“Violet is a typical teenager, someone who’s not comfortable in her own skin, and is in that rocky place between being a kid and an adult. So invisibility seemed like the right superpower for her,” explains Bird. “Dash moves at lightning speed because the average ten-year-old boy can move twice as fast as anybody else, and something always has to be happening or they just crash and fall asleep. So he goes so fast you can barely see him. Meanwhile, I think babies are unrealized potential, which is why Jack-Jack is the only normal one in the family, and yet…you never know. Maybe he’ll have a combination of his parents’ powers one day.”
To play Dash, the boy whose parents have to cheer “slow down” when he enters a school race, the filmmakers cast rising eleven-year-old Spencer Fox who makes his feature film debut in THE INCREDIBLES. Meanwhile, for the voice of Violet, Bird made a most unusual choice as a result of an epiphany.
“I’m a big fan of the National Public Radio show, ‘This American Life,’” he notes. “And there’s this wonderful author of books and essays who appears regularly on that show: Sarah Vowell. One day, I was driving in the car one day listening to Sarah’s voice, and I immediately thought, ‘That’s Violet.’ When I called Sarah to ask her if she’d play the part of a teenage girl who just wants to be invisible, she was kind of scratching her head and telling me that she had never done voices before. She turned out to be perfect.”
With the family cast, the filmmakers set out to find an actor cool enough to portray Frozone, a superhero who can always put his enemies on ice. Bird was thrilled to be able to cast Oscar® nominee Samuel L. Jackson.
“Nobody sounds cooler than Sam Jackson,” observes Bird. “And he makes it seem so effortless, too. He can be funny, soft, or tough as nails. I think he’s one of the most versatile actors around today. We were blessed to get him for the part of Frozone and he just nailed it right away. The animators had a blast working with his voice because there’s so much happening inside his performance.”
For the voice of Syndrome, the filmmakers turned to Jason Lee (“Almost Famous”). Bird explains, “I’ve enjoyed Jason’s work in some great independent films and he has a very quirky sensibility. He put his all into creating this unique voice for a villain. You can hear the kid in it, but he’s definitely not a kid.”
Lee empathized with the character, despite his dastardly ways. “It was fun to play a really mean guy who wanted to be something more,” says the actor. The entire experience of THE INCREDIBLES was eye-opening for Lee, as for much of the rest of the cast. He summarizes: “This was an amazing experience for an actor, especially to be a part of Pixar, which is one of the most unique and creative studios I’ve ever seen. It’s full of youthfulness and spontaneity and imagination. They are interested in creating true classics—and going way beyond the expected. I look forward to the day when my kid is old enough, and I can say, ‘Let’s watch THE INCREDIBLES. I was in that movie.’”
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