The Korean Face of Pixar's Latest Star
Russell (top) and Peter Sohn /Courtesy of Pixar Animation Studios
The
boy hero of Disney/Pixar's new animation "Up," which raked US$68
million in the first week since its U.S. release, is modeled after a
Korean employee in the Pixar Studios. The little boy Russell is modeled
after Peter Sohn, a 32-year-old ethnic Korean production artist who has
been working with Pixar since 2000.
boy hero of Disney/Pixar's new animation "Up," which raked US$68
million in the first week since its U.S. release, is modeled after a
Korean employee in the Pixar Studios. The little boy Russell is modeled
after Peter Sohn, a 32-year-old ethnic Korean production artist who has
been working with Pixar since 2000.
Sohn also made his debut as
a short film director with four-minute animation "Partly Cloudy," which
was released along with "Up."
You can read the rest of the article here. What is interesting to me is that I never knew the boy character was supposed to be Asian. Did you?
Harlow's Monkey 
I was clear that Russell was Asian. I’ll have to check in with my kids and see what they thought. And I think his mom looked like she “matched” with him at the awards ceremony at the end. (My 5 year old is pretty into who matches right now, so I was checking.)
I was worried unsavory stereotypical things were going to happen to/by Russell and was relieved that nothing blatant jumped out at me.
What did you think of the film?
dude. i had NO idea that the boy was asian! that is hecka cool.
You should totally cross post this on Kimchi mamas!!! =)
I did think that Russell was Asian-American, but my husband didn’t realize it until I told him.
I did because I saw a photo of the voice actor with a costumed version of the character over at Angry Asian Man. I’m not sure I would’ve realized if I came to the movie cold– I didn’t get it out of the theatrical trailer, but of course that trailer’s pretty brief.
I haven’t seen the film yet, but in the trailers the kid struck me as Hapa.
I suspected and googled trying to confirm until a fof told me that his friend’s son was the model/inspiration.
I kept noticing that his eyes were unusual, but they didn’t strike me immediately as “Asian” – I had to kind of figure that out. They could have done better.
I knew he was Asian when I saw the movie, and my kids(age 5 & 8, adopted from China)knew, too. I was thrilled by this “gratuitous diversity,” as I called in on my blog — he just happens to be a kid who happens to be Asian. He’s not there to “be Asian,” his being Asian isn’t a plot point, it’s just mainstreaming at it’s best, imho!
You can read my post here:
http://chinaadoptiontalk.blogspot.com/2009/06/gratuitous-diversity.html
@Laura
“His eyes were unusual”?!?!?!
Pixar had Asian boys read for the voice over (my friend’s son went to the casting call). Jordan Nagai got the part.