What Toy Story Teaches Voice Actors About Adaptability
Toy Story 5 hits theaters this weekend. (I know this will date this post, but it will be evergreen trust me!)
Thirty years — THIRTY — since the original changed animation forever. And it's landing with critics at a 93-94% on Rotten Tomatoes, with specific praise going to its visuals, its humor, its themes, and — notably for us — its voice performances.
So let's talk about what three decades of Pixar, DreamWorks, and the evolution of computer animation can teach voice actors. One word.
Adaptability.
From Cartoony to Nearly Photographic
From the original Toy Story in 1995 to films like Soul, Up, and Inside Out... animation has evolved dramatically. And as the visuals became more nuanced, more realistic, more emotionally textured — voice acting had to evolve right alongside it.
Notice the early "real people" characters in the original Toy Story — Sid, for instance, was performed in a fairly cartoony register. Compare that to Russell in Up, or Riley in Inside Out. We've watched a steady letting go of exaggerated, cartoony characterizations of kids in favor of a more grounded, realistic style of voice acting.
That shift didn't happen because directors got pickier. It happened because the artwork demanded it. As computer-generated imagery became more photographically realistic, the performances had to match that realism — or the whole illusion would crack.
I've Watched This Happen in Real Time
I've been working in animation since the late 1990s, and the craft has changed enormously in that time — moving steadily toward more realistic, grounded performances.
Here's something I see constantly with newer voice actors: as character movement becomes more realistic on screen, the actor's own physical engagement needs to follow. And ironically, many new voice actors move LESS — not more — likely because they assume "it's just voice work."
One of the easiest fixes I've found in coaching? Give the actor a physical task to do while they perform. Changes everything, instantly.
Why It Took 14 Years to Make Incredibles 2
There are several reasons Incredibles 2 took 14 years to follow the original — but one obvious factor was the dramatic evolution in computer animation and realistic character movement between 2004 and 2018. The technology simply wasn't ready to deliver the sequel Pixar wanted to make.
Animation evolves. Audiences notice. And the performances have to evolve right alongside the pixels.
Tom Hanks: A 30-Year Case Study in Adaptability
Compare Tom Hanks' performance as Woody in 1995 to his performance in Toy Story 4 in 2019.
In the original, Woody's exasperation was big, broad, almost theatrical — moments like snapping that a toy can't fly, full stop. By Toy Story 4, the character had grown into something far more reflective — quieter conversations, real emotional stakes, a Woody wrestling with identity and purpose rather than just defending his spot on the bed.
The animation changed. The scripts changed. The acting changed.
The actor did not.
That's the whole lesson, right there. Hanks didn't become a different performer — he adapted HOW he applied the same craft to match what the character, the story, and the technology now required.
Toy Story 5: The Newest Data Point
This weekend gives us a fresh, real-time example of exactly this principle in action.
Toy Story 5 centers on Jessie, Woody, and Buzz facing off against Lilypad — a tablet device that becomes Bonnie's new favorite plaything, voiced by Greta Lee. Think about that casting choice for a second: Lee isn't voicing a toy. She's voicing a piece of TECHNOLOGY with its own personality and agenda. That is a completely different character category than anything in the original trilogy — and it required an entirely different vocal and emotional approach to make a tablet feel alive, charming, and a little unsettling all at once.
Conan O'Brien joined the cast as a brand new character named Smarty Pants — a comedian, not a trained voice actor by trade, stepping into animation work and clearly adapting his skill set to a new format.
And director Andrew Stanton — who you might remember from our post on sprezzatura — shifted the emotional center of this film toward Jessie rather than the long-running Woody/Buzz dynamic. Even the FRANCHISE adapted who gets to carry the story this time around.
Critics noticed the performances specifically. Reviews praised the film's voice performances alongside its visuals and humor — which tells you the adaptability conversation isn't theoretical. It's happening, successfully, right now, in theaters this weekend.
There's something almost poetic about the timing too: the film itself is about toys adapting to compete with technology for a kid's attention. Even the THEME is adaptability. Pixar couldn't have set up this blog post better if they tried.
Anime, DreamWorks, and Musicality
Here's something I've observed consistently in coaching: I've seen incredibly skilled Anime voice actors — genuinely excellent at that specific style — really struggle when handed a DreamWorks audition. The musicality, the rhythm, the emotional sensibility of DreamWorks characters operates on a completely different wavelength than Anime performance conventions.
This brings us to two essential truths for voice actors:
Voice acting is really voice ACTING.
And all voice acting is music.
Not all animation is the same. But that doesn't mean you're locked out of styles that feel unfamiliar. It means you need the tools to translate your craft across genres — which is exactly what adaptability provides.
How to Actually Build This Skill
Keeping up with animation trends isn't difficult — just watch the landscape, stay curious, notice what's changing.
But here's the thing that actually matters more than trend-watching:
Great acting never goes out of style.
Don't think of "acting" as a trend you need to keep refreshing. A genuinely skilled actor — with a real, repeatable process for personalizing each character — can adapt to virtually any director, any animation style, any technological shift the industry throws at them.
That's what allows a voice actor to move from Anime, to network television animation, to feature film, to adult animation, to PBS Kids — all without losing what makes their work distinctly theirs.
Stay flexible. Learn to take direction. Build a personalization process that travels with you across every genre.
That's adaptability. And thirty years into the Toy Story franchise — with a brand new tablet-voicing performance landing in theaters this very weekend — it's clearer than ever that it's the skill that lasts.
Want to Build Your Own Adaptable Process?
Developing a personalization process that travels across genres — animation, commercial, narration, and beyond — is exactly the foundational work we do together in coaching.
Nate Begle is a voice actor, audio producer, and performance coach at Begle Booth Studios with over 25 years in the voiceover industry.
