@RyanMichero

4 months ago

Mamoudou story. I didn't work on Elemental (sadly!) but got to go to the Hollywood premiere and after party because I worked on the short Carl's Date. Mamoudou brought like his whole family to the premiere--looked like mom, brothers, sisters, cousins? A lot of folks, a lot of them dressed in very African clothes. They were like this big bundle of Black family joy in the middle of Hollywood execs, power players, and random influencers and beautiful people. They looked out of place and did not care at all, they were obviously having a blast, all smiles and super proud of Mamoudou. That was cool, but also, there was a little after-after party with mostly Pixar people at their hotel late at night. Not only did Mamoudou show up (other voice cast members did not, no shade to them, it was late), he spent the whole night not talking to directors and execs or whatever but to like the artist leads and supes, the hands-on, ground-level people who could actually answer technical questions, presumably because he's just a huge fan of animation and fascinated by the process and the tech. It doesn't surprise me that he is so in love with Elemental as a top 4.

Anyway, Mamoudou is a real one and I have big love and respect for him as a performer. Maybe controversial opinion but him as Wade in Elemental is one of the best Pixar voice performances ever. He's also great in Kinds of Kindness though I wish there were more of him.

P.S. - Also Your Name is brilliant and totally agree with his advice to watch the Japanese version with subs, the English-dubbing makes the songs worse.

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