Peter Hans Docter (born October 9, 1968) is an American animator, film director, screenwriter, producer, voice actor and chief creative officer of Pixar.
He is
best known for directing the Pixar animated feature films Monsters, Inc.
(2001), Up (2009), Inside Out (2015) and the upcoming Soul (2020), and as a key
figure and collaborator at Pixar. He has been nominated for eight Oscars (two
wins thus far for Up and Inside Out – Best Animated Feature), seven Annie
Awards (winning five), a BAFTA Children's Film Award (which he won) and a Hochi
Film Award (which he won). He has described himself as a "geeky kid from
Minnesota who likes to draw cartoons".
Docter was born in Bloomington, Minnesota, the son of Rita Margaret (Kanne) and David Reinhardt Docter. His mother's family is Danish American. He grew up introverted and socially isolated, preferring to work alone and having to remind himself to connect with others.
He often played in the creek beside his
house, pretending to be Indiana Jones and acting out scenes. A junior-high
classmate later described him as "this kid who was really tall, but who
was kind of awkward, maybe getting picked on by the school bullies because his
voice change at puberty was very rough".
Both
his parents worked in education: his mother, Rita, taught music and his father,
Dave, was a choral director at Normandale Community College. He attended Nine
Mile Elementary School, Oak Grove Junior High, and John F. Kennedy High School
in Bloomington. Unlike his two sisters, Kirsten Docter, who is now the violist
of the Cavani String Quartet, and Kari Docter, a cellist with the Metropolitan
Opera, Docter was not particularly interested in music, although he learned to
play the double bass and played with the orchestras for the soundtracks of
Monsters, Inc. and Up.
Docter
taught himself cartooning, making flip books and homemade animated shorts with
a family movie camera. He later described his interest in animation as a way to
"play God", making up nearly living characters. Cartoon director
Chuck Jones, producer Walt Disney, and cartoonist Jack Davis were major
inspirations.
He
spent about a year at the University of Minnesota studying both philosophy and
making art before transferring to the California Institute of the Arts, where
he won a Student Academy Award for his production "Next Door" and
graduated in 1990. Although Docter had planned to work for Walt Disney
Animation Studios, his best offers came from Pixar and from the producers of
The Simpsons. He did not think much of Pixar at that time, and later considered
his choice to work there a strange and unusual one.
Before
joining Pixar, Docter had created three non-computer animations, Next Door,
Palm Springs, and Winter. All three shorts were later preserved by the Academy
Film Archive. He was a fan of the company's early short films, but he knew
nothing about them otherwise. He commented in an October 2009 interview,
"Looking back, I kind of go, what was I thinking?"
He
started at Pixar in 1990 at the age of 21 after Joe Ranft recommended him for
John Lasseter, and began work the day after his college graduation as the tenth
employee at the company's animation group and its third animator. He first met
owner Steve Jobs when Jobs came to lay off some older workers. Docter instantly
felt at home in the tight-knit atmosphere of the company. He has said,
"Growing up ... a lot of us felt we were the only person in the world who
had this weird obsession with animation. Coming to Pixar you feel like, 'Oh!
There are others!'"
Docter
had been brought in with limited responsibilities, but John Lasseter quickly
assigned him larger and larger roles in writing, animation, sound recording,
and orchestra scoring. He was one of the three key screenwriters behind the
concept of Toy Story, and partially based the character of Buzz Lightyear on
himself. He had a mirror on his desk and made faces with it as he
conceptualized the character.
Docter's
fascination with character development was further influenced by a viewing of
Paper Moon, he told journalist Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film
That Changed My Life.
Docter
has been an integral part of some of Pixar's most seminal works, including Toy
Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life and Monsters, Inc., all of which received
critical acclaim and honors. He contributed to these animated films as a
co-author to the scripts, and worked with CGI stalwarts such as John Lasseter,
Ronnie del Carmen, Bob Peterson, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, and Joe Ranft.
Docter has referred to his colleagues at Pixar as a bunch of "wild
stallions".
In
2004, he was asked by John Lasseter to direct the English translation of Howl's
Moving Castle. Docter made his directorial debut with Monsters, Inc.—the first
Pixar movie not directed by Lasseter—, which occurred right after the birth of
his first child, Nick. Docter has said that the abrupt move from a complete,
single-minded devotion to his career to parenting drove him "upside
down" and formed the inspiration for the storyline. Docter then directed
the 2009 film Up, released on May 29, 2009. He based the protagonist of Up
partially on himself, based on his frequent feelings of social awkwardness and
his desire to get away from crowds to contemplate. Following the success of Up,
Docter and fellow Pixar veterans John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
as well as long-time collaborator and director Brad Bird were honored with the
Golden Lion Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 66th Venice
International Film Festival. Docter directed the 2015 film Inside Out to
critical acclaim.
Docter
appeared at Comic-Con 2008 and the 2009 WonderCon.
In May
2009, Docter remarked retrospectively to Christianity Today that he had lived
"a blessed life" so far. The A.V. Club has called him "almost
universally successful". He has been nominated for eight Oscars (winning
two), three Annie Awards (winning two), four BAFTA Film Awards (winning two), a
British Academy Children's Award (which he won), and a Hochi Film Award (which
he won). Accepting his Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, he said,
"Never did I dream that making a flip book out of my third-grade math book
would lead to this." Docter served as Vice-President of Creativity at
Pixar Animation Studios through June 2018, and following Lasseter's step-down
from the role, is the studio's chief creative officer. Also in June 2018,
TheWrap reported that Docter plans to complete the film he is currently working
on.
Docter
is married to Amanda Docter and has two children, Nicholas and Elie. Elie has a
speaking part in Up as young Ellie and was the inspiration for the character of
Riley in Inside Out.
Docter
is a fan of anime, particularly the work of Hayao Miyazaki. Docter has said
that Miyazaki's animation has "beautifully observed little moments of
truth that you just recognize and respond to". He is also a fan of the
work done by his competitors at DreamWorks as well. Referring to the
competitive environment, he has said: "I think it's a much healthier
environment when there is more diversity".
Docter is also a Christian. Though he incorporates his personal morality into his work, he has said that he does not intend to ever make a movie with an explicitly religious message. About the relationship between his faith and his filmmaking, Docter has said:
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