49 Fun Facts About Inside Out 2

In Inside Out 2, which city is Riley's home?

San Francisco has been home for two years, long enough for Riley to make two best friends, which is exactly what starting high school is about to threaten.

As Inside Out 2 ends, what does Riley open a message to find out?

Whether she made the team is the one thing the film keeps to itself: Riley reads the message and smiles, and the story ends without the list ever being shown.

Who voices Anxiety in Inside Out 2?

Maya Hawke auditioned over Zoom while the director was on a family holiday at Walt Disney World, watching from a back office at Epcot, and her reading moved him to tears.

In Inside Out 2, what do Riley's glowing strands of belief weave together to form?

Her Sense of Self is tended by Joy, who lets only happy memories sprout beliefs, so Riley's picture of herself is lovely, one-sided and unready for what is coming.

What sport does Riley play at the three-day camp?

Ice hockey replaced a talent show, the plot of the first story screening; the director switched within a couple of screenings because the sport already belonged to Riley.

What is the name of the high-school team Riley wants to join?

The Fire Hawks are the older girls' team, led by a captain Riley idolises, and a place on the roster is the prize that lets Anxiety take charge of the weekend.

What are the names of Riley's two best friends?

Bree and Grace have been keeping a secret: they are headed to a different high school, and that news is what gives Anxiety her opening.

What triggers the chaos in Headquarters the night before camp?

The puberty alarm goes off, and a construction crew swings a wrecking ball through Headquarters to upgrade the console, after which the lightest touch makes Riley overreact.

What does Anxiety do with the original emotions?

Bottles them up and locks them in a vault is a figure of speech made literal: Joy's crew become 'suppressed emotions' in a jar, shipped to where Riley keeps her secrets.

In Inside Out 2, which original emotion does Embarrassment secretly help?

Sadness sneaks back into Headquarters, and when Embarrassment finds her he has second thoughts about Anxiety's plan, says nothing and helps her stay hidden.

What does Riley discover when she sneaks into Coach Roberts' office?

A notebook saying she is 'not ready yet' holds the coach's private verdict: Anxiety gets Riley out of bed at night to sneak in and read it.

What belief does Anxiety's replacement self end up generating?

'I'm not good enough' is all Anxiety's carefully planted beliefs add up to, the opposite of the confident self she meant to build; the director says the whole film grew from that thought.

What happens to Riley after she is sidelined at the final tryout in Inside Out 2?

She has a panic attack: inside her head, Anxiety spins around the console so fast she becomes a blur, then freezes at the controls, unable to stop what she has started.

How does Riley's crisis at the tryout end?

A new self forms from good and bad memories alike once Joy lets go of the old one, after Anxiety concedes that no emotion gets to choose who Riley is.

What do the emotions give Anxiety at the end?

A massage chair and tea wait for Anxiety in Headquarters: she is not thrown out, just sat down whenever her worrying gets ahead of anything Riley can control.

Which two original voice actors declined to return, reportedly over pay?

Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling, the first film's Fear and Disgust, were reportedly offered $100,000 each, a tiny fraction of the lead's deal, and walked away.

Which Arrested Development actor took over as the voice of Fear in Inside Out 2?

Tony Hale stepped in after the first film's Fear reportedly turned down $100,000, said to be about 2 percent of the offer made to the actor voicing Joy.

Which French actress voices Ennui in Inside Out 2?

Adèle Exarchopoulos plays the newcomer twice over: she recorded Ennui in English, French accent and all, and then again for the film's French-language release.

Which star of The Bear voices Envy?

Ayo Edebiri voices Envy, the smallest of the newcomers and one of four survivors: the first story screening tried more than twice as many new emotions, and nobody could keep track.

In Inside Out 2, which veteran actress voices Nostalgia?

June Squibb voices Nostalgia as a dainty old lady with a teacup, who keeps wandering in only to be sent away because a 13-year-old has nothing to be wistful about yet.

Who directed Inside Out 2?

Kelsey Mann was story supervisor on Monsters University and Onward; he started the sequel in January 2020 and had chosen Anxiety as its main newcomer before the pandemic began.

In Inside Out 2, which new Imagination Land landmark shows Riley's crushes?

Mount Crushmore is what growing up has done to Imagination Land: old attractions were torn down for a cliff carved with the faces of Riley's four biggest crushes.

What is Riley's Deep Dark Secret, revealed after the credits of Inside Out 2?

She burned a hole in the rug, which is all the hulking Deep Dark Secret has been hiding; Joy had braced for something far worse, and he shuffles back into his safe.

In Inside Out 2, Riley's secret old crush Lance Slashblade is what kind of character?

A video game hero, stiff old-console graphics and all: Riley's crush on him mortifies her so much that he is locked away with her other secrets.

What was 'Riley's Crew' on Inside Out 2?

Nine teenagers who gave feedback on the film did so again and again: Pixar screened each new cut for them every few months, nearly ten times in all, and took their notes.

In Inside Out 2, what does Anxiety order Riley's imagination staff to draw all night?

Everything that could go wrong at camp the next day: Anxiety thinks she is preparing Riley, but she only keeps her awake, until Joy gets the artists drawing happier outcomes.

