In Your Dreams is a new Netflix animated film from the minds of former Pixar employees. From Kuku Studios, In Your Dreams follows Stevie and her brother Elliot as they travel through the wild world of their own dreams to find the Sandman and grant them their ultimate wish. As shown in the brand new trailer, the siblings are complete opposites, and discord in the family has strained their relationship more than ever – at least while they’re awake.

The movie has an impressive cast led by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Stevie and Elias Janssen as Elliot. It also features movie star and comedian Craig Robinson as stuffed-animal-brought-to-life Baloney Tony, Simu Liu as the siblings’ Dad, and Cristin Milioti as Mom. In Your Dreams is the directorial debut of Alex Woo, who co-directs with Erik Benson.

ScreenRant’s Tatiana Hullender attended an early press day for In Your Dreams at Netflix Animation, where the film’s director Alex Woo and producer Tim Hahn walked attendees through the process of making their ambitious upcoming animated film. The creatives discussed how the idea took shape, how their time at Pixar informed the new movie, and much more.

How In Your Dreams Tackles Something That Somehow Hasn’t Been Done

Movies like Inside Out have done a fantastic job of exploring the complex inner workings of people’s minds and emotions in a relatable, family-friendly way. And yes, the Dream Productions miniseries explored dreaming in a fun, Hollywood-esque way, but In Your Dreams is something new. Alex Woo and his Kuku Studios coworkers felt that the dream world “was a big empty space that hadn’t been built in the big feature animation space,” and knew that it was ground worth covering.

Producer Tim Hahn revealed that the idea began as early as 2016, saying “it was the three of us, in the latter part of that first year [that] stumbled across this idea.” But a novel concept alone wasn’t enough, as Alex Woo articulated. “The challenge was: How do you ground a movie about dreams with real-world emotions and stakes?”

“That’s where my personal story came in,” the director shared. In writing the screenplay with Erik Benson and Stanley Moore, Woo blended in elements from his own life, such as, “my mom leaving for a little while.” In his words, “I think that’s what makes the movie work. You have this great fantastical adventure with wacky characters and crazy comedy, but it’s grounded by this real human and relatable desire of Stevie, which is, ‘I want to keep my family together.’”

In Your Dreams Will Make You Question Reality

In Your Dreams will have fun with the idea of an ever-shifting dreamscape in more ways than one. “You kind of don’t know what is real and what is not,” Woo said of certain moments; “that happens in dreams all the time, where you don’t know you’re in a dream, and then you realize you’re in a dream.”

Some of that reality-bending will have to do with Stevie’s background, Woo added. “There was something about rooting her memories of her happy family in her childhood,” he shared, “she was four or five years old, and that’s actually very similar to the time at which my experience [with] my mom happened. It made sense that, if we established that her sense of wholeness and perfection happened when she was a kid, she sort of idolized that.”

Why Music Is A Huge Part Of In Your Dreams

While In Your Dreams isn’t a musical, it has a groove all its own, beginning with the fact that Stevie and Elliot’s parents are musicians. It’s a choice that serves not only to create exciting needle-drop moments (“If they’re musicians … they have to have good taste,” Woo said), but also creates another connection between the filmmakers and their story.

“Even in our own personal journeys,” Hahn said, “you’re wrestling with decisions that are purely for your craft or your art, and some that are more about providing for yourself and your family. And I think that’s definitely there as an undercurrent of tension.” Still, he added, they avoided “getting too detailed into what’s causing the daily tension, because the film shouldn’t be about that precisely. It’s more about problems that Stevie wants to fix and coming to terms with that.”

Nevertheless, “We definitely drew from our experiences.” For example, Kuku Studios co-founder Stanley Moore became a father in the company’s early years, which informed the team’s outlook on a story like In Your Dreams.

In Your Dreams Has A Stacked Yet Surprising Cast

The voice cast of In Your Dreams features an exciting blend of up-and-comers and established actors. “Our biggest surprises are our leads, Jolie and Elias,” Hahn shared. “They’re kids, and both of them have worked–they’ve been in a lot of stuff even as young people–but since they are still young, that relative body of work is small.”

It was so important to find actors who could carry the heart of the story, so finding them was surprising, joyful, miraculous, and working with them was a dream.

“When we finally found Simu, Cristin, Craig, and then our Sandman [Omid Djalili] and Nightmara [Gia Carides],” Hahn added, “It’s just a dream cast.” (Pun seemingly unintended.)

Woo also shared some of the pathos behind Craig Robinson’s Baloney Tony, saying, “We knew we needed our sort of sidekick character, and my brother had this Santa bear with a big gross grin. That was a big source of inspiration.” He further explained that, “We really wanted Baloney Tony to be a reflection of Elliot’s subconscious, so it’s sort of like he’s Elliot’s id – he’s sort of Elliot’s desires unfiltered.”

In Your Dreams will arrive November 14 on Netflix.