Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and more discuss Toy Story 4 and what comes next

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

During my trip to Walt Disney World, I also attended a pair of press conferences featuring castmembers and filmmakers behind Disney and Pixar's TOY STORY 4. That same day, Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, and Annie Potts took a brief tour of the Toy Story Land section of the amusement park which opened in mid-2018. After touring the cool grounds that put you in the perspective of a toy exploring Andy's backyard, the cast met the press for some Q&A about the latest film in the TOY STORY franchise. You can read my review of TOY STORY 4 here and see that it is a welcome addition to the series, but check out some of what the cast and crew had to say about the experience.

Keanu Reeves is having a hell of a year and one audience member called it a Keanu-ssiance (to which Reeves joked that he didn't realize he needed a revival). Between JOHN WICK and ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE, Keanu Reeves was asked about joining the cast of TOY STORY 4.

Yeah. It was a great honor to be invited. For me, I was really excited. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to work with Tim and with Tom. But I knew that working with Pixar and being with these characters and these performers, that I was getting a chance to be a part of something that’s legendary. And so I was really excited. And Pixar gave me a great character with Duke Caboom. And so it was really fun to be a part of this story.

Tim Allen was asked about being a part of franchise that is now in it's third decade. He also reflected on why he signed up for the first TOY STORY all those years ago.

The best part of this whole thing is the new guys, the new women, the new stories, the new characters. It really is the coolest part of this to see this whole family rise up. And I said this over and over again. It’s a theme park at Disney World based on this movie that we started 25 years ago. I saw it, I saw the original tensor lamp film school done by John Lasseter. And I loved that computer animation. I saw this done to a terrific story that Pixar came up with. Back then, I wanted these guys, I loved that story. I loved the story so much about how they get family, not family values. I don’t want to make it like that. It’s such a warmth. And if you guys haven’t seen it, if you have seen it, you see what it is, it’s rich and thick and great. And Buzz is so good in this. He’s so good.

Buzz Lightyear gets an interesting new quirk in this film that expands on his character and Tim Allen has seen how much Buzz has and has not changed since the first TOY STORY debuted back in 1995.

It’s funny to watch this whole transition. At one point, Woody is mean, and yells you are a toy. And I had to transition from a… because he’s always been wonderfully ignorant about who he was, that he was a toy. But his transition has always been, okay, that was a terrible moment for me. Let’s regroup. And Buzz got to be the same, his core has always been this little authentic kind of soft hearted, but no heart at all. And you’ll see in this movie, it’s kind of weird about that. Woody has this inner voice. I think it’s the sweetest part of this movie. But I don’t understand that whole thing. I love this ignorance. It’s not ignorance. He’s innocent. That’s a better way of saying it. And he’s just one of his best friends. And you’ll see through this thing. That’s the journey through this thing is how cool of friends these guys are.

Director Josh Cooley had the challenge of TOY STORY 4 being his feature directorial debut but also to justify why they should even make a fourth film after the beautiful and pitch perfect finale that was TOY STORY 3.

We had the same questions everybody else has right now. I thought you guys were done. But we had those questions five years ago when we started. Your question was like the responsibility. Yeah. Tons of responsibility, tons of pressure. A lot of sleepless nights knowing that we were going to attempt this. Because we love the end of Toy Story 3. And feel like that’s the completion of Woody and Andy’s story. But there was more Woody story to tell. So that’s how we approached it.

Producer Jonas Rivera added that each film is approached as it's own entity and they were not banking on cashing in by just making sequel after sequel. In fact, they never were sure there would even be a TOY STORY 3.

Well, we sort of joked that we thought Toy Story 2 was the last one. When we finished that one, we thought that one was the end of the story. And how we approached this was, to echo Josh, the end of Andy’s story and Woody’s story, but Woody is the protagonist. This was the final chapter. And as filmmakers, to be honest, we feel satisfied that this is where you can end it. Now there’s an implied future to all these films and we sort of never say never at Pixar. But as storytellers, we’re satisfied with this as the closing of the chapter.

Josh Cooley loved the audience reaction to Keanu Reeves as Duke Caboom, something kids and adults are really going to love about TOY STORY 4. But, the casting of Reeves may not have been as easy as you may think.

