The Film Forum

Pixar Perfect: Q&A With John Lasseter

By Patricia Chui

Related Links Buy or rent the 'Cars' DVD Read more on John Lasseter Watch the trailer See clips from the movie Browse movie photos Read and write reviews

Question: What do 'Toy Story,' 'Toy Story 2,' 'A Bug's Life' and 'Cars' have in common? Answer: a) they're Pixar movies, b) they were huge box-office successes, c) they were directed by John Lasseter, d) all of the above.

The correct answer, of course, is "d." After making the landmark 'Toy Story' in 1995, the Pixar co-founder helmed several instant classics before taking a seven-year hiatus from directing. Lasseter's return to the director's chair showed that he hadn't missed a step -- so far this year, 'Cars' has earned more money than any movie except 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.' In our interview at Pixar's offices in Emeryville, California, Lasseter talked about banging a gong, burning rubber in a wood-paneled station wagon, and keeping Hawaiian shirt-makers in business for a long, long time.

I heard a rumor that 'Cars' was the last movie you were going to direct. Is that true?
Well, you know, I have two jobs; now I'm the chief creative officer of Pixar as well as directing movies. I kind of [like to] take a break from directing to help other directors. In the same way that I directed the first three movies for Pixar and took a break and helped Pete Docter do 'Monsters, Inc.,' Andrew Stanton do 'Finding Nemo' and Brad Bird do 'The Incredibles,' I directed 'Cars,' and I was going to take a break. And then as I was finishing 'Cars,' the merger between Disney and Pixar happened, and I became chief creative officer of Disney Animation as well, so I definitely have my work cut out for me. But I never say never. [Note: 'Toy Story 3' is rumored to be in production with Lasseter as the director, but everyone involved is keeping distinctly mum on the project.]

You wear fifty million different hats. What's your typical day when you're not directing a movie?
It's a challenge. I have meetings with all the other directors and the people looking at the movies. Each of the films, every couple of months, they'll have a screening, a chance to look at how the story's going, at whatever level of production or development they are. And I just help them make their movie. Animation's the most collaborative art form there is, and I think at Pixar, the important thing is that we're very honest with each other when things are working and when things are not working. It's always about making the best movie we can. It doesn't matter who's making it.

Is it hard for you when you're not directing? How much do you have to shift your way of approaching the movie?
It's not hard at all because Pixar is a director-driven studio. What I mean by that is, most other Hollywood studios are executive-driven studios, where you have development executives figure out what movie they're going to tell, and they hire a director to direct it. And oftentimes they'll change out directors or whatever, and they give notes, just because they're the executives. Whereas at Pixar, each of our stories are original. They come from a director. It's not about director as dictator but director as creative soul.

My brother has a friend who works at Pixar, and I'm supposed to ask you about the gong. I heard that there's some sort of gong you hit when you like something.
Well, I yell "final" really loud, and we had a big car horn that we used. Yeah, I had a big gong at one point in time that we would hit, we had this rolling car horn, and it was really loud, and we had noisemakers sometimes, but I like making a big deal when an animation shot is final. When it's done I go, "Final!" and we yell and we clap and stuff, so it's kind of funny, and it's goofy, but I like doing that kind of thing.

The 'Inspiration for 'Cars'' documentary on the DVD talks about how you used to go on road trips when you were a kid. What kind of car did you and your family travel in, and what was your first car?
My dad worked for a Chevy dealership, so it was always Chevy station wagons. First when I was really little, we had a 1958 Impala station wagon -- it was two tones, a beautiful sort of teal green color, two-toned with white -- and then in 1962 we got a new Impala station wagon; it was baby blue. And then in 1969 we got a Chevelle station wagon; it was yellow with the wood grain paneling. And it was the one that me and my brother and sister learned to drive in. And we had a little travel trailer that we would tow, and so you got the towing package. Well, it so happened that the '69 Chevelle with the towing package [had] this really hot 350 four-barrel carburetor [and] I could lay a patch of rubber from one end of the block to the other with the towing package. So my dad didn't realize he was giving us the keys to one of the hottest cars in Whittier, California. But it didn't look like it.

Tell me about your relationship with John Ratzenberger. How did you start working with him, and how did that develop?
Oh, John, our good luck charm? We cast him as the character of Ham the piggy bank in 'Toy Story,' because of his role as Cliff the mailman from 'Cheers.' I loved that character on 'Cheers' because there was a funny know-it-all aspect, and I loved that idea of the piggy bank sitting on the top shelf looking out the window and kind of knowing everything that's going on. So we cast him. And we had so much fun with him, and he was such a good actor, and he added so much to the role, he could make anything hilarious -- one line he could make hilarious -- that we then kind of thought about him as P.T. Flea in 'A Bug's Life.' Then the next movie we made was 'Toy Story 2,' and he had to be in that. And that kind of started the thing. We said, well, let's have him in, and so far we were having really good luck. And then we added him in each of the movies, and we just keep doing that.

What was he in 'The Incredibles'? I can't remember.
He actually was The Underminer at the very end of the movie, which is part of the fun -- almost the entire movie without John Ratzenberger, and he comes up right at the very end. But I really like working with him, so we had him [in 'Cars'] as Mack, McQueen's driver. And what was so appropriate, we cast him in this part without even realizing this, that his father was a truck driver all his life, and he drove Mack trucks, which was really, really great.

So is it your goal definitely to have him in every movie?
Now it is! I'm not going to break that streak. Now besides John Ratzenberger, there's one other object that's been in every Pixar movie. Have you heard about what it is?

The pizza truck, right?
The Pizza Planet truck from 'Toy Story,' yeah. So he's in 'Cars' as a character, but I'm not going to tell you where.

About the credits -- when did you decide not to do outtakes, as you did in 'A Bug's Life' and 'Toy Story 2'?
I love end credits. I want to entertain people from the minute the lights dim -- because we always put the short films in front of the movies -- to the very end, and Darla [Anderson], the producer, was saying, "John, just let the people go," you know? But no, I gotta put one more thing in there. With 'A Bug's Life' we came up with the idea of the end credits and the outtakes. And so with this ['Cars'], I fell in love with the characters and their world, and so instead of outtakes, I wanted to do like an extended epilogue where you could have little non sequitur gags. But I wasn't saying this was a movie that was filmed, this is just a further extension of the characters and their world. Because I fell in love with this world so much.

By the way, how many of those [car-themed] shirts do you have? I noticed you wear at least two in the DVD documentary.
Well, when I first started 'Cars,' I started collecting a lot of Hawaiian shirts that had cars on them, because my wife always says, it's not about just wearing a Hawaiian shirt everywhere you go, you have to match the subject matter of your shirt to what you're doing. So I started collecting car shirts and I wore them all the time. This is the 'Cars' shirt that we made. In fact this is one [pointing to shirt he's wearing] where we had an artist here at Pixar do all the artwork for it.

How many non-Pixar car shirts do you have?
A lot. A lot.

More than you had for 'A Bug's Life'?
Oh yeah. Because you know why, car guys wear Hawaiian shirts a lot, so they've been making a lot of car shirts. I love 'em. In fact, in the calendar year of 2003, when I was first working on 'Cars,' I went every single work day wearing a different shirt. In the entire year.

So you have at least 365?
Well, it was work days, so ... five days a week. Still. That's a lot.

The 'Cars' DVD hits stores on Nov. 7.