it sometimes goes too far.”

Boredom, a French-speaking feeling?

One of the most interesting new characters in this Upside Down 2 is undeniably Ennui, dubbed in the original version and in French by Adèle Exarchopoulos, revealed in The Life of Adele by Abdellatif Kechiche and which won him the Palme d’Or. Rare enough to be noted, the actress speaks many lines in French… in the original English version. Boredom at Pixar, it’s the blah adolescent, this attitude of tired indifference, very often irritating for parents.

“We wanted a real French actress to play Ennui. During the first recording session, Adèle directly asked us if we wanted a real French voice or a French voice as the Americans imagine it! the two men say, laughing. All these new emotions are much more complex and Ennui is very sophisticated. Having a bilingual character was an interesting addition.”

“Adèle’s voice has a very interesting quality, as if gravity is pulling it down. She also has a relatively deep voice, which serves the purpose and illustrates the fact that she does not want to get up from the sofa, that she does not want to move.

“We did the auditions blind, without knowing who was saying the lines and we then chose the voice that best suited the physique of the animated character,” emphasize the director and producer. Looking at interviews she had given, we realized that she is a very funny person and that really appealed to us. Because, beyond the character, the film must be amusing.”

A group of teenage girls for three years…

Upside Down 2 was designed and produced in such a way that teenagers can find themselves there. In fact, the production worked with a group of young girls who gave their comments regularly.

“Every four months we showed them a version of the film and they were a wonderful sounding board. We asked them if they recognized themselves in the characters, what was missing, what they liked, what they didn’t like. They allowed us to ensure that we managed to put into words and images what we wanted the audience to take away from the film. They really helped us a lot. None of us were 13-year-olds, and this group, which we called Team Riley, ensured the authenticity of the emotions depicted,” emphasize Kelsey Mann and Mark Nielsen.

“They also warmly applauded our choice of Maya Hawke. One of the participants asked us if it was Maya’s voice and she was so happy when we told her it was.”

An industry that is changing

The first upside down hit the screens nine years ago… an eternity in the film industry. Since then, in addition to the pandemic and its dramatic economic effects on the industry, Pixar has just made a series of layoffs. Is the seventh art in danger?

“We’ve been through a lot,” agrees Mark Nielsen. We want to continue making good films and that has always been our goal. We also want to be able to reach not only adolescents and children, but the whole family. There are very few films that I can say are for everyone, everything is so focused on certain target audiences.”

Upside Down 2 will make movie-loving families laugh from June 14.