Us Again, Walt Disney Animation Studio’s first new short in five years, is now streaming on Disney+ after recently opening in theaters with Raya and the Last Dragon.

In Us Again, we are treated to one magical, musical night in the lives of Art and Dot–an elderly couple who have come to face the rigors of aging with very different mindsets.  A spontaneous chance to return to the wonders of youth gives the pair a joyous opportunity to reconnect and gain perspective on what the passage of time has changed and what it has not.

To talk about the making of this vibrant short at a recent virtual press conference was Zach Parrish (Director,) Keone & Mari Madrid (Choreographers/Dancers,) Brad Simonsen (Producer,) and Pinar Toprak (Composer.) 

Press Conference highlights:

[Some of the topics touched on during the press conference were answered in our earlier press conference with the filmmakers.]

The Story

Parrish on the inception of Us Again:  “The idea behind Us Again started a few years back when I started to feel some physical signs of aging…I was feeling this desire to have my younger self back again, or to go back in time to a part of my life that I felt that I had lost, but I would have these conversations with my mother who was in her 60s at the time, and she would talk about all the cool things she was going to do when she ‘grew up.’  And every year on her birthday, my wife would always say ‘oh, I can’t wait to grow up!’

“And it really made me stop and think about my perspective on aging and where my focus was.  I realized, if I spent all of my time focusing on the past, I was going to miss the beauty in the present.  That really started to become the thematic premise of the film.

“As I started digging into that idea and thinking about the main characters of the film, I realized I had this dichotomy within my grandparents.  On the one side, I had a set of grandparents, Art and Dot, who the main characters are actually named after, and when they retired they sold their home, bought an RV, they traveled the entire country, they went to every national park, they followed their passions, they got out, and they kept moving.  And on the other side, I had a set of grandparents who I am incredibly close with, but they were a little more homebodies…So with that dichotomy, I felt like I had the beginnings of a story.

“I thought it would be really cool if there was a magical rainstorm.  Now Disney doesn’t have the happiest history of rain in its films–it tends to be used to exaggerate the low moments of a character.  But I grew up in the Mid-West, and so to me, playing in the rain is sort of Peak Youthfulness. and as I thought about a couple playing in the rain, dancing in the rain, it felt like Peak Romanticism as well.  It felt like we could use that rain to raise the stakes of the film, as rain is temporary, very much like youth is.

“And as a huge fan of dance shows, I quickly fell in love with this idea of this newly-young couple dancing across the town in the rain, painting the city red.  But as I started to think about the main character, Art, who is a little bit of a curmudgeon, he feels like his best days are behind him, I thought, well wouldn’t it be cool if the world is one of dance.  Where it isn’t something you go and do, but how you do everything.  If I were this guy, who felt that his best days were behind me, wouldn’t I feel even more isolated, in a world like that.  So that really allowed us to use dance as a mechanism to exaggerate the entire world, and a way to show a youthful spirit.”

Q & A

Toprak on getting involved with Us Again:  “I remember the very first meeting with Zach and Brad and once they started telling me about the story…honestly, the fact that it had no dialogue was just really interesting to me, and that the whole thing would take place through music and dance–I just never have that kind of opportunity, that kind of canvas to really create.  A lot of the time, music, in a film, does say what’s not said on screen.  We’re trying to underscore the emotion, but this was full-on just say everything with music and dance!  So it was kind of a no-brainer.  I was just so excited to write every single note.  It was such a joy.

Parrish on representation:  “Across the board from the very beginning, that was always the plan.  I’m in an interracial couple and so it was important to me to have an interracial couple on screen.  We’re also representing dance in a new way so that felt important, we were representing age in a new way so that felt important, so we really wanted to lean into that as much as we could.  We’re fortunate at Disney to have a diversity inclusion group both within Disney Animation and in the Disney Company and we got to collaborate across the entire company to talk about shared experiences as far as growing older and people’s parents and grandparents and where they come from and how views on aging matter, and once we decided on the ethnicities of Art and Dot, what does that mean?  What does their house look like?  We really wanted to be as authentic in that representation as humanly possible.

Keone & Mari on a dancer’s perspective:  

Mari:  “Our goal is to be Art and Dot.  There’s a young part of your mentality and mind when you’re a young dancer or actor or anybody who does something physical, to say ‘oh yeah, I can only do this to a certain age and then I have to give it up.’  Like, I have to give up something I love because of my age and I think that’s where you see the difference between Art and Dot.  Dot doesn’t think that way and Art thinks that way but really it’s a choice that you make.  Obviously, there are maintenance issues, you gotta be taking care of things…”

Keone:  “It can be just like fine wine, man.  You can really make some amazing choices and there’s a wisdom to it.  I think that’s what’s special about this, and a reminder to ourselves that there is no shelf life to us.  It’s all in here.”  [pats over heart] 

Mari:  “And I think the people that we see who are ‘past the normal shelf life of a dancer’ which I think when you’re younger you think it’s like thirty.  ‘When I’m thirty, I can’t dance anymore.’  I’m thirty-five and I’m doing just fine!  But I see dancers who are getting to fifties or older and past their fifties and it’s not just their movement–it’s their spirit and their love that resonates from them that’s so powerful.  It can be one person on a stage in a giant theater and they can make everyone cry with the power of their connection to their art.”

Details to look for in the short: 

• • Art and Dot’s apartment is decorated with a specific nod to Japanese and South American cultures.
  • The “Rhapsody in Blue” segment of Fantasia 2000 is playing on the screen of the theater in the background.
  • The pier is called “Paradise Pier” from the land at Disney California Adventure.
  • The fountain is from Wreck-It Ralph.
  • The stores are named after the crew members.
  • A number of Hidden Mickeys are present on the cars and in the backgrounds.

In case you missed it, here’s the trailer for Us Again:

Us Again is currently streaming on Disney+.

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