John Lasseter Quotes

In overseeing both Disney and Pixar Animation, each studio has a unique culture.

I was mentored by great Disney animators at the end of their careers.

Every movie has three things you have to do - you have to have a compelling story that keeps people on the edge of their seats; you have to populate that story with memorable and appealing characters; and you have to put that story and those characters in a believable world. Those three things are so vitally important.

I don't believe that an animation studio should be an executive-driven studio.

For me, personally, I will always do G-rated films, which the world needs more of.

It's the nature of Hollywood that there are the people in power and the people who tell them what they want them to hear.

When I started work with LucasArts Computer Division back in 1984, I went to the Palace of Fine Arts and saw the Festival of Animation for the first time. I loved the diverse collection of animated films the festival held.

Today, among little girls especially, princesses and the romanticised ideal they represent - finding the man of your dreams - have a limited shelf life.

I quickly realized that this medium had a lot to offer someone like me. To do Disney-quality hand-drawn cartoons, you have to be a master of two art forms. Seriously, you have to be able to draw like a Leonardo da Vinci or a Michelangelo. But also you have to know movement and timing and control that through 24 frames a second.

'Bambi' is an amazing film, and when you watch it today, it's just as beautiful. It's timeless. It's just as beautiful today as it was back then.

At Pixar, we do sequels only when we come up with a great idea, and we always strive to be different than the original.

I'm a huge fan of Blu-rays myself.

The hardest thing to get is true emotion. I always believe you need to earn that with the audience. You can't just tell them, 'Ok, be sad now.'

'Bolt' was made by Walt Disney Animation Studios, not by Pixar.

When I was a freshman in high school, I read a book about the making of Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' called 'The Art of Animation.' It was this weird revelation for me, because I hadn't considered that people actually get paid to make cartoons.

I believe in research. Each movie at Pixar involves research with college professors or taking trips to learn as much as we can about a particular subject matter.

Take any movie with an actor you like. Turn your head and just listen to the performance. In some cases, the physical presence remains as strong when you can't see the actor, when it's just the voice.

Probably more than any other movie we've made here at Pixar, 'Up' was the one we were the most nervous about.

I love the work of Hayao Miyazaki. 'My Neighbor Totoro' and 'Castle in the Sky' are two of the great films that he's made that I just love.

'Cars' is a really personal story for me because, first of all, I grew up in Los Angeles - the car crazy capital.

The only thing Steve Jobs has ever asked me in all the years we've been together and have been partners, the only thing he has ever asked me is: 'Make it great.'

I don't really think of myself as a businessman at all. That's why I have the 'chief creative officer' role.

When I look at the success I have, it's because of my creative-thinking skills.

I believe in research you cannot do enough research; believability comes out of what's real.

'Cars 2' is about a character learning to be himself. There's times in our lives where people always say, 'Well, you've gotta act differently. You should always be yourself.' That's the emotional core of the story.

Steve Jobs is like a brother to me and he's one of the founders of Pixar, and when the first iPad came out, I got one right away.

Every single Pixar film, at one time or another, has been the worst movie ever put on film. But we know. We trust our process. We don't get scared and say, 'Oh, no, this film isn't working.'

When you're a director, you really live whatever you do.

When you can have a character that the audience likes from the beginning, but then you put them in a situation where they grow - I think that gives it a lot of heart.

My father pulled into Pearl Harbor four days after the bombing, and he said, everything was still burning. He said they never told the public how bad it was. It was really bad.

Every technology that comes into filmmaking is first a gimmick. Think about sound with 'The Jazz Singer' or the first colour or surround sound - it takes a while for filmmakers to understand how to use it.

I would get so into playing as a kid that I'd lose track of time.

Look at the films of Walt Disney: 'Snow White' came out in February 1938, and I can't think of another film from that year that's watched as much. The same is true of 'Bambi,' 'Dumbo'... even, frankly, 'Toy Story,' which is probably watched more than any other movie of 1995.

I loved animation and cartoons, even when it was not cool when you were in high school. I raced home to see the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

The Walt Disney Animation studio is the studio that Walt Disney started himself in 1923, and it's never stopped and never closed its doors and never stopped making animation, and it keeps going as kind of the heart and soul of the company.

If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story. No amount of great animation will save a bad story.

I'm a big fan of pantomime storytelling, being an animator.

If you think something's stupid, it probably is.

When you set out to really entertain adults as well as kids, your audience is basically anybody who is breathing.

Rotten Tomatoes is such a great website, in that it has one foot in the Internet world and one foot in the cinema world, and it keeps its grounding between them just perfectly.

We work very hard in all of the Pixar films to not make anything in the imagery that causes people to think of something other than the story.

When you take something that's inert, and through motion, give it life, make it appear to be alive, living, breathing thinking and having emotions, that's animation. But when you take something that's live-action, and move a part of it, that's a special effect.

'Cars' is simply near and dear to my heart.

In dire economic times, movies are relatively inexpensive entertainment for the whole family.

Animation is the only thing I ever wanted to do in my whole life. I have no desire for live-action or anything else.

Sunday, for me, is all about being home with the family with no plans.

I believe in the nobility of entertaining people and I take great, great pride that people are willing to give me two or three hours of their busy lives.

I always laugh at these companies that have these rules saying, 'You're only allowed to have this or that on your desk.' It's no fun to work at a place like that.