Pete Doctor

The filmmaker, born on October 9, 1968, is a native of Minnesota, United States. He comes from a family dedicated to teaching and music, as his father, Dave, was the choir director at Normandale Community College, and his mother, Rita, was a music teacher. He also has two sisters: Kirsten, plays viola in the Cavani String Quartet; and Kari, plays the cello in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. As a child, Pete was lonely and introverted. He preferred to play alone and often recreated sequences from Indiana Jones. An old classmate defined him as: “the typical tall and somewhat weird boy, who was cannon fodder for bullies.”

He was destined to do great things, and from a young age Docter was already tinkering with drawings, teaching himself how to do cartooning and directing small animated shorts with a homemade camera. He defined his interest in drawings as a way to “play God.” When he arrived at the university, he was not sure what to study and he began combining philosophy and art. He didn’t see it clearly and transferred to the California Institute of the Arts, where he graduated in 1990 and won an award for his production Next Door . He suddenly found himself with offers from both Pixar and the producers of The Simpsons and, although he was not sure at first, he opted for Pixar.

Despite sounding strange, his first works were three shorts without computer animation. Along with the winner at his graduation are Winter and Palm Springs, made before beginning his career in the most important animated company of the moment. A few years after starting, Pete co-wrote the script for the world-famous Toy Story (1995), the adventure of the Woody and Buzz Lightyear dolls that marked an entire generation and that continues to fall in love with both children and adults today. The film gave him his first opportunity to win an Oscar as a screenwriter, although he ultimately did not succeed. In 1999, due to the success of this production, he was entrusted with the task of writing the script for the sequel along with John Lasseter , Ash Brannon andAndrew Stanton . The film hit the ball again and won the Golden Globe for Best Picture.

Pete was ready to make the big leap and in 2001 he directed and gave the initial idea for another great Pixar hit, Monsters, Inc. A funny and endearing comedy about a company dedicated to scaring children by hiring monsters, including Mike and Sullivan. The critics were unanimous and praised her, although the Oscar resisted her again. Just a year later he directed the short Mike’s New Car , with the same pair of characters.

His next few years he was in the shadows, nobody knew if he had a project on his hands. He was only known about because he voiced a character from The Incredibles . Until in 2008 he surprised again by writing the initial story of the endearing WALL E , a little robot lost on a destroyed planet who begins an adventure upon meeting EVE. It is an exquisite film, cared for down to the smallest detail, which moved Hollywood and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film.

The climax of his career came in 2009 with the premiere of Up . A story about the loss of joy, hope and desire to live, and how there can be optimistic people who remind us that in life there are many reasons to be happy. Critics and the general public really liked this little adventure, among other things because it was a risky bet that showed facts of daily life together with the magic of animated films. It was his year and they demonstrated it by awarding him the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film again.

His latest work to date has been Inside Out (2015), a comedy that deals with the different emotions that human beings experience: joy, fear, anger, disgust and sadness. The reviews have once again been very positive and it wouldn’t be surprising if Pete were to win the top award again. Of course he is a different director, visionary, creative and with a giant inner world, which generates a whirlwind of emotions for his fans.