Brad Bird facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Brad Bird
Bird at the 2009 Venice Film Festival
Born	Philip Bradley Bird (1957-09-24)September 24, 1957 (age 67) Kalispell, Montana, U.S.
Alma mater	California Institute of the Arts (BFA)
Occupation	Film director screenwriter producer animator voice actor
Years active	1979–present
Employer	Walt Disney Animation Studios (1978–1984) Amblin Entertainment (1985–1989) Gracie Films (1989–1996) Warner Bros. Feature Animation (1997–2000) Pixar Animation Studios (2000–2018, 2024-present) Skydance (2010–2011, 2021–present)
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Canney ​ (m. 1988)​
Children	3
Awards	Academy Award for Best Animated Feature The Incredibles (2004) Ratatouille (2007)

Philip Bradley Bird (born September 24, 1957) is an American filmmaker, animator, and voice actor. He has worked in both animation and live-action movies for over 40 years.

Brad Bird was born in Montana and grew up in Oregon. He loved animation from a young age. By the time he was 14, he had already finished his first short film. He sent this film to Walt Disney Productions. This led to him learning from some of Disney's original and most famous animators, known as the Nine Old Men. He later went to the California Institute of the Arts in the late 1970s. After that, he worked for Disney for a short time.

In the 1980s, he worked on different film projects. He wrote the script for Batteries Not Included (1987). He also helped create two episodes of Amazing Stories for Steven Spielberg. One of these led to the animated TV show Family Dog. Later, Bird became a creative consultant for eight seasons of The Simpsons. He directed the animated movie The Iron Giant (1999). Even though critics loved it, it did not make much money at the box office.

He then moved to Pixar where he wrote and directed two computer-animated films. These were The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007). Both movies were huge successes with critics and audiences worldwide. They won Bird two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature. He also got nominations for Best Original Screenplay. He then directed a live-action film, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), which was also very successful. After that, he directed Disney's Tomorrowland (2015). He returned to Pixar to make Incredibles 2 (2018). This movie became one of the highest-grossing animated films ever at the time. It also earned him another Academy Award nomination.

Brad Bird is known for paying close attention to every detail in his projects. He believes in creative freedom and what animation can do. He has often said that animation is an art form, not just a type of entertainment for children.

Early Life and Learning

As a teen, Bird learned from Walt Disney's Nine Old Men at their California studio.

Brad Bird was born in Kalispell, Montana. He was the youngest of four children. His father worked in the propane business. Brad loved filmmaking from a very young age. He started drawing at age three. His first cartoons clearly showed he was trying to tell a story. He especially loved animation after seeing The Jungle Book (1967). A family friend who had taken animation classes explained how animation worked.

Brad's father found a used camera that could shoot one frame at a time. He helped Brad set it up to make films. Brad started animating his first short film when he was 11. That same year, a family friend helped him get a tour of Walt Disney Productions in Burbank, California. Bird met the Nine Old Men. These were the famous animators who made Disney's earliest and most loved movies. He told them he would join them one day.

Bird says his parents were very supportive of his interests. His mother once drove two hours in the rain to the only theater playing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She did this just so Brad could watch it. After two years, Brad finished his first short film. It was a 15-minute version of The Tortoise and the Hare. His parents told him to "start at the top and work your way down." So, he sent his film to his heroes at Disney. The studio invited Bird to visit anytime he was in town. This led to him visiting Disney's California studio many times over the years. This was like an "unofficial apprenticeship" and was very rare. He worked closely with Milt Kahl, who he looked up to.

He started another film called Ecology American Style. It was more complex and in color. But the work was too much. Instead, Brad focused on other things in high school, like sports and photography. He later said, "Animation is the illusion of life, and you can't create that illusion convincingly if you haven't lived it." His family moved to Corvallis, Oregon, and he finished Corvallis High School in 1975.

That year, Disney gave him a scholarship to attend the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Bird joked that he was a "retired" animator by then. After a three-year break, Bird chose CalArts. His classmates included future famous animators like John Lasseter, Tim Burton, and Henry Selick. They were all amazed by the special effects in Star Wars (1977). Both Lasseter and Bird believed these effects could also be done in animation. First-year students met in a small, windowless classroom called A113. Bird later used A113 as an Easter egg (a hidden message or joke) in his films. It has since become a common hidden detail in movies made by students from that school.

