At one point, I animated villains in our stories, a bear or a giant, then on The Little Mermaid Ariel just called to me and I started to fall in love with characters who had that burning desire inside of them, this hope.

People are who they are by the way they react to things.

I find that you're drawn to certain stories, and there's something about fairytales that have deep roots. They connect really deeply to you, and those are the stories that I find myself drawn to. I love characters that believe the impossible is possible.

If you are drawing a blank, or are having a hard time drawing a certain thing, then it is because you have not studied it enough.

I don't know how to animate on the computer, and I'm really grateful that I worked with a couple of other guys. We called it our triumvirate, John Kahrs and Clay Kaytis, who really understood computer animation but loved and embraced hand drawn, which is Disney's heritage.

For me, drawing is the greatest joy. Animation is never as good as when I'm sitting at that desk drawing. Even when it's up on the screen, it's never as wonderful as those moments when it's drawn, to me.

There's an image of Rapunzel free, flying in the air, as a sunburst, which says so much. This is a girl who has to get out and bless the world.

If you are offered the opportunity to do something that you don’t know how to do – say yes, dive in and do it anyway.

There's a weird thing about me and characters with hair, from Ariel or Pocahontas to Tarzan with his dreadlocks and now Rapunzel... it's like I'm trying to make up for some loss in my life, I don't know what that is.

Believe the impossible is possible

Many years after animating Ariel, I continue to draw her, doodling as I talk on the phone, absent-mindedly passing time in a sketchbook. She has become a part of me and yet now belongs to the world and generations to come.