Interview: Travis Knight, Director of Kubo and the Two Strings

Voice Casting and the Hollywood Diversity Problem

JE: LIke you said earlier, you wanted to bring to life more diverse worlds, which you’ve definitely achieved. The voice acting in Kubo is phenomenal, especially with the inclusion of actors like George Takei and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. With the recent outcry in Hollywood for more diversity, especially in casting Asian actors, what was your choice behind not casting only Japanese or Japanese-American actors?

TK: It’s a great question and it’s an important issue. The process of casting is opaque, but I’ll try to demystify as best I can. I think it’s important to note that animation acting and live-action acting are entirely different things with different considerations. In a live-action film, what an actor looks like is as important, if not more so, than what they sound like. Someone’s physical appearance, age or gender or racial or ethnic background can be character defining qualities in a live-action film. In animation, what an actor provides is different. There are two parts to their performances. There is what you see and what you hear. So an actor’s background, in animation, isn’t as important as the performance they give or how well they fit the character we’re trying to create. There are some terrific actors out there that just make terrible voice actors. When you look at all of our films, we’ve often cast actors that don’t look anything like their characters and come from completely different backgrounds, but were perfect for what we needed. With all that said, I fully believe that inclusion and representation matters. Which is why, when you look at all of our films, we’ve made sure that we’ve had diverse casting, and I think the same can be said about Kubo as well. We have an absolutely outstanding cast from all over the world and all manner of life experiences, including a couple of amazing actors of Japanese ancestry, and I’m proud of that. I do think it makes the film better.

JE: So what do you think other filmmakers can do to help fight the diversity problem in Hollywood?

TK: I think the conversation we’ve seen kind of raging in our society about diversity in casting is a subset of a larger issue about diversity in film more broadly. It’s a hugely important issue, and I’m very glad it is being talked about, but the thing that saddens me is that it’s being done in a very simplistic, binary way that reduces it to a hashtag, effectively. That makes us miss it for its complexity. From my point of view, diversity encompasses the seen and unseen characteristics and experiences that make us who we are and make us unique. There are those things that everyone can see, like someone’s age or gender or ethnic or racial background, and then there are those things that are under the surface that we can’t see, like someone’s faith or world view, or sexual or gender identity. I think that all those things combined are what make us unique and make us who we are and make us diverse.

As an industry, we do struggle with that. I think the fundamental issue comes in the lack of diversity of thought and perspective and imagination. We see the kinds of movies made where film after film, the same stories are being told and the same kinds of characters are being portrayed. It becomes an echo chamber where will live in an era of franchises and brands and sequels and prequels and reboots are good for the bottom line, but it limits the kinds of stories you can tell. It doesn’t showcase the diversity of human experience. Historically, Hollywood has not been kind to divergent points of view. That’s actually something we experienced quite from the start.

When we made Coraline, I figured that we had all the key ingredients for a film that everyone would line up to work with us on. We met with virtually all the studios in Hollywood and we got nothing but rejections. It was like high school all over again. The refrain we kept hearing over and over again was that we could not have an animated film with a female protagonist, unless she’s a princess. Luckily, we found a great partner with Focus. The next film we did [Paranorman], we had an openly gay lead character. We had calls for boycotts and people rallied against the MPAA to give us a more restrictive rating. The following year, we released a teaser trailer for our next film [The Boxtrolls], which got to the core of what the film was about, which was family. We talked about it in a simple and poetic way in which every kid could understand and we featured same sex couples in the trailer. There were entire theatrical chains that refused to play our trailer because it was too offensive or too provocative for their audiences. The broader issue is that when you look at these things broadly, theses are diverse stories with diverse characters brought to life by diverse artists. It’s important to us and it’s been important to us since the beginning and it will continue to be important to us moving forward.I believe that our approach to casting is a healthy one and I think that when you look at our films historically, and our films down the road, people will see that. We always approach it with sincerity, no cynicism involved and even if people disagree with our casting choices, I hope they respect that