Career Journey

Early Years in Animation

Disney and Other Projects (1978–1984)

Within two years, Bird got a job as an animator at Walt Disney Productions. He arrived when many of the studio's original artists were leaving. Bird often disagreed with the managers in charge. He felt they were not taking enough risks. He left Disney after only two years. He worked on The Small One (1978) and The Fox and the Hound (1981). He also worked on Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) and The Black Cauldron (1985) without getting credit.

Bird was sad about the state of American animation. He thought leaving Disney meant the end of his love for animation. Still, he gathered money to make A Portfolio of Projects. This was a collection of ideas for animated films he believed could be made. Bird hoped to get money from other studios. But he found it hard to get projects made in Hollywood. He said, "for every good project I've made, I've got equally good projects that are sitting [un-produced by] various studios." He moved to the Bay Area. He wanted to be part of its growing film scene. He tried for years to make a movie based on the comic book The Spirit. But studios said no because Disney was so dominant. He also briefly tried to make a computer-animated film at Lucasfilm. Bird's next job was as an animator on the movie The Plague Dogs (1982). He was also fired from this film by its director.

Working with Steven Spielberg (1985–1989)

One of Bird's ideas, Family Dog, caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg. Family Dog was about a pet's view of its family. Bird wanted to make it into short films for theaters. But that kind of market no longer existed. Instead, Bird moved back to Los Angeles. He joined Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. He worked on Spielberg's TV show Amazing Stories, which started in 1985. He helped write an episode called "The Main Attraction." Spielberg liked the script and asked Bird for more ideas. Bird drew out another Family Dog story. It became an episode of Amazing Stories in 1987 and was very popular. Bird loved working with Spielberg. He said, "Not only was Steven one of my favorite filmmakers, but he was powerful enough to clear space that allowed us creative freedom."

Family Dog later became its own TV show, a spin-off. Bird did not want this and was not involved. He felt the idea would not work as a full show. He was also upset that Tim Burton got more credit for designing the characters than he did for creating the idea.

Bird also helped write the script for *batteries not included (1987). This was a funny science fiction film. It made $65.1 million on a $25 million budget, which was a success. Bird also helped with Captain EO, a 3-D short film starring Michael Jackson shown at Disney theme parks. These successes gave Bird more chances. But he still spent many years trying to get projects made. He got annoyed with notes from studio executives. He felt they would make stories "smaller and more like everything else." In his personal life, he married Elizabeth Canney in 1988. She was an editor on *batteries not included.

Career Highlights

Working on The Simpsons (1989–1996)

Brad Bird's way of telling stories visually in Family Dog was new for TV animation. Most TV shows at the time used simple camera shots. But Bird used more film-like techniques. He used unusual angles, long panning shots, and quick camera cuts.

Bird's work on Family Dog caught the attention of producers James L. Brooks and Sam Simon. They were creating The Simpsons with Matt Groening. This was the first animated TV show in prime time in decades for Fox. In 1989, Bird joined the show as an executive consultant. His job was to oversee how scripts became animation.

Bird worked on The Simpsons for its first eight seasons. He directed the episodes "Krusty Gets Busted" (1990) and "Like Father, Like Clown" (1992). He also designed the character Sideshow Bob. He encouraged the show's artists to think of episodes as small movies. He took ideas from directors like Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles. In the 1990s, Bird also worked on other animated TV shows like The Critic and King of the Hill. Bird called his work on The Simpsons a "golden opportunity." He felt it was a better fit for him than his work for Disney. He found the job very rewarding. His last credit on the show was the episode "Lisa the Simpson" in 1998. The show's team wanted Bird to direct The Simpsons Movie in 2007, but he was too busy.

The Iron Giant (1997–2000)

Animation became very popular in the U.S. in the 1990s. Hollywood studios wanted to repeat the success of Disney's The Lion King (1994). Bird kept trying to get his film ideas made. But he was frustrated that he had not directed a feature film yet. He was briefly set to direct a live-action comedy, Brothers in Crime, but it did not happen. Also, his family was growing, which brought new worries. He put these feelings into a script for The Incredibles, which he started pitching in 1992. He also developed a science fiction film called Ray Gunn.

Bird signed a deal with Turner Feature Animation in 1995. But the studio thought Ray Gunn would be too intense for young children. The next year, Turner joined with Time Warner. Warner executives offered Bird other projects. They offered him a musical version of poet Ted Hughes' book The Iron Man. Bird read the book and loved it. He felt connected to Hughes' reason for writing the story. Hughes wrote it to comfort his children after his wife, Sylvia Plath, died. Bird related this to his own sister's death from gun violence. He changed the story a lot to focus on one question: "What if a gun had a soul?" Warner liked the idea, and Bird signed on to direct The Iron Giant in December 1996. Bird wrote the script with Tim McCanlies. The story is about a young boy named Hogarth Hughes. He finds and befriends a giant alien robot during the Cold War in 1957.