Yes. That. And also, when we cast these roles, we don’t want to see faces. We have a casting department. They bring in a bunch of recordings. We say turn the headshots over. We don’t want to see who this person. We just want to hear the voice. We don’t even know who we’re listening to. So we’ll listen to a bunch. Who is that? But right away, I think we grabbed, what is that from? One of your movies we grabbed and we were listening to. We all went whoa. Who is that?

Producer Mark Nielsen also added that since Duke Caboom is an unabashedly proud Canuck, there were a specific contingent of Pixar animators that wanted to work on the character.

There’s a lot of great Canadians that work at Pixar, too. And they all volunteered to animate all of the Duke Caboom shots. So he’s mostly animated by Canadian animators. Almost 100%.

Josh Cooley was also asked how they decided on creating Gabby Gabby, the latest in a series of great villain characters ranging from Sid to Prospector and Lotso Huggin Bear.

We realized we had never done a doll before. Just a regular doll. And we all have daughters. So we look at our own kids and their toys and our toys for truths. And I just loved the idea of kind of talking Tina/chatty Cathyish. And then also like the Godfather. Like have the minions. We’ve never done that. And so that’s one of my favorite scenes.

Christina Hendricks was excited to get the call that they wanted her to voice Gabby Gabby and thought her real life interests may have led to Cooley and Pixar reaching out to her.

I thought you guys had done like weird background research on me. Because I actually have a ventriloquist doll in my house that I wanted my entire life. Every year I would ask my parents for this Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist doll and they’re like you’re weird. We’re giving you a baby doll. You’re never going to get it. And then as an adult, I finally got one. But I was like, how did you guys get in my mind?

Many of the cast had seen the finished film and with all of the conversation about this film wrapping the series storylines, Tim Allen shared some insight about reaching the end of the road.

Yeah. I’m too close to it. I said this is, through the process. And then I’m always, because I’m an old filmmaker. And I love the computer generated part of this. It gets better and better and better. Just the look of it was stunning. And then as I’ve said many times, I read through it. And the end kind of was mercurial. Then I read it and it was so bold and I wrestle with loss in my family and loss in my life. I’m an old philosophy major in college. Losing this kind of stuff, losing and gaining. It’s like the sadness. Number four was like a daughter getting married perhaps. There’s great sadness because she’s leaving, but great sadness because she’s also gaining something. And that’s what this is about. And I told Tom the same thing. He hadn’t read it and I had finished it, I had a real tough time. But I have a lot of other baggage about losing things and how this world is. And I just loved how they filmed. The beginning is emotional. And they trick you with this little emotion thing at the beginning. So you get sucked into it. And then Caboom is so funny. These guys. Everybody knew it’s so wonderful to watch. And part of me is going when do I ever show up? Does Buzz ever say anything? It’s back to the same beauty of the way these monstrously idiotic great writers come up with this story. It’s so wonderful.

Tim Allen has had a long career in comedy, both on screen and as a stand-up. He was asked about his favorite ad libs, one of which came from the very first TOY STORY as well as the impact it may have had on Pixar animators.

I love kids. Kind of. I like families. But my comedy for 20 or 30 years is not for children. So sometimes my memorable things is saying stuff that Buzz would generally not say after a long day of doing the same thing over and over again. But the classic to me is when I would ad lib. It’s not like Robin when he did Aladdin. When I ad libbed, it’s not a happy moment for the animators. Because they’ll go oh God. That was funny. God darnit that was funny. Which means they’ve got to go back and reanimate. And Miss Nesbeth, when I got drunk on darjeeling tea, and I’m holding my own arm in my hand because I think somebody, I can’t remember when I lost my arm. And I said is the hat too much? Is the hat too much? It’s under my breath as I walk out of that scene. It was hysterical. They left that in. And Woody goes you are a toy. And I said you are a sad strange little man. And you have my pity. And that was again, animators going oh damn. That’s funnier than what we wrote. And those moments are great to me. Because early on they would give it to me, lately, just Tim, read it as written please.

For both logistical and privacy reasons, the cast of TOY STORY 4 were not given a full script and instead got pages with just their lines and relevant scenes. Tom Hanks was asked about how reading the script for TOY STORY 4 differed from the previous films and what he thought of the process.

