Disney Hexed Filmmakers Discuss Resurrecting Old Animation Techniques

Hexed is Disney’s 65th animated feature film. It follows Billie, a rebellious teenager played by Hailee Steinfeld, who escapes into the secret realm of Hexe. This world of witches living in harmony with nature features a classic Disney style of magic. Billie steps through a portal and encounters a door with a mouth-like knob referencing Alice in Wonderland. Soon after, she meets a talking book and quill that resemble the animated houseware from Beauty and the Beast.

Jason Hand is the co-director of the film. During a roundtable interview at the Annecy Festival, Hand explained the approach to these homages. He said, “That’s the kind of animation stuff we can do better than anybody, and so we love that, but we love that Billie is not going to treat these things with reverence. She’s going to throw it against the wall and interact by poking it.”

Hand and co-director Fawn Veerasunthorn grew up watching Disney films and later worked for the studio on projects like Zootopia and Moana. While filling Hexed with nods to older classics, the directors aimed for a weirder and more punk tone. Veerasunthorn noted that Billie is the first Disney heroine in combat boots. Billie gets into trouble at school, fights with her mom Alice played by Rashida Jones, and feels trapped by strict rules. Alice has been suppressing Billie’s magical powers ever since Billie opened a portal to Hexe as a baby.

Hand described the mother-daughter dynamic. He said, “Billie’s powers are wonderful, but they also invite danger that a one-year-old doesn’t quite yet understand. Seeing her daughter in harm’s way changes the way Alice parents Billie forever, and she gives Billie a special bracelet ensuring Billie will never open another portal and endanger herself again. Now this notion of limitations and the inability to achieve our potential will define their relationship.”

Alice and Billie live in what Veerasunthorn calls the most boring neighborhood in the world, contrasting sharply with the colorful and strange realm of Hexe. The filmmakers visually represented this divide by using boxy frames for every shot in the real world while breaking out of those limits inside Hexe. Billie loses her bracelet at school and starts manifesting powers again. Alice panics and prepares to flee town, but Billie decides to take control of her destiny by opening another portal.

Veerasunthorn described the setting. She said, “[Hexe] can be wild and unpredictable and sometimes a bit unhinged, and as Billie runs around having the time of her life, she realizes it might be the place that she’s always meant to be, a place where she is free from all limitations.”

Finding new magic

Billie faces a major disruption when Alice arrives to tell her they must leave. Before Alice can explain, local magical police capture her. Billie has to learn about her family history and unlock her own powers to save her mother.

Hand said, “The one person she thought couldn’t possibly understand her actually may have far more in common with her than she had ever believed.”

Billie acquires a walking cauldron named Bucket that behaves like an unintelligent dog. She also finds her mentor figure in Beef Roger Crumbchuck, a three-eyed cat living alone in a swamp voiced by Walton Goggins. Beef acts as a scruffy and surly version of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, but Billie persuades him to help. He prepares for the journey by packing his collection of potions and magical trinkets into a trailer in a sequence inspired by Merlin’s magical cleanup in The Sword in the Stone.

Together, the characters explore a world that becomes increasingly bizarre the further they travel. Hand and Veerasunthorn connect magic to their own artistic efforts. The pull Billie feels toward the strangest parts of Hexe represents their own desire to push creative boundaries.

Veerasunthorn said, “Magic has always been the answer to how you feel. You may feel stuck or feel different in your own life. Everyone wishes for a way to be able to express themselves or have the means to control your situation. That’s what magic means to us.”

Hexed premieres in theaters on Nov. 25.