Bird had to quickly put a team together. Most big animated films took years to make, but he only had two. Bird also often disagreed with the film's co-producer. But the team had a lot of creative freedom. The Iron Giant scored well in test screenings. However, Warner did not promote the movie much. The Iron Giant opened in August 1999 to great reviews from critics. But it sold very few tickets. Theater owners stopped showing the movie after only a few weeks. The movie made $31.3 million worldwide, but it cost $50 million to make. This was a big loss for Warner. When the film came out on home video, it gained a cult following (a small but very dedicated group of fans). Bird was sad about the film's failure. He visited many movie theaters and saw the film playing to empty rooms. After this, he was briefly going to direct a Curious George movie. But he decided to focus on another animation studio: Pixar.

Joining Pixar and Beyond

The Incredibles and Ratatouille (2000–2008)

In the late 1990s, Bird reconnected with his old friend John Lasseter. Lasseter worked for Pixar, a company that made computer hardware and had recently started making animated films. Pixar released the first fully computer-animated movie, Toy Story, in 1995. Bird was amazed by the film. In 1997, he and Lasseter started talking about Bird joining Pixar. In March 2000, Bird went to Pixar's studio in Emeryville, California. He pitched his ideas, including The Incredibles, to Lasseter. In May of that year, Pixar announced that Bird had signed a deal to make several films. This made Bird the first person from outside the studio to join their creative team. He was happy to return to the Bay Area. He bought a home in Tiburon, near Pixar's headquarters. He liked the "creative and supportive" atmosphere at Pixar. He convinced a core team of artists to join him. These artists had worked on The Incredibles for many years.

The Incredibles is about Bob (Craig T. Nelson) and Helen Parr (Holly Hunter). They are superheroes known as Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl. They hide their powers because the government told them to. They try to live a normal life with their three children. But Bob's wish to help people leads the family into a fight with a villain named Syndrome. Bird also provides the voice of the costume designer Edna Mode. As a joke, the character Syndrome was based on Bird's looks. Bird says he did not realize this until the movie was almost finished. The animation team had to create the first all-human cast for computer animation. This meant they had to invent new technology to animate detailed human bodies, clothes, and realistic skin and hair. Michael Giacchino composed the film's music. This was the first time they worked together. The Incredibles was Bird's first huge success worldwide. It made $631.4 million. It was the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2004. Bird won his first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. His script was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. It was also the first animated film to win the important Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Bird, far left, with Pixar's senior creative team in 2009.

Bird's next project was Ratatouille (2007). This film is about a rat named Remy. Remy dreams of becoming a great chef. He tries to reach his goal by working with a garbage boy at a restaurant in Paris. The film was first developed by Jan Pinkava. He worked on the idea for many years. But when it was time to start animating, Pixar leaders worried it was not ready. Bird was hired in July 2005 to fix the problems and finish the project quickly. He did not like taking over someone else's project. But he was also part of Pixar's "brain trust." This is a group of people who help each other with ideas. So, he felt it was his role to help. When Bird took over, much of the design was done. But Bird wrote a completely new script. Giacchino returned to compose the Paris-inspired music. When it was released, Ratatouille was another big hit for Pixar. The film made $623.7 million and got great reviews. It won the Best Animated Feature award in 2008. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay and Best Animated Feature, which it won.

Moving to Live-Action: Ghost Protocol and Tomorrowland (2008–2015)

In the mid-2000s, Bird was set to direct a movie based on James Dalessandro's novel, 1906. This book tells the story of the big earthquake that hit San Francisco a century before. Because the project was so big, three studios were going to pay for it: Pixar, Disney, and Warner Bros. But the project stopped. Bird paused to work on Ratatouille, then returned to 1906. He tried to rewrite 1906 to fit into a movie's length, but it was difficult. Instead, Bird directed the next film in the action spy series Mission Impossible, starring Tom Cruise.

Bird's move to directing live-action films after a big career in animation was unusual. Tom Cruise was impressed by The Incredibles. He told Bird to contact him if he ever wanted to make a live-action movie. Bird liked the challenge of combining a popular movie series with more artistic ideas. He signed on to direct in May 2010. In the movie, Cruise plays Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt. He and his team race to find a nuclear extremist who has access to Russian nuclear launch codes. Ghost Protocol was filmed in places like Dubai. It has a famous scene where Cruise climbs the Burj Khalifa. When it was released in December 2011, it became the highest-grossing film in the series so far, making $694 million worldwide. It was also the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2011.

