Creating Inside Out 2: How The Emotions Took Shape & Meet Embarrassment

In just a few months, it is time to return to headquarters with Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear in Inside Out 2! But this time there are new parts of Riley's mind to explore and new emotions to meet. Production designer Jason Deamer and character designer Keiko Murayama gave us a peek behind the curtain into how these new elements and characters were created.

Creating Inside Out 2: Go Inside Riley's Mind & Meet Embarrassment

Riley is 13 now, what's the worst that could happen? Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira) are busy thinking everything is running smoothly when bam! New Emotions! Headquarters undergoes a sudden demolition and the core group finds themselves face-to-face with Anxiety (Maya Hawke) and she's not alone. Joining her are Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos).

I spent some time at the beautiful Pixar Campus getting a behind the scenes look at Inside Out 2. From character development and storyboards to sketches and finalizing animation, it was amazing to see just a small piece of what it took to bring this film to life. Production designer Jason Deamer and character designer Keiko Murayama shared what the design process looks like when Pixar decides to do a sequel. Whether it is adding new environments or introducing new characters, everything needs to feel unique yet at home in the world fans know and love.

Making a Sequel Is Not Easy

Jason: Making sequels is easier, it is not true. We'll reuse this and it won't be that hard. [Laughs] It's still a movie right? This is hard to make. On top of that you need to honor the canon in the first film, the visual looks, the rules that were established. Like if I made Joy purple and you showed up, you'd be like who the hell is that? You can't do things like that.

My favorite sequels are ones that expand the world and don't just try to repeat what the first one did. The challenging part of that is as soon as you sit down to think [you go] where they went in the first film. So you gotta keep going. But more importantly, it's 13 year old software that they made the first one with and basically nothing that will be usable. […] Turned out to be way harder than anybody expected…so unexpected challenges.

Shape Language: The First Step To Creating Characters

Jason: Pete Doctor was a big believer in shape language and color, just starting in an abstract place first. That's the foundation then [you] layer all the other stuff on top. [For example] Anger is a square. It's unmovable, it's got sharp corners, it's red. He's hot, it's on fire. Disgust, acute triangle and that green is a warm kind of gross green that you might see if you got something really disgusting come out of you. Joy is that body language you have when you win a race, an exploding star. Teardrop for Sadness. Fear is cowering. On this film, I wanted to continue with that same line of thinking and add distinctive silhouettes.

Anxiety is tense, like a spring, shaky, lightning bolt kind of feelings. Ennui can barely lift her head up. We have our small character [of[ Envy. I was thinking Envy [would be small] because she wishes she was taller. It's such a little kid thing ‘that's not fair!” We found out real quick that in the first film, the production department used all the crayons in the crayon box! They didn't use orange. But that's it. In the first film, the characters are all vibrant, specific colors. So it proved to be kind of challenging to stick with that Inside Out distinctive colors and not duplicate colors.

Meet Embarrassment from Inside Out 2

Keiko: [Looking at a sketch of Embarrassment by Kelsey] you can tell that he was looking for the hiding in a hoodie look. Then there is a sketch by a storyboard artist [and] he is imagined to be the biggest character, his shape is like a shell. He just wants to hide in his shell. Having those two elements in mind, I wanted to explore a bunch of different things at this point to figure out how to capture Embarrassment. I explored designs but stayed in the shape that they wanted. [The] final design we landed on…he is pink with embarrassment and he got rosy cheeks.

Inside Out 2 releases in theaters June 14, 2024.

*this interview has been edited for clarity and length.