Directors Josie Trinidad And Trent Correy And Producer Nathan Curtis On The Making Of Zootopia+ – Exclusive Interview

Josie, you [helped write the story for] the original film and even voiced a character. Why was stepping up as director of “Zootopia+” a no-brainer for you?

Josie Trinidad: It was a no-brainer because I love the original movie — the characters, the world, the different neighborhoods. It’s so rich and diverse that it makes you want to jump in and tell everyone’s story. But I was also extremely scared. I found it incredibly daunting. Yet being partnered with Trent Correy — who is such a wonderful human being, so incredibly smart, and who came up with these brilliant ideas for the “Zootopia+” series — I knew I wasn’t alone. It made everything so much easier.

Did you voice anyone?

Trinidad: Thankfully, no.

Trent Correy: She didn’t voice anyone, but Josie does wonderful scratch. We built these shorts with her scratch voice. Josie’s got the voice of a podcaster, and she’s a great actress. She did wonderful stuff.

Trinidad: He’s being too kind. Going off on a tangent, we cast Charlotte Nicdao as Sam the Otter for our “Dinner Rush” episode, and I made a horrible attempt at an Australian accent, and [executive producer] Jennifer Lee was laughing so hard. She was like, “Who is that doing the abysmal Australian accent?” So, to get Charlotte’s voice in there, the way she elevated it, was incredible.

Trent, you also worked on the original “Zootopia” in a different capacity [as an animator] than [on] the series. What made this series fun to direct? Was there anything surprisingly challenging?

Correy: First of all, animating on the movie was a joy because, from an animator’s point of view, we had done a lot of movies with humans leading up to “Zootopia,” movies like “Big Hero Six” and “Frozen.” So it was refreshing to do these animals on two feet in clothing. It’s part of the Disney legacy, movies like “Robin Hood” [1973]. I got very excited about that and the design and the look of the movie. As an animator, there’s the variety of one week you might be animating a mouse, the next week it could be a camel, the next week an elephant, and it all leads to doing research. You learn how those characters move. It was a very fun movie to work on.

Then, directing this series — I’ve been learning directing over the last couple of years, and every project is challenging for its own reason. You think you’ve got it, and then you get thrown for a loop on the next one. Like Josie mentioned, it’s scary, but luckily I had great partners with both her and Nathan, and we worked with a wonderful team. If you don’t know the answer, you say, “Hey, what do you think, Josie?” and you learn from each other. I tried to soak up every minute of it.