Haha, reading the script. That’s hilarious. The way this has worked, and the first one, and this is now 24 years ago, we actually did read a script. There was a screenplay that looked like every other screenplay. You read that and then you saw every storyboard animatic of the entire film. The second movie, there was a script. But we had made, when we had the understanding of it, we realized there’s no real way you can appreciate the weaving of imagery and character that Pixar did on the paper. So we really did wait to see the sequences put together. The third one, they didn’t even bother doing anything other than showing us the movie in animatic form before we began recording. And on this one, I never read a complete script. I don’t think anybody did. But we read the sequences that we were in. And it had a continuous running dialogue of what was going. These movies are made with a great flexibility of it. They work on it. We record it. They start off with the storyboards and words that you say. Then you record them. Then they go away for six months and refine and alter and change and test what we have done up to that point. And so every time we would show up to work, there would be some new iteration of this idea that had been presented to us at the beginning of what everybody is going through. What was brand new on this one was that Annie and I got to record together at the same time. And that never happens. You’re always in a sound stage by yourself, not being able to move off mic. And we got to actually relate with this vast history between the two of us. You leave a recording studio, the session thinking wow, we took it pretty far there. But every time we showed up for the next one, something was revealed to us in the pages that they had for us. So we always knew what territory we were going into, but never the specific route.

Tom Hanks has also become synonymous with the character of Sherrif Woody and shared what playing Pixar's trademark character has meant to him and his career. He also reflects on what he thought about each sequel to the film and returning to his voice role.

Woody has been the great gift that I’ve seen play out again and again in my own family as well as sort of around the world, even in culture that it’s not in my voice. It’s Spanish or Mandarin or what have you. Woody still is this three dimensional emotional bag that kids carry around with them. What I have truly appreciated is that no matter how old you are now, when you see one of the movies, you’re the same age you were when you saw the first one. And there is not a bump, there’s not a jolt. There’s no nostalgia. Nothing ages poorly. It’s exactly as it was and sort of always will be. And I think in some ways, it’s like the definitive Disney enterprise is that there is a cohesiveness and an eternal quality to not just the stories and the characters, but the emotional bonds that we all have with each one of them. And I have always been dazzled when they have come back and said we’re going to try another one. The question is always, really? Ain’t you guys bold. You think? You think you can match that last one we did. Good luck. Then they say, as soon as they start talking about Gabby Gabby or Duke Caboom or the true catalyst of Toy Story 4 so much that it’s called Toy Story Forky is Tony Hale is a Forky. Because look at that. Look at what he is. He is a bunch of stuff that has been empowered by the imagination of his creator. And that is the essential. That’s what being a toy is. That’s the great power of what a toy has. So they did it. These crackpot geniuses up there at Pixar. The 900 or so of them that operate in their darkened rooms and eat takeout food for months at a time.

Tony Hale, one of the newest cast additions, was asked about what it felt like joining such an iconic film series and getting to work alongside Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, and the rest of the cast.

I mean it when I say that I’m still kind of waking up to this. So even you saying that. I’m like sorry. It’s hard to even digest. Because this has been such an iconic franchise that I never thought that I would be a part of something. But to what Woody, I just called him Woody. [LAUGHTER]. He’s always Woody to me. But to what Tom was saying, there was a simplicity to Forky that I just absolutely fell in love with and the fact that he’s made from pipe cleaners and a spork and little popsicle sticks. And he brings Bonnie so much joy. He’s brought into the world. He doesn’t understand the rules of the universe. He’s very confused when people drop to the ground when humans walk in. He’s just kind of always wide eyed. He’s very present. And I just loved the simplicity of it. It’s been a huge honor to voice him. But I will say, we’re so grateful to be here and to be these voices. But we are such a small piece of the pie of what is involved in Toy Story. The amount of artistry and creatives and tremendous labor that has gone into this movie outside of us. The attention needs to be shining on that. Because they really have worked so hard. The movie is eye candy. It’s just such a visual masterpiece. It really is.

Director Josh Cooley shared his thoughts on the message of the story being about moving on and how that fits with all of the characters, old and new.

