In 2015, Pixar’s Inside Out was a hilarious but honest portrayal of how we process our feelings and respond to certain situations. Not much time has passed for these characters, but it’s been an eternity for audiences. Inside Out 2 focuses on the next chapter of Riley’s life as a teenager who experiences puberty and shakeups in her relationships with her parents and friends. It’s all a part of the process of growing up. And the sequel will reveal how she processes Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui on her uncharted emotional journey.
As Riley grows up, her life becomes more complex, requiring more sophisticated emotions than the five she has now. During our trip to the Pixar campus, we learned more about how director Kelsey Mann and producer Mark Nielsen determined the new emotions in the film and heard from artisans about the character designs.
“We wanted to lean into the ones that are really kind of most present in teenagers and that you see really kind of come on strong at that age,” Neilsen said about choosing the new emotions. So the studio brought Dacher Keltner, PhD, back as a scientific consultant for the sequel. Keltner played a significant role in the development of the first film. Pixar puts a lot of emphasis on research to make the film as grounded as possible. Since the sequel takes place when Riley enters her teens, it stands to reason that a lot goes on at that age, and she starts to experience even more emotions.
The two also brought in Lisa Damour, PhD, who is considered an expert on the subject. They used her book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, as a reference to help shape the sequel’s story and make Riley’s emotional journey as grounded and relatable as possible. The two doctors served as a sounding board for which emotions Inside Out 2 would have. Eventually, Kelsey and Nielsen landed on Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment as the newest emotions to add to Riley’s headquarters.
Shape and color played pivotal roles in the designs of the emotions. Production designer Jason Deamer said Pixar CCO and Inside Out director Pete Docter is a fan of starting out abstract. Where Joy is shaped like a star or spark, Sadness takes the form of a teardrop, Anger is inspired by a square with sharp corners, Fear is soft, and Disgust takes on more of an acute angle with pointy parts. As for the colors, Joy is a bright, explosive yellow, and Disgust is a disgusting green. Deamer was determined to approach the new characters in the same kind of way.
So, in this piece, we will describe the new emotions that join joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear.
Anxiety
Anxiety is the first of the four new emotions we meet in Inside Out 2. Voiced by Maya Hawke, Anxiety is destined to become a fan-favorite. Like anyone going through puberty, you start going through changes and experience new emotions. However, don’t expect Riley to turn into a red panda. Instead, you can expect overreactions and emotional outbursts. And like all other emotions, they have a nuanced role in shaping who Riley is. Anxiety is an orange-colored emotion that has electric energy, unkempt hair, seems like she is grinding her teeth, and comes with a lot of baggage. She wears an orange and white-striped long-sleeved shirt and brown pants.
Like all of the emotions that are inside our heads, Anxiety has particular jobs and responsibilities. Despite being perceived as a “bad emotion,” Anxiety is there to plan for the future — even if that comes off as overdoing it. At times, she curls up whenever she oversteps Joy’s authority, but that doesn’t stop her from pressing buttons, turning dials, and winding cranks on the control console. That shows Anxiety knows more about the control console than Joy does. Even Joy admits that she’s been incorrectly using some parts of the control console. Still, Joy welcomes the Anxiety with open arms and sees how much of an asset she can be despite laying it on thick when Riley meets her hockey idol, Val Ortiz. Mann says he’s making a movie about anxiety because it’s something that we all have but at very different levels.
Interestingly enough, Anxiety started out as a villain. However, Mann says the original pitch for the character was too much of a “cardboard villain.” So it wasn’t until he realized that the character loves Riley just as much as Joy does that Anxiety was made into an emotion that was more of a nuanced antagonist meant to help more than hurt. Mann says Anxiety is more adept at handling Riley’s teenage world. She is there to relate and compare herself to Joy. So despite their differences in how Riley should handle certain situations, Joy and Anxiety are very much like parents who argue over how best to take care of their child. Both are very protective of Riley, going as far as calling Riley “our girl.” So, Mann wanted to lean more toward that sense of protection for Anxiety.
So Mann also pictured Anxiety as an emotion that can be helpful but one that can go too far and take over. “I always wanted this film to be about learning how to manage Anxiety. So she’s an interesting character for me that I can read or relate to,” he said. The fast-talking emotion is always thinking and calculating and constantly moving. She is the one emotion who thinks of two things at once. Often, the emotions have to keep up with her when she is in control. So Mann spoke highly of Hawke’s ability to make Anxiety appealing. “She brought an element of humanity to the character,” Mann said. “We wanted to make sure she wasn’t a real cardboard villain, but she actually is doing something out of the love of Riley, and she really brings that element to her voice.”
