The folks over at UltimateDisney were lucky enough to interview Mr. Andreas Deja, a legendary Disney animator who has overseen the development of many classic Disney characters such as King Triton, Gaston, Jafar, Hercules and Lilo.
UltimateDisney: 101 Dalmatians has returned to DVD… how much do you look to Cruella and the Disney villains of her era in creating a modern Disney villain?
Andreas: Well you look to these characters for their high standard of excellence, in terms of animation and design and entertainment, but you’ve got to do your own spin on things, you know, because what these old animators always said is that you’ve got to be personal in your work.
So I wouldn’t look at these characters to steal a certain idea or a graphic shape or even a character concept, I would… try to let it come out of the material that I’m given and just be personal with it. Like when I did Scar for The Lion King, I didn’t watch The Jungle Book at all because I had seen that movie so many times and I know that if I would look at the tiger and study the tiger again and again, it would have a way of influencing my work… So I didn’t look at The Jungle Book for a whole year. I just looked at real lions; I studied Jeremy Irons in his movies and made that sort of the source of what Scar became.
Head over to UltimateDisney to read the entire interview.