The way we were thinking about as we working on it, if I was to just sum it up in one word is transition. Every character in this movie has gone through a transition or is struggling with going through one or has not gone through one. Bo Peep has gone through a transition we learn about while working on the movie. Woody is struggling with moving from Andy’s room to Bonnie’s room. Forky doesn’t even want to transition at all. And Gabby Gabby is kind of stuck in time. That’s part of the reason we put her in an antique store. Things are not changing around her. There’s dust everywhere. And even Duke is haunted by his past as well. So that’s how we approached it when we were working on it. Just kind of thinking all these characters are kind of having the same theme that way.

Tony Hale was asked about getting the role and how Pixar convinced him to join as Forky. He also got inspiration from some award-winning places in his career.

I just dove into a lot of pain. No. I think it’s like, because somebody mentioned, what was really funny is when I came in to Pixar, they had attached some lines from Buster Bluth and Gary Walsh from Veep to Forky just to kind of give him his kind of essence and his kind of neurosis. I thought about it. You know what Forky and Gary and Buster would be little neurotic avengers together. Just walking around the world. But I don’t know. He’s just very, there’s a lot going on.

Having visited the theme park inspired by the film, Tom Hanks was asked what it meant to see Toy Story Land and if that had any impact on his perception of how important these films are to audiences around the world.

It’s not just because we have made these movies for the last 25 years. But I think we all sort of know how commerce works right now. And there is this protocol that says you have a movie coming out. So therefore you build a land or you put a game on it. Whether the movie is decent or not, you have to put up. You can’t escape it no matter how much you want it. But there has been this interesting thing about Toy Story. It exists sort of by audience demand by way of audience need. If the second movie hadn’t worked out or it had petered out somehow, I think we would have lost the confidence of everybody who has watched it. So all of these movies exist because they were willed into existence by the audience who was willing to invest it and return right where they were and by the people at Pixar who did not take their responsibilities lightly when it comes down to Toy Story. They have to be able to reach a level of gravitas or import or connection. And that land over there is the example of it as well. They could have banged one of those things out pretty quickly. And it would still be up. But this is now a thing because there is not just iconic graphic images. They’re actually emotional things that people carry with them. And it’s only because these movies have been so important. We’re on our fifth or sixth generation now. How long does a generation last? Three and a half years? I don’t know. But when the next one comes into consciousness, there is now, it’s almost as though they were just now going to build a 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea or something like that. Because you could view it as being late. But because it has garnered this kind of attention and the attention of you all, that it’s kind of like fitting in proper that it exists now.

After 25 years of working together, Tom Hanks shared his thoughts on becoming friends with Tim Allen. While not filming or recording very much together, they have bonded thanks to the TOY STORY franchise.

We actually have become very close simply because of the union of Woody and Buzz. After we made the second one, we began to have regular lunches about every three months or so in which he and I sit down. And alcohol is not involved. It’s just we sit down and we talk for about three and a half hours straight every time we get together and we do seek each other out in order to touch on all the aspects of our lives. Certainly professionally. But it would not have come out were it not for him being Buzz and me being Woody. I think the newbies, I guess you’re the only new one here. There is a profound thing that comes from being Forky or Bo or Woody. That brief story. You’ve been at Disneyland as well. I don’t know if they have it in Disney World. They have that fantastic, you know, whatever. And everybody, fireworks, and there’s dancers. In Disneyland, the closing of the show is the Mark Twain steamboat comes by. And all of the Disney characters are dancing on that steamboat. Belle and Sleeping Beauty and Mickey and everyone. Mulan is there. They’re all there. Captain Hook, Peter Pan. I was there with my family. My daughter who is in her 30s burst into tears. I said what’s wrong? And she said look dad. Look. Look at the end of the boat. And it was Woody and Buzz. She said dad. You’ll always be on that boat dancing for the rest of time as long as Disneyland is here. And that’s more than just a cool thing. It’s actually some sort of talisman I think that we all carry with us now just because we were smart enough to say, how do you think we should do this guys? Come on guys. How do you think we can do it?

But none of these sequels would have happened if Tom Hanks had not joined the original film. What led to his casting as Woody in the first place?

