animation. "It never seemed like a career pos-
sibility," he says. "I used to go to animation
festivals and see every new Pixar film, but fea-
ture animation always seemed like Timbuktu.
I knew it existed, but I would never go there."
admits that collaborating on Unkrich's story
at first concerned him. "Usually as a writer,
you're alternately stepping on the gas creat-
ing stuff and stepping on the brakes editing
and rewriting," Arndt explains. "But with Lee,
I didn't have the luxury of withholding scenes
until I felt they were polished or perfect. I just
could react to it."
tive would be highlighted instead of the posi-
tive. "I had packed up and left New York and
moved temporarily to San Francisco, all based
on this good faith notion that this collabora-