‘Inside Out 2’ filmmakers incorporated feedback from teen girls to ‘keep the story authentic’

Forget the parents. When it comes to better understanding teenagers and their emotions, Inside Out 2 director Kelsey Mann and producer Mark Nielsen went straight to the source – the teens themselves.

“We knew from the beginning that we wanted to surround ourselves with people who would help us keep the story authentic,” Nielsen told Yahoo Entertainment of the highly anticipated sequel, which opens in theaters on June 14. Girls, if you haven’t noticed, we think it would be very important and useful.”

So, in January 2020, the Disney Pixar team contacted a group of nine teenagers who became informally known as “Riley’s Crew”, named after the film’s main character.

Inside Out 2 follows the original 2015 film about Riley and her spirited team of emotions. This time, Riley is a teenager who’s trying to balance old and new friends while navigating a competitive ice hockey camp – all while feeling all the feels.

The five core emotions are still “at Headquarters” – Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale, replacing Bill Hader) and Disgust (Liza Lapira, replacing Mindy Kaling) – but new puberty-focused emotions, led by Anxiety (Maya Hawke), entered the chat. They also include Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and Boredom (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Nostalgia (June Squibb) also appears a little.

Mann and Nielsen screened updated versions of the film with the teens every four months for the next three years, and the girls in turn gave their feedback.

“We always asked similar questions,” said Mann, who is making his animated feature directorial debut. “What resonated with you? What did not happen? What happened to you? And what did you find confusing?

The goal, Nielsen said, was to keep the story “believable and true to someone that age.”

What resonated with Madwoa Hutchful, 15, of Oakland, California, was the dynamic of the friendship, she said SFGate.

“Making friends, keeping friends and having best friends can be really challenging, especially growing up,” Hutchful told the Bay Area channel. “And feeling like you have to put on a show so people think you’re cool and stuff, and not show your weaker side. This is well portrayed.”

‘You’re worried about what other people think of you’

In addition to consulting with “Riley’s Crew,” Mann and Nielsen consulted experts on emotions, including a UC Berkeley psychology professor. Dacher Keltner (who fulfilled this role in the original film) and clinical psychologist Lisa Damour.

When Keltner was asked what emotions were strong right now, Mann said he told them, “It’s all self-conscious emotions.”

“This age is the time when you start comparing yourself to others, and you start looking at yourself and worrying about what other people think of you,” Mann added. “And so those are the emotions that we end up leaning into.”

Enter anxiety – an emotion that takes over the cultural conversation around teenagers, and specifically teenage girls. But that is not all.

“We got into the pandemic and everything got worse,” Mann said. “AND [anxiety] it increased not only among teenagers, but also among everyone, including adults.”

For a film that parents would watch with their children, this connection made sense to the team.

What also made sense for Mann and Nielsen was casting Hawke in the role of the frenzied, shaggy-haired orange emotion, who enters the headquarters with literal baggage and essentially takes control.

After a Zoom call Mann had with Hawke in a backstage office behind the Mexico Pavilion at Disney World, where he was vacationing with his family, he knew he had found their anxiety.

“From that first audition, I remember hanging up that call,” Mann said, “and we were like, ‘Oh my God, she’s wonderful. We find our anxiety. She is perfect.'”

What emotion is Mann feeling?

With strong reviews and big box office predictions ahead of opening day, there’s a lot of anticipation for a film – a sequel no less – that Mann said is the end of a four-year long journey.

“That’s where it all started, [which] I was looking at what I felt at that age,” he said. “I really could have enjoyed a movie like this when I was a teenager.”

So what are the director’s emotions before Inside Out 2Is it opening day? Anxiety? To fear? Maybe even a little nostalgia?

“I worked with a wonderful team who poured their hearts into this film, and now we have a finished film that we are incredibly proud of,” he said. “I can’t help but feel like Joy is on my console.”

Inside Out 2 will be in theaters on June 14th.