What was the inspiration for that outrageously funny voice?
The reason the accent was sort of half Japanese and half German was they’re two small countries that have amazing design and amazing technology. You think about the best cameras or cars or anything, they’re German and Japanese. So that was just the goal. And they’re small countries that have a big impact, so she’s a tiny character that dominates the room when she gets into it. We tried to make her house huge and she’s tiny, but she fills it, you know? I remember years and years and years ago, I met Bette Midler, and I was shocked at how small she was. Because when she’s onscreen, she absolutely dominates the screen. And it just struck me how much personality was in this small body. In your previous film, The Iron Giant, you went further with the main characters in terms of story development. Did you intentionally cut back on that in The Incredibles so there was more time for action sequences? Well, I went further because we had fewer characters in Iron Giant. It was really more about t
