Pixars Luca Interview Enrico Casarosa And Andrea Warren

Pixar’s Luca Interview: Enrico Casarosa And Andrea Warren

Director and producer of Pixar’s Luca chat about the movie, its release on Disney+, and the themes of childhood, finding friends, and ourselves.

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Pixars Luca Interview Enrico Casarosa And Andrea Warren

Following on from Soul in 2020, Pixar’s Luca, directed by Enrico Casarosa, tells the story of two boys (who are also sea monsters) having the time of their lives one summer in a small town called Portorosso on the Italian Riviera. Drawing extensively from Casarosa’s own childhood, the film tackles the themes of loneliness, finding yourself, and the power of friendship to transform us.

The two boys, Luca (Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), explore their surroundings both underwater and out of it, and meet Giulia (Emma Berman), an oddball girl who lives in Portorosso. They have an incredible Italian summer, trying new things and meeting new people, and getting into some mischief.

Luca director Enrico Casarosa previously directed the Academy Award-nominated short film La Luna, and has worked in the art department at Pixar since 2002, including on Coco, Ratatouille, and Up. Producer Andrea Warren joined Pixar in 1998, and worked as a digital painter on Finding Nemo and as production manager on WALL-E and Brave before producing the short film LAVA. Casarosa and Warren spoke to Screen Rant about creating Luca, the power of coming-of-age stories, and the way they want to encourage young people to see that it’s okay to be themselves.

Luca features a lot of characters who are outsiders, either by birth or by choice – what drove you to tell a story of outsiders, and people who are different?

Enrico Casarosa: I think my best friend and I always felt a little nerdy. I remember going through high school in Italy. You have a certain amount of classes and we were the last class. They go A, B, C, D, and we were L and everybody made fun of L because we were known to be the losers because we had a lot of misfits and nerdy kids. And we always felt a little bit that way, we were slightly goofy, we were a little behind, a little more kid-like. We maybe were not very popular.

So when I started thinking about being a sea monster and having something to hide it felt very connected to that time. I also felt like, before I met my best friend, there was just a little bit of loneliness. So not only did we want to make three kids who are feeling different, but also they were lonely and there was a hole in their lives. Giulia is odd, but she’s also unapologetically herself, which is something that I love that she can teach Luca. She has vulnerability but she’s in their face. Underneath she’s lonely and she’s been really struggling with a bully. So I did love out of those three this loneliness and feeling different.

Pixars Luca Interview Enrico Casarosa And Andrea Warren

After Luca’s first trailer dropped, there was some buzz that it might be a queer story – you’ve since confirmed that it’s not intended to be. Do you think that all sorts of minorities, including queer kids, could see parallels in the story of Luca despite it not being romantic? Was that your intention?

Enrico Casarosa: We thought a lot about having to “show your sea monster” as embracing your own difference, and as a metaphor for anything. We like the idea that it’s very open. We had a lot of discussions about it. We love that the idea that isn’t too specific, but it’s hopefully universal, because you can apply your own prism. I came from a place of having a great friend and us feeling [like] nerds, in our own small way. I hope everybody can apply their own prism to it.

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Andrea Warren: I love that part of the film early on when Giulia says, “Is that too much?” You know, “Am I too much?” And that kind of carries a little bit through the film. That’s the beautiful other part of this. When you do find those friends that you connect with, their “too much,” isn’t too much for you and your “too much”, isn’t too much for them, you know? It’s part of that self-acceptance, and that idea that you can find those friends where you can just be yourself, and how great that is.

Enrico Casarosa: They can see you. So [it’s] finding your tribe. Something like, “Yeah, I’m okay, you can be that kind of thing. You don’t have to code switch here, you don’t have to hide yourself.” Because there’s something about seeing each other in friendship. We were quite aware that we wanted to talk about that time in life before boyfriends and girlfriends. So there’s an innocence and a focus on the friendship side. I feel like the story would be a little different in that it’s slightly more complicated when romance comes in.

