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What is the thing you’ve learned most from this new film? Secretmission
Tim Allen [the voice of Buzz Lightyear]: It sounds really self-gratifying, but it’s taking about 20% less time to make a better product. I know now how to focus and isolate my voice. I don’t do as many takes. Sometimes they’ll even say to me: “I think we got it. You can stop.”
Tom Hanks [Sheriff Woody]: Really? I will sometimes ask: “Please tell me you have it because I’m so done with this.” I find it to be exactly the same as it was at the get-go, except maybe there’s a little more importance put on it. I don’t think anybody picks our takes doing a Toy Story movie lightly. But I found everything else is just one damn thing after another.
Story-wise, there is something to the fact that Jessie contacts us and says she needs our help. I am not good at asking for help. So I could use that as a life lesson in this world of ours: we’re not in this alone.
TA: In terms of tech, this new film is so fricking spot on. I feel like I could rob everybody at a coffee shop and they wouldn’t even know. Even the barista would just be scrolling. I love tech. I have a lot of phones and social media, and all of a sudden the algorithm manipulation to what I like got ridiculous. I’m looking at plane crashes that didn’t ever happen. It says: “The 747 lands on an island in Greece sideways. All these people died.” And I go: surely I would’ve read about this? Truck accidents in Singapore on a mountain? It’s just making stuff up! So I applaud our movie for shining a light on stuff like that.
TH: There’s a moment when little Bonnie is spending time on Lilypad, which is supposed to be a communal, joyful experience. And her feelings are hurt by what is being texted about her. That’s a profound moment. No toy hurts your feelings if you are playing with it.
TA: Will this movie move the dial? Well, what motivates behaviour? Why do bacteria and viruses mutate? What activates the change? Even at a molecular level or quantum level? As the late Florine Mark [former president of the Weight Watchers Group], who was a good friend of mine, said: 10,000 women will come to a big Weight Watchers event and about 12% walk out having listened. There’s a weird part of me that really believes that there’s gonna be a bunch of kids that see our film and go: I do want to play with my toys. Being on a tablet is not playing with a toy. It’s playing with dopamine.
Greta, you represent the age of phones and iPads in this new film. What approach to screens have you taken with your own children? felixius4
Greta Lee [Lilypad]: We set a pretty clear boundary about how much time is acceptable and when and where that is appropriate. And stepping back and refocusing and reprioritising things like time spent outside in nature. Hiking and gardening and all the good old stuff that still proves so enjoyable for the kids. Even if it’s a fight. And accepting boredom – relishing boredom, and trying to counteract shrinking attention spans. It’s complicated and it’s a work in progress for everyone.
Joan Cusack [Jessie the cowgirl]: But you’re a parent that pays attention. And that’s the most important part. Otherwise you just let them have it because then you can do stuff.
GL: And it’s so understandable, but it’s not a substitute for parenting. I think it’s helpful, the message in the movie. Understanding that making friends is hard and you need parents’ help to do it.
TH: All society is dealing with this. Trying to outlaw social media for anybody under 16. Whether or not the film alters things, it will spark conversation. We’ll see how popular the idea of this motion picture from one of the most powerful media conglomerates turns out to be.
TA: When I worked in TV there was a thing called “standards in practice” which meant there’s things kids can’t access. Streaming has now opened that up to pornography 24 hours a day. Kids can get round parental controls. How do you pull it all back? You’re not allowed to drink alcohol in the US until you’re 21. I think we should let kids be kids as long as we can.
TH: Tech is not the additive quality to life that we assume it’s going to be.
TA: Did we really think it would be? I remember when I was at college, there was a guy in Miami who invented a bullet that could go through police armour. A valid project for a technical engineer. But is it a good idea?
TH: So now we have developed a plaything that will devour the time and attention of everybody.
TA: We are intoxicated by our own creativity. We don’t care if it’s a good or bad idea. It’s like in Oppenheimer when they ask how they know the atom bomb won’t light the atmosphere on fire and destroy the Earth. The guy pauses and says: “Well, it could …”
TH: “So we can give this thing to our children that might make them never leave their rooms and become antisocial, unempathetic beasts?” “Well, it might, you know, if you let it. But it might help them with their homework …”
TA: There isn’t anything that I haven’t fixed in the last 10 years without the help of YouTube. So it’s not a zero-sum game. I’ve got a 16th-century music box with a little bird which pops up and sings. It has an amazing amount of gears. But I couldn’t find a key or work out the winding mechanism. And a guy online had the same one, and taught me the history, and showed me the secret hiding place for the key. I’d have never worked it out without the internet.
TH: When he was eight, my son made his own wallet with gaffer tape. He did it by watching a video online. And it’s still the wallet he carries around.
TA: So there’s this side and there’s the other side. The sick people that learn how to kill as many people as possible with a vehicle and a trash can.
TH: Who type insults and hurt people’s feelings. So the answer is it’s hopeless and all up to us. And we got a 50/50 shot at setting the atmosphere on fire.
If you could be a toy yourself, which toy would you be and why? stephenw1979
GL: I love Forky. A reanimated regular household object is appealing.
JC: Something cozy that a kid could love. A blanket.
