In a world where screens demand our attention and deadlines dictate our days, it’s easy to overlook the wonders of nature. We find ourselves caught in a relentless pursuit of instant gratification, often missing the subtle beauty and wisdom around us. Yet sometimes literary marvel emerges—a story that transcends pages, carrying profound insights into nature’s unexplored beauty, connections waiting to be discovered and lessons yet to be learned. The Wild Robot is one such story—a tale initially crafted for young readers but swiftly recognized for its universal truths.
The Wild Robot is the kind of story that becomes a narrative and emotional touchstone for young movie-goers and their parents, who then will share it with every subsequent generation to come. Not only is it a thrilling adventure tale with vivid, memorable characters, but it taps into something innate and unspoken about our sense of the world and our place in it. Once you’ve experienced it, it can’t be forgotten.
Based on Peter Brown’s book The Wild Robot, the story follows ROZZUM unit 7134, “Roz” for short, a robot marooned on an uninhabited island. Roz’s journey is not just one of survival but of self-discovery and unexpected connections with the island’s wildlife, including an orphaned gosling she nurtures as her own. Beyond its plot, it weaves invaluable lessons— emphasizing the importance and value of kindness in adversity, the resilience required for adaptation, the intricacies of parenthood, the emotional navigation of loss and the perpetual discourse between nature and technology. The Wild Robot celebrates diverse family structures, underscores the beauty of acceptance and belonging and offers a poignant reflection on what it means to be alive.
Rozzum 7134, known as Roz, is voiced by Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o. Designed by Universal Dynamics, Roz is a sophisticated robot who becomes stranded on an uninhabited island without human guidance, leading her to forge her own purpose. Her purpose becomes clear when she discovers a goose egg, prompting her to nurture and raise the gosling.
In celebration of The Wild Robot, The Koalition spoke to Nyong’o to learn more about how a book adaptation led to one of the best movies of the year, finding the voice of compassion and duty, the beauty of animation, and more.
The artists and animators integrated Roz’s behaviors based on Nyong’o’s insights, encompassing qualities like innocence, agency, difficulty in understanding and honesty. Lupita’s input was pivotal in quickly discovering Roz’s character. Her attention to detail in every aspect was invaluable. Every scene recording was preceded by extensive discussions and brainstorming sessions with Lupita, leading to rewrites that consistently enhanced the scenes. Lupita’s talent lies in her profound understanding of characters and their narrative impact, ensuring they drive the story rather than merely being passengers.
“It is a symbiotic relationship between what animation and what animators do. It’s magic to me; I don’t understand it. My brain just can’t compute how they do this, then they make it move, they make it mean something, and they touch us with their gestures. It’s all magic to me. It’s a long process, and it starts with me performing my bit, and then the animators launch their animation, and then as we move on, I get some sense of what they’re doing, so it becomes a little bit more back and forth, and one is informing the other. You can’t really figure out what the origin point was, which I think is lovely because, at the end of the day, this is truly collaboration. [The Wild Robot] is made up of my performance, the animation, the sound design components, the music composition, and ultimately Chris Saunders, the director.”
“[With The Wild Robot], we’re going for the power of adaptation and influence. Roz influences the animals in her life as they influence her, and what we see is a success story about evolution and change, like the idea that a foreigner can come, and it doesn’t always have to be a threat, and it doesn’t always have to mean the annihilation of your life or lifestyle. I feel like this is a story about these two very different entities: nature and technology, enriching each other’s lives.”
Sanders and Nyong’o collaborated on finding Roz’s voice, gradually transforming it from robotic to emotive throughout the film. “Finding Roz’s voice was quite the journey. It all started with a debate about the role of emotion in a robot. Roz, being a robot, has to learn how to access the spontaneity of emotion, which doesn’t come naturally to a programmed entity. So, how does that philosophical, cerebral debate translate into a performance? What choices do you make to convey the lack of emotion and then her adaptation to the world to express emotion? We started with a more disembodied voice and what I call the ‘programmed optimism’ that comes with robotic figures like Siri or Alexa. There’s this optimism, but you can’t really feel the soul of Siri. Roz starts in that realm and then, as she adapts to the world and becomes more of a mother in raising Brightbill, she reprograms herself to access something more akin to human empathy, expression and emotion. By the end of the film, she’s a fully three-dimensional, well-rounded figure.”
“The journey that Roz goes on is a journey of self-discovery. She’s finding herself in this movie, and so I was keen to reflect that in the vocal performance. What are the ways in which I could show the evolution of her character through how she expresses herself vocally? I was inspired by AI voices like Alexa and Siri. When she starts off, she’s just relentlessly positive, and this is optimistic programming, and then as she adapts to this wild environment into the animals and the behaviors of the animals, she takes on some of those qualities because she’s a mimic and she’s able to learn from what she sees, and in so doing, she develops a more nuanced, warm-textured voice that is closer to mind. It was a lot. It was a workshop. We tried a whole lot of things, but in the end, what I love about what we experience is that it’s a subtle change over time, and we only really see the difference when we meet the other robots.”
Nyong’o felt the passion and commitment of everyone on the filmmaking team throughout the recording process. “There was a level of collaboration that left me feeling inspired every time I left the recording booth. Chris Sanders and [producer] Jeff Hermann are so collaborative. Chris is the kind of director who doesn’t let his ego get in the way. Whenever I got into the booth and had questions or was debating him on something, he was ready for that. The whole team behind this project was so adaptable and collaborative. It felt like we were all getting our hands in the dough, and we were going to bake this cake together. Every time I left the booth, I felt empowered, highly valued and definitely inspired by the work that we’d done.”
Roz’s journey on the island is one of self-discovery and adaptation. Initially confined by her programmed design and structure, Roz learns to navigate her new environment. Over time, she embraces the instincts of the wild, gathering invaluable wisdom from the island’s diverse inhabitants and the natural world. For Nyong’o, taking on the role of Roz marked a major milestone in her career.
“Working with DreamWorks has been a dream, and I say that with my full chest. When I started this process, I was cautious. Yes, there was a book, but a good book doesn’t automatically make a good adaptation, you know? I had seen Chris Sanders’ work, like How to Train Your Dragon, and I knew he had a very special way with animation and the kinds of stories he wants to tell. But this medium was still relatively new to me. I’ve dabbled in it, but I’d never taken on a lead role in animation before this. So, I was cautious because I wanted to know what it was going to be and what I could lend it. It involved lengthy conversations with Chris and doing my best to imagine all the corners of what this project could be. When you sign on to do an animated film, you’re committing to something for a number of years. The process is very slow, and it’s hard to feel the momentum when you come in every six months to work on it. So, there is a lot of faith that goes into signing onto a project like this, and definitely a whole lot of patience. But I am very happy to say it all paid off.”
Soon, Roz transitions from a machine restricted by engineering and detached, rational programming, into a compassionate and empathetic being. Her interactions with the island’s wildlife shape her understanding of kindness and empathy.
“I hope audiences relish the beauty, adventure and emotion of this movie. It’s not afraid to pull at your heartstrings, and I hope audiences enjoy that ride. Ultimately, the message of The Wild Robot, both the book and the film, is kindness is an innate quality we should hone, and there’s value in staying true to yourself while embracing change.”
The Wild Robot releases in theaters on September 27th. To learn more about the movie, check out our full interview in the video above.