Envy
Envy is one of the shortest emotions to join headquarters and the cutest. Voiced by Emmy and Golden Globe-winner Ayo Edebiri, Envy is defined by being discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck. She doesn’t hesitate to express something she wants but doesn’t have. As the shortest emotion of the entire crew, Deamer joked, “She wishes she was a little bit taller. She wishes she was a baller.” That is noted when she first appears in the film. She climbs up on the control console to be at eye-level with the other emotion and see the large screen where the outside world is perceived through Riley’s vision and memories, dreams and daydreams are projected.
When Envy sees Disgust’s hair, her giant turquoise eyes light up. She is in awe and immediately reaches out to touch it. To which Disgust says, “Not happening.” Then, when she sees Val’s hair, she presses a button on the control console that makes Riley have the same desire for a cool hairstyle. As you can imagine, touching people’s hair without permission can lead to a very awkward and embarrassing moment.
Envy isn’t there as an embodiment of jealousy, at least not at a toxic level. Instead, she serves as that voice to tell you what’s important to you and provides the motivation or change to get what you want. Mann uses himself as an example of when he wanted a job at Pixar. He’s always wanted to work at the animation studio, so he worked on his artistic skills, portfolio, and filmmaking skills. Mann admits he applied multiple times and got the same number of rejections. But that didn’t stop him; his envy fueled his persistence until he achieved his goal.
Mann says Edebiri helped flesh out Envy, a character who wasn’t as developed in the early parts of the script. Though the director recognized how negative something like Envy can be, he says the actor brought humor and character to the role.
Embarrassment
Inside Out needed a big character — one that would tower over the other emotions and be easily seen. Embarrassment fits the bill. Voiced by Emmy and Golden Globe winner Paul Walter Hauser, Embarrassment is a bright pink emotion that wants to hide but can’t.
Whenever he draws unwanted attention to himself, he has the urge to turtle into his grey sweatshirt. He’s not big on eye or physical contact, either. Even with someone as warm and welcoming as Joy, who offers an encouraging high-five, he will look away and not see where his hand is. This leads to some awkward attempts to make that high-five connect. And when it does, you can be sure his hands are sweaty. Though he hardly speaks, Embarrassment communicates through vocalization. “It was like a three-and-a-half-hour session of just him vocalizing,” Nielsen said.
The idea was to have a character with distinctive features, which is why Embarrassment is large and pink. This was done so that the audience knew who they would be looking at when the camera quickly cut away. “There’s less in mind and energy spent to assess what’s going on and more energy to look at all the other beautiful things going on.” So that is that in the on the color level. So, production design leaned more into the idea of “pink with embarrassment” when creating Embarrassment.
Mann says Embarrassment is a real important character to Inside Out 2. He’s the kind of emotion who likes to hide but can’t because of his enormous size. Still, there is something endearing about the character. The trailer teased Sadness, who was trying to reach out and connect with Embarrassment. According to Mark Neilsen, a producer on the sequel, “there’s this beautiful relationship he ends up having with Sadness.”
Ennui
Ever been struck with that feeling of extreme weariness or had a sudden lack of interest in doing the most mundane tasks? That’s Ennui. This lavender-colored emotion doesn’t care about conversing with other emotions, especially Joy. She is practically the antithesis of the yellow-colored emotion. As such, she expresses herself in a way that is perceived as apathetic or uninterested. While an enthusiastic Joy is excited to welcome new emotions to headquarters, a seemingly unmotivated Ennui doesn’t bother lifting her head up to respond. She refuses to be called by the fun nicknames that Joy comes up with.
Since the control console serves as the device that helps Riley feel her emotions, the emotions are often in front of it. But Riley’s generation isn’t the same as her parents, so the sequel is highly aware of the times it’s living in. So as Joy is usually in command by pressing the buttons, turning dials, and winding cranks, Ennui much rather control headquarters from the app while laying on the couch. “The Boredom” later comments that Joy is so “old school” with how she makes Riley feel. So instead of walking over to the control console and trying to make Riley express an emotion by doing what Joy does, Ennui simply lays on the couch and effortlessly uses a control console app on her phone to make Riley express an emotion.
Since Ennui is a French word, it stands to reason that the emotion speaks with a French accent. So Mann and Nelisen cast Adèle Exarchopoulos as the emotion that combines tiredness and boredom. Interestingly enough, the two didn’t have to look too far to find a voice that captured Riley’s Ennui, as Exarchopoulos was also the voice of Ember for the French-language dub of Elemental.
Nostalgia
Nostalgia is one of the oldest emotions in Riley’s head, despite the fact that she appears shortly after the new ones arrive. She reminisces about the days when she, along with Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment finally came up to headquarters. Of course, that happened 30 seconds ago. She is voiced by June Squibb.
Not much was revealed about the soft grey-colored emotion. In fact, she may have arrived prematurely, as Anxiety says Nostalgia still has ten years, two graduations, and a best friend’s wedding until they need her. But she assures the eldest emotion that she will keep her in the loop.