GL: A child would be so distraught to receive a blanket as a present. “Happy birthday, sweetie! A blanket!”
JC: “You can hide under it! You can hold it!”
GL: Or a vase? Not very kid-friendly …
JC: But if it was soft? A soft vase? I wouldn’t want to be a bear because everyone has one. Maybe a manatee? They’re cozy.
TA: I’ve always wanted to be a soldier. A little military action figure. They have a thing called GI Joe in the US – a male Barbie you can dress up in fatigues. I lost interest pretty fast. I just wanted the equipment. A machine gun would have been more interesting.
TH: One of the best toys that I ever had was a rotorcraft, which was essentially a boomerang. If you threw it the right way – at two o’clock into the wind – it would come right back to you. It was great for the three hours I had it until it landed in a tree. I never saw it again.
TA: I had a boomerang made of razor-thin, high-impact styrene that could cut you right open if it came back to you at speed. What could possibly go wrong?
TH: Well, chances are it’s not gonna come back. Because you weren’t throwing it at the right angle with the right wind.
Can you remember being scared of a toy when you were a child or are there any that continue to freak you out? james__clayton
GL: I had a Mother Goose toy: a large bird with blinky eyes and a beak. It was battery-operated and would recite nursery stories. She was a little scary at night. I didn’t like how she looked at me. She kept talking. Goose, let me rest! Me and my siblings had this whole thing of like: does she have free will? Why won’t she turn off? Why does she watch us? So that was imaginative play at least.
TH: I’ve never liked mannequins. They are all essentially like a Twilight Zone episode. Like a corpse.
TA: Lawn darts. A two-pound piece of steel, polished to a tip with wind vanes on it and a handle. You’d whip it at the target about 40 yards away. The kids wanted to see if it hit, so they’d stand by the target. It was amazing no one got it through the middle of their heads.
TH: They are now illegal by order of the United Nations. You’d be arrested by agents from Interpol.
TA: I go to the dark web for them now.
Joan, what are your thoughts on Buzz and Jessie’s relationship? Broppy23
JC: Buzz is awesome. End of story. He’s adorable. She likes hanging with him. A good match.
Tim, what Space Ranger life advice would you give my two-year-old? KHausdelo88
TA: My three-year-old nephews can’t get enough of Buzz and I tell them: you gotta keep him away from water. Don’t take a bath with him. He doesn’t like sand. He’s used to being in outer space.
TH: I’d tell would-be Woodys: you’re in charge. You’re taller than most of them. You’ve got a badge and you outsmart varmints and warn the bad guys to play nice. But use your authority with empathy.
Why do you think the films have such a huge impact on adults? Flimfancy2710, Harrylime53, FranTindz
GL: The way they tackle the idea of the passage of time. Anything that touches on the idea of a child that is now an adult. A toy that used to be loved that is no longer loved. That really hits home with people trying to reckon with this idea of having one life to live.
TA: At the premiere I saw the same look on faces from three different generations. I think this is honest art. Like Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov on some sombre, wonderful level.
TH: There’s a moment in Toy Story 3 where Andy has grown up and he’s going to college and his mother is in Andy’s empty room. It’s a silent beat. When I saw it in a normal cinema it rang so perfectly because one of my kids was going off to college. The animators captured the pain that Andy’s mother felt that her boy had left and she had only the memories. How did this movie become so frigging profound? Often children’s films deal with grief for the very first time in someone’s life. Adults can get used to the realities of everything. But when you’re six and you’re facing up to the dog dying, or the toy being lost, that’s a powerful thing.
Greta, how would you rate the levels of in-yun between Lilypad, Buzz, Jessie and Woody? DanPoole1982
GL: In-yun is a Korean word that can loosely be translated as a deep connection that spans generations. It’s soulmate territory [and central to Lee’s 2023 film Past Lives]. I think that the in-yun between Jessie and Woody and Buzz is very strong and reflected by the multiple generations of kids that they all have in common.
Tom, I read that as a child you used to make a lot of your own toys. Do you still do so? JaneMarple
TH: I used a mechanical can-opener as a helicopter, and I would take three nails and any piece of wood and make the landing struts for a rocket ship. And finding them, building them, imagining them was as much satisfaction as with any toy I ever purchased from a store. Not perhaps as safe: the rusty nails from the construction site and the splintered wood.
TA: I got into building model airplanes or model cars in high-end balsa wood kits. But once you’d made and painted them they became so valuable you couldn’t actually play with them. So I’d hang them from the ceiling.
TH: That makes me sad. I would build a model plane and as soon as it resembled something like a plane, that’s all I wanted. I’d maybe build 60% of the instructions. Then I’m good. I got a toy out of it.
Can someone please tell me what to do when there’s a snake in my boot? McScootikins
TH: There’s a way to store your boot so no snake can get inside it. I learned this from old cowboys. You stick the leg of one boot inside the other and sleep next to that. And if there is a snake in your boot, you throw the boot as far as you can. You don’t just dump it out right there.
TA: I am not afraid of snakes. We played with them quite a bit when I was young. Most snakes have no interest in biting.
TH: True that. First determine the make of the snake. But if there’s a scorpion in your boot, that’s a real problem.
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Toy Story 5 is in cinemas on 19 June 2026.
