Stanton, Andrew (I)

Report

biography of Stanton, Andrew

Andrew Christopher Stanton Jr.
3 December 1965, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

- 'Julie Stanton' (qv) (2 August 1981 - present); 2 children

- Uses music by Thomas Newman.

- Joined Pixar in 1990 as its second animator and ninth employee.

- Has a son named Ben and a daughter named Audrey with his wife, 'Julie Stanton' (qv).

- A lot of people think if they make a computer-animated film, it's going to be a hit. I'm afraid we're going to see a glut of really bad films in the next couple of years

- One thing that's a blessing at Pixar is that ever since Toy Story, we've made the films we wanted to make. When making Toy Story, we first started out by trying to please all these executives at Disney, and it failed. And in this last-ditch effort for fear of having the film shut down, we sort of locked ourselves in our room and just made what we would want to see. And that became the Toy Story that everybody knows. So we've decided ever since then to just listen to the audience member in ourselves, and not worry about the demographics. I'm a family man, I have kids, and I go to the movies. And I'm just going to make the kind of movie I want to see. And if it doesn't match perfectly for somebody else, so be it, but at least it's an artist being pure with their vision.

- I'm not naive about what's at stake. But I almost feel like it's an obligation to not further the status quo if you become somebody with influence and exposure. I don't want to paint the same painting again. I don't want to make the same sculpture again. Why shouldn't a big movie studio be able to make those small independent kinds of pictures? Why not change it up?

- I was writing {[_WALL·E (2008)_ (qv)] so long ago, how could I have known what's going on now? As it was getting finished, the environment talk started to freak me out. I don't have much of a political bent, and the last thing I want to do is preach. I just went with things that I felt were logical for a possible future and supported the point of my story, which was the premise that irrational love defeats life's programming, and that the most robotic beings I've met are us.

- We were always frustrated that people saw CG as a genre as opposed to just a medium that could tell any kind of story. We felt like we widened the palette with _Toy Story (1995)_ (qv) but then people unconsciously put CG back in a different box: 'Well, it's got to be irreverent, it's got to have A-list actors, it's got to have talking animals.'

- [Pixar is] like a film school with no teachers. Everyone actually wants you to take risks.

- I never think about the audience. If someone gives me a marketing report, I throw it away.

- "The New York Times" (USA), 22 June 2008, Vol. 157, Iss. 54,349, pg. AR13 & AR28, by: Katrina Onstad, "Pixar Gambles on a Robot in Love"

- "Current Biography" (USA), February 2004, Vol. 65, Iss. 2, pg. 70-74, by: Christopher Mari, "Andrew Stanton"