Bird was asked to direct Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But he turned it down to focus on his new project. This was the science fiction film Tomorrowland. It was named after the futuristic themed land at Disney theme parks. Bird wrote the script with Damon Lindelof. In the film, a disappointed inventor (George Clooney) and a teenage science fan (Britt Robertson) go to an amazing alternate dimension called "Tomorrowland." Their actions there directly affect their own world. The film did not make much money for Disney. It lost $120–150 million and got mixed reviews from critics.

Recent Work

Incredibles 2 (2015–2018)

Bird had always been open to making an Incredibles sequel if the story was good enough. He mentioned it in interviews over the years. An official sequel was announced in 2014. Bird started writing the script in 2015. He tried to make the script different from all the other superhero movies that had come out since the first film. He focused on the family's relationships rather than just the superhero action. The story follows the Incredibles as they try to make people trust superheroes again. They also have to balance their family life. But then they face a new enemy who wants to turn everyone against superheroes. The film was supposed to come out in 2019. But it was finished faster because it was further along than Toy Story 4. So, the two movies swapped release years. Incredibles 2 came out in theaters in June 2018. Giacchino returned to compose the music.

Incredibles 2 was a huge success for Disney/Pixar. It made $182.7 million on its opening weekend. This set a record for the best opening for an animated film. It made over $1.2 billion worldwide. This made it the second-highest-grossing animated film ever at the time. It was also the highest-grossing Pixar film. And it was the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2018. Incredibles 2 was named the Best Animated Film of 2018 by the National Board of Review. The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 76th Golden Globe Awards and 91st Academy Awards. But it lost both awards to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Latest Projects (2019–present)

Bird has said he is interested in making an animated Western or horror film. However, Bird went back to work on his old project Ray Gunn at Warner Bros. Feature Animation. Then, John Lasseter asked him to produce it for Skydance. In 2022, it was announced that Bird had signed a deal with Skydance the year before. He brought back frequent collaborators like Michael Giacchino and Teddy Newton for the film. The movie is expected to cost about $150 million. This led Skydance to leave its deal with Apple TV+. They later partnered with Netflix.

In August 2024, at the D23 Expo, Pixar's chief creative officer Pete Docter announced that Incredibles 3 was being developed, with Bird returning. After this announcement, one news source reported that Bird’s Ray Gunn for Skydance Animation was still being made. It is expected to be released in 2026. However, the studio has not officially confirmed this yet.

Filmmaking Style and Ideas

Bird says he was influenced by many filmmakers. He mentioned early moviemakers like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd. He also liked directors from the mid-1900s like David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney, and Akira Kurosawa. More recent directors like Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Hayao Miyazaki, and the Coen brothers have also inspired Bird. His passion for film was clear even when he was in college. His friend John Lasseter remembered, "Brad would hang out all night talking about Scorsese and Coppola and how he could do what they did in animation." Bird's career path has been a bit unusual. He did not direct his first film until he was in his forties. Bird himself has said his career was "very long, very delayed and full of disappointment." This was mainly because he had very high goals for himself.

He is known for being very controlling and paying great attention to detail. His demanding way of directing has made some people think he is difficult to work with. Bird strongly believes in the potential of animation as an art form. He has asked people not to call his films "cartoons." In the audio commentary for The Incredibles, Bird joked that he would fight the next person who called animated movies a "genre" instead of an art form. He also dislikes when modern animated films are seen as only for children or families. He thinks this is unfair and makes animation seem less important. He loves hand-drawn animation and is sad that it is not used much in the industry today.

Many critics have said his films show ideas from Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy. This philosophy focuses on self-interest and individual achievement. But Bird strongly denies this. He says it is a big misunderstanding of his work. He admits he was interested in Rand's work when he was younger. But he says, "Me being the Ayn Rand guy is a lazy piece of criticism." He stated that most of the audience understood his intended message. Only "two percent thought I was doing The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged." The story of Tomorrowland—where smart people create a perfect place to separate themselves from the world—has been compared to Atlas Shrugged. In The Incredibles, the father, Bob Parr, complains about society celebrating average achievements. Later, the villain Syndrome says, "when everyone's super, no one will be." Some people think these lines reflect ideas from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. David Sims at The Atlantic suggested that Bird's films are "stories about the frustrations of unbridled creativity." He said, "In each film, there's an indelible recurring image: the frustrated genius, locked away in a dusty closet, obsessing over the talents he has to hide." Similarly, IndieWire's Eric Kohn called Bird a "pivotal figure in exploring the American dream through the vernacular of popular culture."