There was something that was ridiculously exciting, much like what they did with you. They took a line from believe it or not Turner and Hooch and animated Woody saying don’t eat the car. Don’t eat the car. You’re eating the car. Stop eating the car. And I just looked at it. It was just a figure on a blue background. And it’s sort of like, how did they do that? That was one question. But then what the story was all the way through, it was a bit of a very, very tough job. I think truly recording these things, you had to stand still and have it a physical space that is usually wrenched. My diaphragm always hurts after recordings. Because Woody is not. Come on guys. It’s all, some version of that plays all the way through. But upon seeing it, when it was all done, there was just no doubt that something had been created here that was much bigger or grander than I think anybody sort of anticipated. It was just special. And that doesn’t happen very much. So what started off as oh yeah, I’m doing a thing. There will be a voice. I guess there will be a doll. That was one thing. But then when it be able what it was, the question was then, what’s the import in this movie? How far is this going to have influence? And it only continued along because the next story was not just a sequel. It was not just cashing in. But it was more investment in what the original asked of us all.

Annie Potts, whose role has expanded dramatically from the first movies, reflected on when she realized just how significant TOY STORY has become.

Summer before last. I just wanted to say this. It struck me. So I was in a boat going down a remote area of the Amazon. There was a little boy, a local boy playing on the banks of the river. And he had on a t-shirt that said Toy Story with Woody on the front. This is on the Amazon. And I thought man. This thing is so much bigger than any of us could ever have imagined and has gone so far. That’s all.

Nothing is cuter than hearing Annie Potts say "Oh Woody" and @tomhanks say "Come on, guys!" In person. #ToyStory4 pic.twitter.com/JQEiBeSdYm

— Alex Maidy (@electricmaidy) June 8, 2019

A lot has been publicized about Tom Hanks recording his last line as Woody. He shared what it meant going in there to record his final line as Woody for TOY STORY 4 and possibly his last line in the franchise.

We were all there. And when we ended up recording the very last line, I had to come to, it was a realization. It was like oh. Is that the last line? They all said that’s it. And we were back in the original. We were in studio. Stage B. Doc who was the mixer was through the glass. And that’s where it all began. And that’s where it was all ending. Earlier, the sessions before that, Tim had texted me in that kind of way. Hey. Hold on. Hold on yourself. You’re not going to believe it. Still recovering. And so knowing that we were going to be in this territory, I asked if it was okay. Usually, you have the mic stand and the stand and the mic and they’re all at a table in front of you. I asked if we could turn it around so my back was to them. Because I didn’t want to have any self consciousness for what I knew was going to be the last time… certainly the last few hours I’m going to be spending on the movie, but also recording the last scenes. And when it came to pass, I felt as though I was on the other side of a river waving to everybody that I had left back in the old country. It was pretty profound. There’s so much muscle memory that goes into it. You drive into the lot through the same gate. You park in the same spot they had for you. You go through the same doors. You get in your car and you get back through and you think I have recorded the last moment of the current Toy Story. We have these talking points that we’ve been given. In regards to talking about whatever future may come to pass. If you’ll just give me a second. I’ll give you the official rendition of what I’m supposed to say in regards to a possible other Toy Story. Let me see if my glasses.

Of all of the cast, only Tom Hanks and Annie Potts recorded lines together, simply due to the character dynamic between Woody and Bo Peep, which is a major point of TOY STORY 4.

TOM HANKS: Even separated by two microphones and two stands, the way Annie Potts will look at you with her eyes is kind of like up like that just a little bit. And when she says the words that you might have said more than any other two. Oh Woody. It gets you every time man. You become a little jar of pudding when that happens. Start quivering a little bit.

ANNIE POTTS: Oh, Woody.

TOM HANKS: Isn’t that? Just do it one more time.

ANNIE POTTS: Oh, Woody.

Whether TOY STORY 4 closes the Pixar franchise or not, the critical acclaim keeps rolling in as the film has yet to have any major detractors. Pixar somehow manages to keep the quality at a high level for this series and show that even three decades in, TOY STORY is as fresh as ever. The cast and crew showed a great deal of passion as evidenced by these press conferences, but it will all depend on how audiences react when they see the film that will determine what comes next for Woody and the gang.

TOY STORY 4 opens in theaters on June 21st.