Every Pixar movie has its own rules that viewers have to accept, understand, and enjoy understanding. The voices of the toys in the 'Toy Story' films, for example, are never audible to humans.

Technical understanding should be a core competency of any company.

Part of being the successful Pixar is that we will take risks on teams and ideas, and some of them won't work out. We only lose from this if we don't respond to the failures. If we respond, and we think it through and figure out how to move ahead, then we're learning from it. That's what Pixar is.

I have received a great deal of benefit from the simple yet difficult practice of learning to stop the internal voice in my head. I learned that the voice isn't me, and I don't need to keep rethinking events of the past nor overthink plans for the future. This skill has helped me both to focus and to pause before responding to unexpected events.

Well, in the theater, I think you're actually more responsible for what is going on onstage as a director than you are in film.

I don't have to work on it. I'm naturally a writer. The rapping and writing, they can go hand-in-hand - but rapping is an art that you have to practice and master, so I worked at it for a long time.

Part of your job as an artist is to push yourself and make sure your creative juices are flowing.

It's true that there are people who live the idea of being an artist, as opposed to the idea of making art.