I loved the Disney films, and Sterling Holloway was one of their chief talents. He never had to put on a voice, and that's what Mike [Mitchell] and I encourage. I love the voices that have a unique texture, but it's their real voice.

The world is in such a place of social unrest and there's so much violence.

It was so complex [in "Trolls"] that the technical team had to build a new program. It was about rendering and manipulating that weird hair. We also wanted to break the mold of what what we thought the princess was about...we wanted to keep her troll 'look' - the stumpy legs, an ugly/cute look, it was all inspired from the doll.

Mike [Mitchell] brought me on as co-director, and eventually we ended up sharing a brain. It was overwhelming initially when I was working with departments I hadn't had contact with before.

I was trying to foster a great working relationship between those two departments [design and the writing teams], because classically in animation the two don't get along.

We actually talked about Adam Sandler during the creation of 'Trolls,' because he does know how to time jokes.

The Head of Story is defined differently for each film. But I found that the role for me was to support the director's vision, and to be a conduit to the story team - and managing that team to realize the vision.