Don't panic, but everything you thought you knew about Inside Out is about to be turned upside down. Even before its June 19 release, the Disney•Pixar movie received rave reviews. It went on to earn $792 million worldwide and inspired audiences to be more in touch with their feelings. To celebrate the movie's release on Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere Oct. 13 and on Blu-ray Combo Pack Nov. 3, E! News was given an exclusive behind the scenes look at its creation.
Amy Poehler, who voices Joy, was brought in early on to work on the script. "She's got such a great writer mind. We decided, 'Let's go to New York,' so we did. The first day was just a group of us and Amy in a room rewriting the whole story. So, we pitched every sequence and then she would say, 'Well, what if she did this? Here's some alts to this line. Here's da-da-da-da-da," director Pete Docter says in a featurette. "So, we rewrote the entire script that night—we stayed up late—and the second day we recorded the whole movie, from beginning to end. I wanted to get a sense of the whole film as a piece and the character. That was probably the most pivotal day on the show, really. Amy really made that whole thing turn."
According to Docter and producer Jonas Rivera, Inside Out went through much iteration. In the final version, five emotions are based in headquarters, the control center inside 11-year-old Riley Anderson's mind. Joy finds the fun, Fear (Bill Hader) heads up safety, Anger (Lewis Black) ensures all is fair, Disgust (Mindy Kaling) prevents Riley from physical and social harm, and Sadness (Phyllis Smith)—well, Sadness isn't too sure what her role is, and neither is anyone else. Joy is Riley's guiding emotion, but after her parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) move the family from Minnesota to San Francisco, it's Sadness who takes control. So begins the journey of Joy and Sadness, who must learn to work together in order to retrieve Riley's core memories—the things that make Riley, Riley—and return to headquarters before it's too late.
Originally, Docter and Rivera had intended to pair Joy with Fear before Sadness won them over. "Joy is certainly something we seek after and desire, but it's not always in reality what we get. I think it feels truthful to people, which is what we were reaching for," Docter tells E! News. "Unlike a fairy tale where it all wraps up in a nice happy ending, you deal with the reality of loss and disappointment. That's where sadness really comes in."
In the pre-production phase, the Disney•Pixar team consulted a psychologist, who Rivera says talked to them about "the need for sadness, and that it's actually really helpful." According to the producer, the idea of joy complimenting sadness "felt kind of universal, and that was really inspiring to us. We thought that was a worthy thing to try to tackle or dramatize in some way."
"It was only afterwards in interviews that I actually heard that Fear was originally paired with Joy," Smith tells E! News. "You know, I just went in and did my job as Sadness and was not really aware of things like that. After the fact, I was glad they made that change and that decision! But I think it was meant to be that I didn't know about it when I was actually working on it. I think it would have put an extra pressure on me." In hindsight, Rivera says, "We spent years and years just trying to make something funny and work and entertaining and make sense, but as we started digging into it, it seemed like, 'Maybe this is a deeper well than we realized.' Now that it's come out and people have responded to it, it's been really rewarding."
In addition to Sadness, another character was given a more prominent role than originally intended: Bing Bong, Riley's long-lost imaginary friend. Voiced by Richard Kind, Docter says he "was picked out of the chorus line, as it were. We had a whole bunch of characters that were down—they were almost like hobos or something. They were characters that Riley dreamed up when she was little that hadn't shown up in her life for a long time. They were down in the tunnels of the train of thought, riding the rails. So, we had Ms. Scribbles, who was kind of a stick figure—literally a crayon drawing—that would walk around." Rivera reveals that another character was inspired by "how kids always draw a sun in the corner of a page that's smiling."
"Bing Bong sort of survived it and he became a pretty fun character," Docter recalls.
Perhaps more importantly, Rivera says, "The film is about the passing of childhood joy and he represents that. We thought of him like an out of work actor who's desperate to get back in and back on stage and have his comeback—sort of a perceived knowledge. He was fun to write for."
Smith certainly agrees. "I love the line that Bing Bong says when he realizes they've tried and they've tried to get the rocket wagon up, and they fail, and he says, 'Oh, I've got a really good feeling about this one.' That line just tears my heart out. You just see a hint of his revelation of what he's going to do, and Joy's so oblivious to that because she's trying so hard to get this accomplished, and when you hear that line…Richard delivers that entire character just so beautifully with so much heart. I think he's brilliant in it," the actress says, adding, "I just think that his performance in this movie—like so many other characters—it had so many levels to it."
One sequence that was cut from the movie involved a stream of consciousness, "which was almost like a river rafting adventure," Docter tells E! News. "They were trying in that version to get to the subconscious. They made a raft and they floated down the stream of consciousness."
"There was also the one that we ended up cutting because it was too close to abstract thought, but it was music—kind of a music cognition area where you made sense out of songs," Docter explains of another excised sequence. "So, it was Joy, and I think it was Bing Bong at that point. They went into this place and they spoke, and the voice of Bing Bong became a trombone, and Joy spoke as a violin. Every time they would speak they'd make these weird shapes in the air."
"It was like something out of Fantasia," Rivera says. "I loved that idea that there are places that are about knowledge. If an animal hears tone, it's just scales, but when we hear it, we've learned what music is. We thought, 'What if we could make it a real place?' But then, to Pete's point, it sort of stepped on the train of abstract thought, which we thought was actually better and pretty cool."
For Smith, being involved with Inside Out was a dream come true.
"I'll tell you, it's pretty great," says the actress, who had never done voiceover work before. "We were at the Cannes Film Festival and we had just completed one of the press conferences. [Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios] John Lasseter came up to me and he thanked me for being in the film, and I thanked him. 'This is a pretty life changing experience for me.' He said, 'Phyllis, you know that from now on you will forever be known as Sadness. Welcome to the Pixar family.' I said, 'Thank you very much. I'm very happy to be sad!'"
Docter is equally proud to be part of the family film. "People feel vulnerable. They feel like it's a sign of weakness to show anything other than control in their lives. But, man, we've had a couple people...One that stands out, this woman wrote me and said her daughter had actually attempted suicide, and only after seeing the film had she agreed to seeking help and counseling. Oh my gosh, that's more than we would have ever dreamed of, that this film would allow sort of conversations like that to take place," he says. "Also, on an even wider level, I think we've heard from a number of people with autistic kids who have had difficulty talking about what emotions are and talking to each other, but this film really opened up a line of discussion for them. We've heard that from quite a number of people."
Given the film's success, is a sequel a possibility? "There's so much other stuff going on right now at the studio that we have not had that discussion. Our rule of thumb at Pixar always is if we come up with a great concept that really is begging to be pursued, we will go after it," Docter tells E! News. "I know for me, and Jonas feels this way too, that we're really intrigued by trying new things and going to new places, and we're hoping to do that again on another one."
Inside Out is available on Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere Oct. 13.
The Disney•Pixar movie is available on Blu-ray Combo Pack Nov. 3.