‘Hexed’ Filmmakers on Visual Storytelling, Cutting Great Jokes, and Blink-182 Puns

Our earlier coverage of Hexed explored the film’s character and production design, along with the writing and story process behind shaping a scene. This time, we turn directly to the filmmakers behind the movie to talk about the choices that helped define it, from Billie and Alice’s evolving mother-daughter relationship and the visual language surrounding them to the performances behind the characters, the challenge of knowing when a scene has too much material, and why even a perfectly good joke sometimes has to go.

The Nerds of Color joined fellow journalists for an early sneak peek at Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Hexed, a brand-new original animated feature that follows Billie, an impulsive and unconventional 16-year-old who refuses to conform to the rules and limitations around her. After being expelled from school, Billie discovers magical abilities that pull her from suburbia into Hexe, a hidden realm of witches, where she and her cautious Type-A mother, Alice, begin uncovering family secrets tied to the magical world.

That complicated mother-daughter relationship is reflected in more than just the dialogue. Director Fawn Veerasunthorn told The Nerds of Color that the filmmakers deliberately surround Billie with a restrictive visual language early in the film so audiences want to see her break free.

“Because it’s a mother-daughter love story, we want the audience to start falling in love with her, and to go through that arc and digging into who she used to be,” director Fawn Veerasunthorn said. “We want to put that framing initially just so we feel, as an audience, you want Billie to break through,” Veerasunthorn said. “Once she enters Hexe, those limitations are lifted.”

Director Jason Hand said that connection between character and design was intentional throughout the film. “The underlying emotional storyline is influencing the visual storytelling,” he said. Hand also spoke about why Hexed evolved from an earlier mother-son dynamic into the mother-daughter story audiences will see onscreen, and how Hailee Steinfeld helped give Billie the wit, charm, comedy, and emotional depth necessary to make some of her wilder choices understandable.

That attention to character and story also extends into the writers’ room, though not every creative decision is quite so serious. During the earlier presentation, co-writer Dana Ledoux Miller casually revealed that some scenes had been given internal names inspired by Blink-182 songs. When The Nerds of Color brought that detail back up during our conversation, Miller immediately realized she may have said too much.

“I did say that,” Miller said. “What is happening? What have they done to us?”

Co-writer Jared Bush was more than happy to let her squirm. “Continue. I love it,” he joked. “She’s speechless so rarely. This is a gift.”

Miller eventually admitted that one of those internal names involved Bucket, Billie’s enchanted cauldron companion, and a Blink-182 song title, though she stopped short of revealing the actual pun. “We made a pun off of a Blink-182 song with the word Bucket in it,” she said, “and I’m gonna leave it there to the imagination.”

For producers Roy Conli and Yvett Merino, allowing that kind of creativity to flourish also means finding the balance between giving artists room to experiment and keeping hundreds of people moving toward the same finished film.

“We view it as a playground out there, and we don’t want to put limits on what people can imagine and what they can do,” Merino said. “But at the same time, it’s Roy and my responsibility to make sure the film gets done.”

That freedom becomes increasingly important as animation technology continues to evolve, but Conli said the technology itself is not what ultimately defines the films. “The most important thing in the films we make are human beings,” he said, “and the choices that they make are what you see on screen.”

Hexed opens in theaters on November 25, 2026.