Lupita Nyong’o Talks The Power Of Kindness and Creating Roz In The Wild Robot

Dreamworks’ newest animated story The Wild Robot has stolen the hearts of audiences in just its first weekend in theaters. The film is an adaptation of the famous children’s book of the same name written by Peter Brown. It follows a robot named Rozzum 7134, also known as Roz, who gets stranded on a wild island and must adapt to her surroundings and learn to communicate with the wildlife. In doing so, she creates her own family and makes the island her beloved home. The outpouring of love, inspiration, and admiration for this film is evident with it’s quick rise to the number one slot in the box office. Actress Lupita Nyong’o who plays the title character spoke at a press conference about creating the lovable robot alongside screenwriter and director Chris Sanders and film composer Kris Bowers.

When finding Roz’s voice, Nyong’o elaborated on performing empathetic human-like emotions portrayed through Roz, even though she was supposed to be an emotionless robot. She studied the famous artificial voices of Siri, Alexa, and even TikTok voice modifiers when finding her voice as Roz: “What was similar in all of them was this optimistic brightness. So, after a lot of trial and error, we had many versions of Roz,” she said. “That’s the beauty of doing it over two and a half years, is that, as the script develops, so does the […] voice.” She explained how they decided for Roz’s voice to initially emulate this technical optimism like Siri, but as Roz emotionally develops throughout the film, her voice evolved as well.

Nyong’o praised Sanders for helping her develop this voice and for trusting her to play Roz. Early on, I asked him why he thought of me for the role of Roz, and he mentioned that he liked the warmth of my voice,” she said. “So we knew that we were going to end up with a Roz that sounded more like me to kind of depict that evolution she’s gone through. And then, we reverse engineered.”

This was film composer Kris Bowers’ first animated film, which came right at the time that he became a father. He was able to simultaneously explore his own parenting experiences with the messaging of this film. Creating this score made him take note of the sacrifices parents make to give their child the best life. He recognized his own admiration for his wife’s courage to become a mother and for his own parents who sacrificed so much to give him a happy life. “One sequence in particular I think about is the migration sequence. There’s this cue that we worked on for a long time and my first pass at it […] was really bright and happy,” he said. “And Chris reminded me about the fact that this is a really bittersweet moment where Roz is saying goodbye to Brightbill and they don’t know if they’re ever going to see each other again.”

He continued, “I hadn’t even thought of the depth of that experience and what that would be like with my daughter. I just remember going back after that conversation and with [Chris] and writing that piece of music and it just coming out of me very naturally because of how much the emotion was just on top of my mind.”

The film beautifully depicts the power and importance of saying “I love you” to people in your life. “Front and center is the idea that we’re, at some point, going to have to change our programming to accomplish something. I think that we’re all creatures of habit. We hate change,” Sanders said of what else he hopes audiences take away from the story. “I think that sometimes we’re afraid if we change our programming, we’re going to lose ourselves somehow, and you’re not going to. You’re going to become a more dimensional being and it’s going to be okay.”

“I really like the message that kindness is a force. I think often times kindness can be considered like a vulnerability. In this film, Roz’s journey shows how it is a force and it’s a force to be reckoned with,” said Nyong’o, with Bowers adding that he hopes audiences remember to “[thank] the people that have sacrificed for you to be here and be who you are.

Nyong’o praised Sanders for letting her share her own ideas when creating Roz and was so proud that she helped create the final version of the robot. “Seeing the final product, I just swelled with gratitude for having been part of it and to see my fingerprints on it,” she said. “Tthat was amazing. I think finding the right creative chemistry is so important.”

Be sure to see the beautiful film The Wild Robot out in theaters worldwide.