Which 2019 thriller inspired the look of Anxiety's most intense scenes in Inside Out 2?

Uncut Gems, the high-stress Adam Sandler thriller, lent Pixar its shaky handheld camerawork: whenever Anxiety is driving, the film's virtual camera goes handheld as well.

Inside Out 2 had the first woman to score a Pixar feature; whose themes did she carry over from the original?

Michael Giacchino scored the first film, on which Andrea Datzman was score coordinator; for the sequel she kept some of his themes and wrote the rest herself.

In Inside Out 2, what sets Bloofy and Pouchy apart from every other character?

They are hand-drawn in 2D because they come from a preschool cartoon Riley once adored, a taste she now keeps locked away among her secrets.

Which Pixar veteran returned as Fritz in Inside Out 2, his first Pixar voice role since Onward?

John Ratzenberger was Pixar's good luck charm, heard in every feature from Toy Story to Onward; Fritz is the mind worker who upgraded Riley's console at the end of the first film.

Which German-named emotion did Pixar consider for both Inside Out films, only to cut it each time?

Schadenfreude, joy at someone else's expense, lost out both times, while Envy and Ennui, also dropped from the first film, made it into the sequel.

Which 2024 release grossed second-most behind Inside Out 2?

Deadpool & Wolverine took about $1.34 billion, some $360 million behind Inside Out 2; with Moana 2 third, Disney had all three of 2024's billion-dollar films, a year after it had none.

Inside Out 2's opening weekend was the biggest since which film?

Barbie had opened to $162 million in July 2023; forecasts put Inside Out 2 at $80 to $90 million, and it took $154 million, the first start above $100 million since.

Many outlets crowned Inside Out 2 the world's top-grossing animated film weeks early, when it passed which sequel?

Frozen II held the record only if the 2019 Lion King, computer-animated but billed by Disney as live action, is left out; Inside Out 2 passed that remake too, weeks later.

Which Chinese film overtook Inside Out 2 as the highest-grossing animated film in February 2025?

Ne Zha 2 needed less than three weeks, with nearly all its tickets sold in China, to pass Inside Out 2's $1.7 billion, and it went on to be the first animated film to cross $2 billion.

Inside Out 2's $101 million second weekend broke which film's record for an animated release?

The Super Mario Bros. Movie had held the mark at $92.3 million; Inside Out 2 lost only about a third of its opening crowd, a hold Deadline put down to a heat wave driving people into air-conditioned cinemas.

In Inside Out 2, what is Anxiety carrying when she first arrives at Headquarters?

A stack of suitcases is Pixar's sight gag: Anxiety, the newcomer who will take over Riley's mind, literally turns up at Headquarters with a lot of baggage.

In Inside Out 2, what rains down on the emotions when Riley's mind has a brainstorm?

Light bulbs, each one an idea, pour down in a literal storm that the travelling emotions have to dodge on their way back to Headquarters.

Which 2022 Pixar flop left the studio badly needing Inside Out 2 to be a hit?

Lightyear, the Toy Story spin-off that returned Pixar to cinemas after three films went straight to Disney+, flopped, and staff later called the sequel 'a life or death situation'.

In Inside Out 2, how does Ennui run the console without leaving the couch?

From her phone, which she never looks up from: crossing the room to the console is more effort than Ennui is ever willing to spend.

Which film beat Inside Out 2 to the Oscar for Best Animated Feature?

Flow, a wordless Latvian film made on a small budget with free software, beat the highest-grossing film of 2024 and gave Latvia its first Oscar.

Which area of Riley's mind was created for Inside Out 2 but cut before release?

Procrastination Land was one of the director's favourite gags and went down well at early screenings, yet the sequence still ended up on the cutting-room floor.

At which Hollywood cinema did Inside Out 2 hold its premiere?

El Capitan Theatre is Disney's own movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard: the studio restored it, reopened it in 1991 and has used it as the showcase for its films ever since.

Which actor, known for Richard Jewell and Cruella, voices Embarrassment in Inside Out 2?

Paul Walter Hauser has barely a line to say in the role: Embarrassment is the gentle giant among the newcomers, and far too shy to do much talking.

In Inside Out 2, what kind of object is Bloofy's talking sidekick Pouchy?

A fanny pack, and a bottomless one: Pouchy is a sidekick from Riley's preschool TV favourite, and the stick of dynamite he produces gets the emotions out of a tight spot.

In Inside Out 2, where does Embarrassment hide whenever anyone pays him attention?

In his hoodie, a built-in hiding place that barely helps: he is the biggest emotion in Headquarters, bright pink and impossible to miss.

Inside Out 2 gave Disney+ its biggest film premiere since which 2021 release?

Encanto, in 2021, was the last film to launch this well on the service; the sequel drew 30.5 million views in five days even after more than three months in cinemas.

In Inside Out 2, where does Joy fling the memories she would rather Riley forgot?

The back of the mind is where Joy's new mechanism fires every memory she dislikes, and the mountain of rejects piling up there later becomes the avalanche the emotions ride home.

In Inside Out 2, what opens in Riley's mind when Ennui has her mock her own favourite band?

The Sar-chasm is wordplay made literal: a rift splits Riley's Stream of Consciousness, and anything said on one side reaches the other as a sarcastic remark.