October 2nd, 2023 
Jackson Murphy 
Academy Award winner Jennifer Lee (co-director of Frozen and Frozen II) is the Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios. She’s one of the most influential people in animation today. A couple weeks ago I had the chance to sit down with Lee for an in-depth, 10-minute conversation in Hollywood. Earlier that day, she hosted a special presentation for members of the press for Disney’s upcoming feature Wish (in theaters Nov. 22) and short film Once Upon a Studio (on ABC Oct. 15). It was an emotional morning for Lee and everyone at the El Capitan Theatre, reflecting on 100 years of Disney in our lives.
Wish, which Lee wrote with Allison Moore, is a musical adventure about a teen named Asha (voiced by West Side Story Oscar winner Ariana DeBose) who does something The Walt Disney Company has believed in for a century: She wishes upon a star. That star comes to life. Once Upon a Studio is a new nine-minute short featuring dozens of Disney animated characters who also come to life, leaping out of portraits on the walls of Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, CA. They’re looking to take a class photo to celebrate the milestone anniversary.
Jennifer Lee and Jackson Murphy
Lee and I discuss both of these projects, as well as her incredible decade-plus at Disney. She shares her thoughts on the theatrical experience, the at-home experience, what The Mouse House means to her and the advice Bob Iger gave her when she became CCO. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: Based on the [“Wish”] footage, I could tell Asha embodies the same kind of spirit that Anna does. I think kids and families will link these two characters together for a long time. How do you see these two… I’m going to call them “Sisters in Spirit”?
Jennifer Lee: Oh I love that. I will take the “Sisters in Spirit”.
JM: Great.
JL: You know, it’s interesting because Anna was someone for me, who, from the very start, is like, “Love! I want love!” Her biggest lesson was, “Love ain’t so simple. You gotta grow.” You have to grow up to understand true love, so there’s maturity. What’s fun about Asha is: her warmth, her compassion, that caring nature. They share that. But with Asha I love that when we meet her, she has accepted the world around her pretty much as it is. She just wants to be a part of it. She might be doing a good job gaming the system if she becomes an apprentice. So she’s really just focused on her friends. And then when she uncovers the complexity of what’s really going on… that wrestle of how far you’re willing to go when you learn about something that’s not okay… And the generosity of her wish is not “I want love.” It’s “I want more for the people around me.” That’s the start of a different kind of leader.
I feel like that is something I really love about her. I think she doesn’t even know what she has in her, and she’s questioning herself all the way. If you’re going to take your wish into your own hands, that means you gotta fight for it yourself. Hope and possibility, like Star, are one thing. But they can’t do that work for you. And as the threat grows, when do you say “When?”, or do you? That’s what I love about the parts that are to come that you’ll see with Asha… recognizing that she’s not the same kind of character who’s got one thing for herself. She’s a character that’s discovering the world and trying to cope with a world that wasn’t what she thought and a world that increasingly tells her, “You either gotta step up or accept the fact that you have caused a lot of problems.”
That wrestle is something I really found fun because I feel like all of us relate to that moment when you look at the world and decide, “How am I gonna show up in this world? What impact should I have?” And that’s something I don’t think we’ve hit before.
JM: I think that’s progressive.
JL: I love that you said how they’re connected… in their warmth and their compassion. It’s in a fun way for me. I also have Ariana [DeBose] and Kristen Bell in my head too because that’s who we work with. And what’s really fun in an interesting way is the determination, even in her comedy, of Kristen Bell in the way she works… and the warmth, silly, playfulness of Ariana in the way she works… I see how they’d have fun together.
JM: Yeah. Being on the inside at the studio, and having this movie be released at Thanksgiving time… so many Disney animated movies were (“Beauty and the Beast”, “The Little Mermaid”, “Frozen”) and many to come, as the studio has booked Thanksgiving for years…
JL: Yeah! (laughs)
JM: How do you feel about Thanksgiving being the time for what you are creating at Disney Animation to be released upon the world?
JL: We feel incredibly blessed to have people come to expect a film from us at that time because it is a time about family, community and coming together. That’s what the holidays are about. You start with Thanksgiving, at least in America, and in other parts of the world you head towards the holidays at Christmas and other holidays that are celebrated. That time of year and coming together is a big part of what meant a lot to Walt. This is a place for families to come and have fun. That’s an important time for us. We think that it symbolically ties to the whole Disney dream. It is a family time. When you hear folks say, “We come to expect that holiday Disney film”, it puts a charge. You want to deliver. I love that you said that because that’s what’s fun if it’s gotten to that point of people anticipating it. You recognize what a privilege that is.
Jennifer Lee
JM: That’s very nice. I still believe in network Television. I still believe in that experience. You look at what’s happened in the past few years with COVID and bringing Disney movies back to ABC and having “The Wonderful World of Disney” on Sunday nights. And now we have this big celebration [on Oct. 15]. How do you feel about “Once Upon a Studio” being showcased to millions of families on an institution like “The Wonderful World of Disney”?
JL: Well, the idea of it being released to the world on the [100th] anniversary itself… For what it’s meant to do, it’s a “Thank You”. It’s a celebration but a Thank You. We know that across the networks you can reach so many people instantaneously… and respecting and loving that. That’s the whole point and goal of “Once Upon a Studio” and how it’s rolling out: to get it to as many people all around the world in as many ways as people to say “Thank You”. It starts there. I couldn’t be happier about that because that’s all we wanted.
JM: That’s perfect. You’ve got Kelly Ripa hosting it. I was friends with Regis for a long time. They, along with Ryan Seacrest and so many others, have been huge proponents of the Disney experience. It’s unlike anything else, right?
JL: It is. And it’s something we think about all the time. We recognize the opportunity with what we get to be a part of… and reaching people. Especially when people are going through difficult times, it’s the joy it brings and the escape it brings, but always reconnecting with… particularly with something like “Once Upon a Studio”… you come from all these different things going on in life and then we all go, “We know them.” We know them all. They’re part of our lives. We laugh when we see them connected in new ways. They cross completely different stories but they all share that [sense of] Disney storytelling. They all brought their personalities and they all fit comfortably like a family.
JM: And I bet that was a lot of the process of putting them all together, figuring out the timing of it all.
JL: It was so much fun. And honestly it could’ve been 45 minutes. We had so many ideas. You couldn’t do them all. We did as many as we could, though. We loved it.
JM: People are gonna be blown away. My last question for you I think has to be this: You have had an unbelievable decade, maybe 11 or 12 years, with this studio — probably unlike anybody else with the rise and the achievements that you’ve had in one of the biggest corporations on the planet.
JL: Gulp! (laughs)
JM: It’s true! How do you summarize the past decade at this company?
JL: Oh boy. Learning a lot. Being willing to learn a lot. I’ll give myself credit that way. Taking the opportunity. Being given a lot of opportunity. People took chances and I’m grateful for that. And making sure I’m doing the same. But I think at the core of it is always recognizing, “What are we doing? What are we trying to do?” And it’s storytelling. Pushing the boundaries of what we know how to do. Taking risks.
Bob Iger, when he gave me this position, said, “I want you to be fearless.” It’s not easy. So I’ve decided the answer is: Even when you’re afraid, you just walk through it. I’ve had incredible mentorship. I think the most important thing for me is never taking for granted what I’m a part of but always keeping my eyes open about how we can keep evolving. I still feel like I’m at the beginning myself. I’m learning every day. I learn on every film. I learn with every filmmaker. I learn with everybody. For Walt, that was the key. Keep evolving. Keep learning. And that’s interesting because I don’t think about the past films and what they mean. I think about the next film and what we can do. I have to.
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