Disney’s approach

When it comes to children, Disney uses a unique approach. The producers divide the script into small parts – or even sentences – and “feed” them to children. By using visuals, mood boards, or even puppets, they play different versions of the same “script part”

But there’s something else. The creative department spends some time with the young voice talent to experiment on the fictional character as well, so we can say there’s an interaction, that the talent influences the hero and vice versa. And the key to their success lies in this interaction.

A playful voice

For Nemo, Disney looked for a child actor that would fit this well-developed character. Nemo’s major characteristics were:

However, his character goes through a major change, in the end, he shows maturity and leadership qualities.

Alexander Gould was selected for the role. A talent with a playful voice that manifests the adventurous nature of Nemo. Moreover, Alexander and Nemo share common character qualities:

“I’ve always been an adventurous person, so that was a big similarity between the character and myself (…) Wanting to break away and be your own person. I think that’s one of the reasons it has done so well and one of the reasons I was able to connect to it.”

Gibberish vocabulary

Boo’s role in the movie is to “humanize” monsters. She is a very friendly, tiny, cute-little-thing. Boo – just like the voice talent – is a 3-year-old that can speak, however, like a baby, with gibberish vocabulary. In the film, the only actual words she says are: “Boo!”, “Kitty!”, “Ew” and “Mike Wazowski!”.

Mary Gibbs was the voice talent Disney selected for this character. Having a dad that worked as a story artist in Disney, she felt comfortable right from the beginning even though she was very young. The producers “fed” her the script little by little, working together with a puppet to help her understand the emotions each word should carry.

A child of a happy-go-lucky nature

The Jungle Book is a landmark movie for Walt Disney Productions, as it was the last movie of Walt Disney. Walt Disney died months before its premiere. Disney’s Mowgli is slightly different in character than Kipling’s. This is because Walt Disney wanted to have a different, more “fun” version of the famous story.

Mowgli is portrayed as an average child in the original film having an innocent, mischievous and happy-go-lucky nature. However, he’s also rebellious and insecure, and incredibly brave despite his lack of animal survival instincts. The hardships he had to face in the jungle increased his feelings of insecurity and rebelliousness. Mowgli fails to understand the circumstances of his situation and that results in feeling unwanted and unworthy of love. Nevertheless, Mowgli matures in the end and would come to understand and accept his future in the “man village”.

Bruce Reitherman, the son of animator Wolfgang Reitherman, having already voice acting experience as Christopher Robin in “Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree”, was selected to voice this complex character. At the age of 11 and with a tender, sweet and innocent voice, he had already two successful voice overs in his resume.