Maya Hawke is making her animated feature film debut as a new character in Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2.
The Stranger Things actress, 25, will voice Anxiety, one of the many new emotions entering Riley’s head in the upcoming sequel, which will hit theaters in June 2024. In the film’s first teaser, released on Thursday, November 9, Joy (Amy Poehler) and the other emotions are not too fond of Anxiety and the other changes in store.
“Our little girl’s growing up so fast, and things couldn’t be better,” Joy says in a voiceover, followed by a shot of a now 13-year-old Riley (voiced in the original film by Kaitlyn Dias) blowing out birthday cake candles with her parents.
Things don’t stay smooth sailing for long as a construction crew bursts into the emotions’ headquarters and begins renovating the place. Among the new renovations is an updated orange console board.
“Orange? Who made the console orange?” Joy asks her friends. It’s with this observation that the group notices the arrival of Anxiety, who states, “Oh, I’m sorry. We wanted to make such a good first impression.”
The trailer concludes on a cliffhanger, as Disgust (now voiced by Liza Lapira) asks Anxiety, “What do you mean ‘we?’”
In addition to Poehler, 52, Phyllis Smith and Lewis Black will return as the voices of Sadness and Anger, respectively, after playing the characters in the 2015 movie. Lapira, 41, will take over the role of Disgust, formerly voiced by Mindy Kaling, while Tony Hale replaces Bill Hader as Fear.
Inside Out 2 director Kelsey Mann teased in a statement on Thursday that Anxiety is “not really the type to take a back seat,” adding, “That makes a lot of sense if you think about it in terms of what goes on inside all our minds.”
As teased in the trailer, Anxiety is not the only new character joining Riley’s lineup of emotions. The film’s first official poster, also released on Thursday, teases three other characters whose names and voice actors have yet to be revealed.
The original Inside Out followed the variety of emotions inside Riley’s head controlling her day-to-day actions. After Sadness accidentally turns some of Riley’s happy memories sad, she and Joy go off on a quest to restore the memories before they are lost forever. Along the way, Joy learns that embracing all of one’s emotions, not just happiness, is the key to living a fulfilled life.
