{"id":624703,"date":"2026-10-08T20:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T20:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/624703\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T20:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T20:54:12","slug":"brad-bird-talks-ray-gunn-political-disney-steven-spielberg-at-lff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/624703\/","title":{"rendered":"Brad Bird Talks ‘Ray Gunn,’ Political Disney, Steven Spielberg at LFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAnimation guru Brad Bird<\/a> discussed finally bringing out his long-envisioned film Ray Gunn<\/a>, which has been three decades in the making, and his Oscar- and BAFTA-winning career at large, during a Screen Talk at the 70th edition<\/a> of the BFI London Film Festival<\/a> (LFF).<\/p>\n

\n\tHis on-stage appearance in London\u2019s Soho, which drew a jam-packed room at a Curzon cinema, took place Thursday, ahead of the Saturday world premiere of the animated caper. <\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout the session, Bird emphasized the importance of storytelling and character-driven narratives. Asked when he first discovered creativity as his superpower, his \u201cspider bite moment\u201d as the moderator called it, borrowing from Spider-Man, he shared: \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve ever been asked about a spider bite moment. I started drawing at age three, and there\u2019s nothing special about those drawings. The only thing that was unusual was that they were sequential. They were meant to be seen in a certain order, and I would tell the story while I was showing the pictures. I didn\u2019t figure it out until much later, but I think I was trying to make movies.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tSo, \u201cI started super early, and I liked animated films,\u201d he continued. \u201cOur family was a filmgoing family, but when I saw The Jungle Book, maybe that was my spider bite moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBird shared his take today on the classic Disney movie. \u201cWell, it was by no means the greatest Disney movie or anything like that, but it is probably the best Disney movie in terms of just pure character animation,\u201d he offered. \u201cThere are so many good, very distinct characters in that movie, and no two move remotely alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBird made his first film when he was 14, which impressed executives at Disney so much they offered him an informal apprenticeship,\u201d a preview of the LFF Screen Talk highlighted. \u201cFollowing his studies at CalArts he worked on a variety of projects for Disney, Steven Spielberg\u2019s Amblin and was an executive consultant, as well as occasional writer and director, on the first eight [seasons] of The Simpsons. During this time, he directed his first feature film, the beloved The Iron Giant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy did he ever leave Disney? \u201cI was trained by the old guys or mentored by them. Those are the guys that I was amazed by when I got to Disney,\u201d Bird recalled. \u201cThe guys that were in charge after those guys left were the guys who basically had been there for 20 years, but they were not good enough to rise to the top. So suddenly these guys were in charge, and you had young people that didn\u2019t have a long period of training, but they had amazing ability, and I went to school with a lot of them.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tDisney made only one film every three years back in the day. And he pushed for more mature, mote complex storytelling, only to be at odds with the studio\u2019s more traditional focus at the time. Disney \u201cwas a tiny, tiny raft in an ocean of animation that was dead, and when I got there, it became political, which I was very unhappy to learn,\u201d he concluded. \u201cAnd I essentially got fired for sticking up for the stuff the old guys taught me to value.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHow was working for Spielberg? Bird shared that he has worked well with big visionaries. \u201cSpielberg was an 800-pound gorilla,\u201d he said. \u201cJim Brooks, who [does] The Simpsons, was an 800-pound gorilla [when I worked there]. And you could do wonderful things if they could keep the doubters at bay. And there are 20,000 doubters for every believer in Hollywood. \u2026 And so you cling to the people that are basically believers and somehow survive in the shark tank. And Spielberg swims with the sharks all the time, and he\u2019s still here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of unique characters, Bird shared how he designed the look of Simpsons character Sideshow Bob. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t make any sense as a character. That\u2019s why I love it,\u201d he said. After the moderator mentioned how the character steps on a whole row of rakes that hit him in the head, the director quipped: \u201cThere are politicians that that could represent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBird\u2019s big hits of the Pixar days, of course, were in focus on Thursday as well. He also made a splash by writing and directing the Academy Award-winning The Incredibles, in which he additionally voiced the character of Edna Mode, and continued his Oscar success with his subsequent animated feature Ratatouille.<\/p>\n

\n\tAbout how he ended up voicing Mode, Bird shared on Thursday how Lily Tomlin was approached for the voice role. When the director used a scratchy voice to demonstrate what he was hoping for, the actress encouraged him. \u201cI was doing the whole thing, and she kept saying, \u2018Can you do that again?’\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd she finally said, \u2018Look, I have a tape recorder. Do you want to just do all the scenes?\u2019 And so she gives me the recorder and kind of wanders off into her workspace.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBird shared that when he first started working with Pixar, some industry folks thought he was attracted to CGI animation. But he recalled explaining to them: \u201cI\u2019m going because they protect stories. And the story will have a nice development process up there. It won\u2019t be jerked around in all these dumb directions. And so I was able to bring about 15 people from The Iron Giant to Pixar to work on The Incredibles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u2029One of them was Pete Sohn, who is directing The Incredibles 3. \u201cSo, it\u2019s very much like the home team,\u201d Bird suggested.\u2029 \u201cI\u2019m writing and producing [the film] with others, but it\u2019s Pete\u2019s own. \u2029He knows the DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring his career, Bird famously pivoted to live-action filmmaking, teaming up with Tom Cruise to direct Mission: Impossible \u2013 Ghost Protocol before making the sci-fi adventure Tomorrowland. But he originated the story for Ray Gunn<\/a> more than 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn stage on Thursday with Anna Higgs, TV and film producer and managing director at U.K. production firm Character 7 (The Night Manager), Bird recalled how the late former Apple and Pixar boss Steve Jobs bemoaned his move into live-action before asking if he wouldn\u2019t rather make the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie. \u201cHe just wanted me closer to the Disney wheelhouse,\u201d Bird concluded and shared what he told Jobs about his interest in making the Mission: Impossible movie: \u201cI love spy films, and this is a spy film with Tom Cruise. Why wouldn\u2019t you want to do that?!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNow that he finally got to make Ray Gunn, Bird was asked if that took \u201csuper heroic levels of dedication,\u201d to which he replied to much audience laughter: \u201cOr insanity.\u201d And he shared: \u201cI\u2019m happiest that it is on the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about his advice to young creatives considering a career as directors, Bird kept it simple: \u201cDon\u2019t freak out!\u201d And he sent home the crowd with more laughter when he wrapped up with one more anecdote: \u201cA line from The Simpsons that my family has employed against me is [from] Homer Simpson. I\u2019ll come home and I\u2019ll have had a day where it\u2019s \u2018Oh God, you just want to open a vein.\u2019 And they would come back to me and do the Homer voice: \u2018Stupid dream job!’\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Animation guru Brad Bird discussed finally bringing out his long-envisioned film Ray Gunn, which has been three decades…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[59456,292342,247832,430,156,1019,111,139,69,247833],"class_list":["post-624703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bfi-london-film-festival","tag-bfi-london-film-festival-2026","tag-brad-bird","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ray-gunn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}