How Pixar's UP Managed To Get Organic Acting From Its Child Actor

One of the entertainment industry's best known warnings is: never work with kids or animals. It has to be hard working with child actors, right? Even if the child is the most well-behaved kid on the planet, they're going to get exhausted doing the same line over and over again, and they only have so much to pull from to get it the way you want it.

It seems as though Pixar understood this when they casted Jordan Nagai as the voice of Russell in Up. In this short video from a few years ago, the filmmakers talk about the struggles and conquering challenges of getting "organic" acting from a classically trained child to make it sound real. It kind of comes off as jerkish the way director Pete Docter talks about it, but I get where he's coming from. Better to make a child struggle now than years on because they put on a bad performance *cough* Young Anakin *cough*.