Personal Life

Brad Bird and his wife Elizabeth married in 1988. They have three sons. Nicholas voiced Squirt in Finding Nemo and Rusty the bike boy in The Incredibles. Michael voiced Tony Rydinger in The Incredibles and its sequel. Bird has homes in Tiburon, California, and Los Feliz, California.

Filmography

Feature Films

Animator

• Animalympics (1980)
• The Fox and the Hound (1981) (Uncredited)
• The Plague Dogs (1982)
• The Black Cauldron (1985) (Uncredited)
• The Brave Little Toaster (1987) (Uncredited)
• The Iron Giant (1999) (Uncredited)

Voice Roles

Pixar Senior Creative Team

• WALL-E (2008)
• Up (2009)
• Toy Story 3 (2010)
• Cars 2 (2011)
• Brave (2012)
• Monsters University (2013)
• Inside Out (2015)
• The Good Dinosaur (2015)
• Finding Dory (2016)
• Cars 3 (2017)
• Coco (2017)
• Incredibles 2 (2018)
• Toy Story 4 (2019)

Uncredited Brain Trust

• Monsters, Inc. (2001)
• Finding Nemo (2003)
• The Incredibles (2004)
• Cars (2006)
• Ratatouille (2007)

Short Films

Documentaries

Television

Other Credits

Music Video

Video Games

Voice Role

Special Thanks

• An American Tail (1986)
• Technological Threat (1988)
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
• The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)
• Corpse Bride (2005)
• Friz on Film (2006)
• Fog City Mavericks (2007)
• Madison's Résumé (2007)
• The Pixar Story (2007)
• Calendar Confloption (2009)
• Partly Cloudy (2009)
• Day & Night (2010)
• Pinched (2010)
• Toy Story of Terror! (2013)
• Jurassic World (2015)
• Bao (2018)
• Frozen II (2019)
• Canvas (2020)
• Pixar Popcorn: Chore Day The Incredibles Way (2021)
• Pixar Popcorn: Cookie Num Num (2021)
• Lightyear (2022)
• Werewolf by Night (2022)
• Good Chemistry: The Story of Elemental (2023)

Theme Parks

Projects That Weren't Made

• Brothers in Crime: An action comedy that was supposed to be Bird's first live-action movie.
• The Spirit: An animated movie based on a comic strip. Studios liked the script but didn't want to risk an animated film for adults.
• The Incredible Mr. Limpet: A project that is still in development. Bird was set to direct it at one point.
• Curious George: Bird wrote an early version of the script, but it wasn't used for the final movie.
• The Simpsons Movie: The creators of The Simpsons wanted Bird to direct it. But he was too busy with The Incredibles and Ratatouille.
• 1906: A big project from Warner Bros., Pixar, and Disney. Bird was going to direct it. But it was too expensive and had many delays.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Bird was considered to direct this Star Wars film. But he chose to direct Tomorrowland instead.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Bird was on a list of writers for this film when it was first being developed.
• Untitled musical film: In 2019, Bird announced he was working on an original musical. It would include songs by Michael Giacchino and have about 20 minutes of animation.

Collaborations (Acting)

Brad Bird has often worked with the same actors and crew members in his films.

	The Iron Giant	The Incredibles	Ratatouille	Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol	Tomorrowland	Incredibles 2
Frank Thomas	N	N
Ollie Johnston	N	N
Craig T. Nelson		N				N
Holly Hunter		N				N
Samuel L. Jackson		N				N
Teddy Newton		N	N	N	N	N
Eli Fucile		N				N
Maeve Andrews		N				N
Lou Romano		N	N
Sarah Vowell		N				N
Michael Bird	N	N				N
Himself	N	N	N			N
Kimberly Adair Clark		N				N
John Ratzenberger		N	N			N
Nicholas Bird		N				N
Peter Sohn		N	N

Awards and Recognition

Brad Bird has won many awards for his work. He has won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Saturn Award. He holds the record for the most Annie Award wins in animation, with eight. He won Best Directing and Best Writing for The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. He also won Best Voice Acting for The Incredibles. His eighth Annie Award was the 2011 Winsor McCay Award for his lifelong contributions to animation.

Images for kids

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  Christopher McDonald, Bird and Eli Marienthal in 2012 at an Iron Giant screening.

See Also

• A113
• Directors with two films rated A+ by CinemaScore