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Matt Braly
Matt Braly, During Interview.png
Braly in 2019
Born
Matthew Benjakarn Braly

(1988-11-08) November 8, 1988 (age 35)
Alma mater California Institute of the Arts
Occupation
  • Animator
  • storyboard artist
  • director
  • writer
Years active 2010–present
Employer
Known for Amphibia
Spouse(s)
Katherine Bedrosian
(m. 2018)
Parent(s)
  • On Braly (mother)

Matthew Benjakarn Braly (/ˈbrɑːli/ BRAH-lee; born November 8, 1988) is an American animator, storyboard artist, director, and writer. He is best known as the creator and executive producer of the Disney Channel animated series Amphibia. He also worked as a director on Gravity Falls and Big City Greens.

Career

Braly was inspired to pursue a career in animation after a "career day" at high school, where a Pixar animator drew an image of Lumiere from Disney's Beauty and the Beast while talking about working on animation for a living, and started his career studying at the CalArts institute. After graduating, he joined DreamWorks Animation, where he worked as a storyboard artist for Turbo (2013).

While working on Turbo, Braly and several other DreamWorks Animation storyboard artists went to visit Alex Hirsch, who was working on a show titled Gravity Falls (2012–16) for Disney Television Animation. Hirsch also went to CalArts and, while they never studied together, Braly liked his student films. During the visit, Hirsch pitched Gravity Falls to Braly.

Fascinated by the concept and how Hirsch wanted it to be a serialized program, Braly did a test to work on the show, after which he was hired, serving as a storyboard artist and director for the series. Braly credited Hirsch as the one who "taught [him] so much about storytelling, about developing characters and developing a world", as well as the one who inspired him to create his own show. The series premiered on June 15, 2012, and ended on February 15, 2016. In 2016, Braly won an Annie Award for directing the Gravity Falls episode "Northwest Mansion Mystery". Braly also served as an in-house key animator for the closing scene for the episode "Not What He Seems".

After directing on Big City Greens, Braly developed a series titled Amphibia for Disney Channel. The series centers on the adventures of a Thai-American girl named Anne Boonchuy in the titular amphibian-populated world. The series was inspired by Braly's childhood trips to Bangkok, Thailand, where he felt like an outsider but ultimately ended up not wanting to leave. He also drew inspiration from video games such as The Legend of Zelda and Chrono Trigger. Braly, who is Thai-American himself, made the choice of making the lead character Thai-American due to a wish to creating a Thai character, as there were few Thai lead characters in television series when he was a kid. The series aired for three seasons consisting of 58 episodes from June 17, 2019, to May 14, 2022. He considers the series finale "The Hardest Thing" to be his favorite episode.

After Amphibia ended production in May 2022, Braly left Disney Television Animation. In August 2023, he wrote a Sonic the Hedgehog online comic strip as a part of the Sonic Fast Friends Forever campaign. On December 14, 2023, it was announced that Braly is set to direct a fantasy-adventure film for Sony Pictures Animation from a screenplay he co-wrote with longtime collaborator Rebecca Sugar; the film will center on an ill boy who travels to a spiritual Thai world. Braly is also supervising development on a series of shorts exploring social issues. He is also developing a graphic novel.

Personal life

Braly is of Thai descent. His mother, On Braly, provided the voice of Mrs. Boonchuy on Amphibia. Braly and his wife, software engineer Katherine Bedrosian, both attended Christian Brothers High School together. They married on April 21, 2018.

As a kid, Braly used to watch films such as Mortal Kombat (1995) due to them being filmed in Thailand, as there was no Thai representation on TV. He also used to draw characters from franchises like Mortal Kombat and Sonic the Hedgehog. Braly is a fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and was inspired by the opening sequence in the first episode of the anime Sonic X for the climax of the Amphibia episode "True Colors". Similarly, he was inspired by several horror films for the episode "The Shut-In" due to being a horror fan. He is also a fan of the Disney series Gargoyles and the film The Princess and the Frog; cast members from both productions have appeared through Amphibia. Both Braly and his wife are fans of RuPaul's Drag Race; RuPaul himself had a recurring role in season 3 of Amphibia.

Filmography

Films

Year Title Director Writer Storyboard
artist
Others Notes
2012 Adam and Dog No No No Yes Assistant animator
Short film
2013 Turbo No No Yes No
2021 The Mitchells vs. the Machines No No Yes No Uncredited
TBA Untitled Sony Pictures Animation film Yes Yes TBA TBA Co-written with Rebecca Sugar

Television

Year Title Creator Producer Writer Storyboard
artist
Director Actor Others Role Notes
2012–16 Gravity Falls No No No Yes Yes No Yes 8 episodes
Key animator
2014 Steven Universe No No Yes Yes No No No Episode: "Lars and the Cool Kids"
2017 Billy Dilley's Super-Duper Subterranean Summer No No No Yes No No No Storyboard revisionist
Episodes: "Lab Friends... Forever?" and "Surviving Billy"
DuckTales No No No No No No Yes Additional character designer
Episode: "Woo-oo!"
2018 Big City Greens No No Yes Yes Yes No No 7 episodes
2019–22 Amphibia Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Chuck
Newtopian gatekeeper
The Seamstress
Additional voices
Executive producer
2023 The Owl House No No No No No No Yes Special Thanks
Episode: "Watching and Dreaming"

Nominations and awards

Year Award Category Nominee Result Ref
2016 43rd Annie Awards Outstanding Achievement, Directing in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production Gravity Falls (for "Northwest Mansion Mystery") Won
2021 Daytime Emmys Outstanding Children's Animated Series Amphibia Nominated
2022 Annie Awards Best TV/Media – Children "True Colors" Nominated
33rd GLAAD Media Awards Outstanding Kids and Family Programming Amphibia Nominated
Children's and Family Emmys Outstanding Writing for an Animated Program Amphibia Nominated
2023 34th GLAAD Media Awards Outstanding Kids and Family Programming Amphibia Nominated
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