Pixars Luca Interview Enrico Casarosa And Andrea Warren

You’ve both worked on several coming-of-age stories. What draws you to those projects and what does Luca do differently?

Enrico Casarosa: I felt this with La Luna when I started making it that, you know, as a medium, there is nothing more meaningful than to inspire emotion in [kids], or to make a kid laugh, and give something to our kids. Also, my daughter is 13, so in the last 13 years I’ve been trying to tell stories that’s certainly colored it a little bit: What do I want to give the next generation and the kids around me? So I feel that as an honor, but also something important to be very mindful of.

I do think a lot of my kids and that is the time of life when so much is changing. So looking back to my life my first story was certainly about the familial issues: my dad and my grandfather never got along, and that was at the heart La Luna. I really felt that there’s just something unique about talking about these big moments where you’re finding yourself. On top of that, it’s a bit nostalgic from an adult’s point of view, and in a kid’s world. But it also puts you in this world where you can look at the world with new eyes. That’s something that I really love in the protagonists I have: They’re experiencing the world the first time. So it enables me to put some lyricism and attention into the little things, the nature, or the little details of an Italian town.

Andrea Warren: We look back at those coming of age years in our own lives, hopefully with quite a bit of empathy. As an adult you have that desire to go back and tell yourself and anybody else going through it who will listen, “It’s okay. You’re okay.” As a parent you watch your kids trying so badly to fit in, yet what you want to preserve about them is what is special and unique about them, versus them trying to lose all of the things that bring their own unique perspectives. There’s this desire to tell stories that help inspire kids going through it, to hang on to those aspects of themselves that make them who they are.

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Pixars Luca Interview Enrico Casarosa And Andrea Warren

The film is releasing exclusively on Disney+ and skipping a theatrical run. What drove that decision, and how does the team at Pixar feel about that?

Enrico Casarosa: The example of Soul was felt pretty positively. As a filmmaker, I got excited – within the difficulty not going to theaters; theaters are wonderful, and the communal experience is something we’re going to miss – but with the situation we’re in it right now, it didn’t feel very safe to [release in theaters]. So I started pretty quickly seeing the glass half full here because it felt exciting to, first of all, show it to families together, and to reach a lot of people.

On another level, we put so much detail [into Luca]… that is what makes us wish to share it in the theater. I think what I love about seeing it on streaming is that you can rewatch it. And so there’s another way to re-experience it. We put a lot of layers in there and we pride ourselves on all those layers. I have moments in the animation of this movie where I’m laughing so hard because there’s someone in the background doing something, and you’re not going to see it on the first viewing. Visiting Portorosso has so many layers for us. So I’m looking forward to families being able to enjoy it multiple times. That’s a wonderful plus. It’s been part of our production. It’s amazing, we’ve had to make this in the last year. We had moments where we didn’t know if we could finish it in time or do it all at home. And unfortunately it’s impacting even our release, [the current] state of the world.

You have a very individual artistic perspective as seen across both Luca and La Luna. Where do you think that comes from? And what other stories would you like to tell using that perspective?

Enrico Casarosa: It’s probably keeping that kid inside you as at the surface as possible. It’s something I want to do, and I’m very aware of doing, cause I think that leads you through life with a little bit more joy. That’s a big part of it and I want to keep on doing that, so you can have fun while you make [these stories].

I keep saying that Luca is a dive into the water and when you’re in the water you’re playing. Just this weekend I was at Stinson Beach here in California. Once you’re in a waves, two hours go by and you’re playing in the waves and you forgot about [the time]. I realized this weekeend that the movie is like that. It’s like being a kid again. The water does that for me, and I hope the movie does that for other people. So I’d love to keep on telling stories with that sense of wonder and delight, and empathy building: any story we tell has this potential to bring joy, but also to make people walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes. So I love that we have a wonderfully diverse schedule of movies coming from Pixar. And I can’t wait for everybody to experience these different characters, these different takes, because I think they will bring empathy.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/luca-movie-enrico-casarosa-andrea-warren-interview/

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