Amy Poehler Says Making INSIDE OUT 2 was ‘Healing’

Published: April 4, 2024

Amy Poehler Says Making INSIDE OUT 2 was ‘Healing’

By Movieguide® Contributor

Amy Poehler recently described her role in INSIDE OUT 2 as “healing work.”

“I genuinely love to talk about INSIDE OUT 2, so I’ve been excited to hit the road [and promote it],” the actress told The Hollywood Reporter. “I have a wonderfully relaxed feeling about it.”

Poehler is returning as Joy for INSIDE OUT 2.

She continued, “Doing the voice work feels like healing work to me. The content touches me so deeply as a grown woman, and it touches the young child inside of me. This second one digs into the idea that at a certain age, new emotions like anxiety show up and everything becomes complicated and you become status-driven. You start to feel almost nostalgic for the easier, more basic emotions like sadness and fear.”

INSIDE OUT 2 is a follow-up to the mega-popular INSIDE OUT, which was nominated for Movieguide®’s Teddy Bear Award® for Best Family Movie. A portion of the Movieguide® review reads:

INSIDE OUT has a strong moral worldview, with a beautiful emphasis on Joy. There’s also a strong redemptive message where sacrifice saves the day. That said, the movie’s unclear about whether our emotions control our thoughts or vice versa. Otherwise, however, INSIDE OUT is a delightful family movie.

Movieguide® also reported:

Associate Producer of INSIDE OUT Mark Nielsen said of the movie’s MGA nomination: “Thank you so much, Dr. Baehr and MOVIEGUIDE®. At Pixar, we really appreciate your support and your generosity in honoring our film this way.

“INSIDE OUT was a very personal film. It grew out of Pete Docter, our director’s, observations of his only daughter, Ellie, as he watched her grow up and the changes emotionally that he saw in her as she transitioned into middle school left him wondering what is going on inside her head. For five years, Pete and his producing partner, Jonas, led us on a journey as we tried to turn that observation into a story and finally into a finished film. It was a massive undertaking of creative and technical and production people working together to make a film they truly believed in,” Nielsen said at the Movieguide® Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry.

The movie’s sequel is set to premiere this summer and will return “to the mind of newly minted teenager Riley just as headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions!” a synopsis from Disney reads. “Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety shows up. And it looks like she’s not alone.”

Director Kelsey Mann gave fans some hints about what they can expect from the upcoming movie, saying, “It’s got heart. It’s got emotion. It’s got humor…I want to say something meaningful about ourselves as humans, but told in an imaginative way.”