Brad Bird On 'The Incredibles' Voicing Roles

[Monday, November 1st, 2004]
Edna - The IncrediblesBrad Bird, writer/director of Disney/Pixar The Incredibles, says that he had to provide the voice of Edna, a superhero costume designer, after they had trouble finding an actress to fill the role. "They tried actresses, but they ended up having to keep telling the actress, 'No, make it lower, like this,'" Bird told Sci-Fi Wire. "Finally they went, 'Look, he's already doing it. Why don't we just keep it?'"

Bird says animators based the character on fashion designers and ultimately created a completely new character. "We certainly looked at Edith Head, but there are actually a lot of female fashion designers that have giant glasses," Bird said. "Also, Patricia Highsmith was an influence. She wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley. When you're designing a character, you're just saying, 'Who is that?' We have drawings where she's taller and fatter and older and younger and thin. We tried a lot of stuff, and we ended up with something that reminds you of Edith Head and Linda Hunt."

Bird says its not unusual for Pixar to use crew members to provide voices for the roles. "We do a temporary soundtrack where we take existing music and cut it together so it represents where we hope to go," Bird said. "We do storyboards, and we record people in Pixar who get in the ballpark of what we're looking for, and sometimes those voices stick [...] Pixar doesn't really care about how famous somebody is. It's more about how right they are for the character."

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