I often say, “If you want to become rich and famous, you should really go into crime,” because if you rob somebody, you’ll have a lot of money. And then when you’re caught, you’ll probably get in the newspaper, maybe even with two pictures — you know, one from the side and one from the front.
If you want to tell stories, then get into animation, or books, or something like that. It is too much work to do for the fame. An average cartoon show has 22,000 drawings on the screen with 15,000 preparatory drawings. It takes 16 months of work. You’re involved with hundreds and hundreds of people. It’s an insane amount of work. It’s not something for the faint of heart.
Now, nobody knows that - and they shouldn’t, because if you saw how much work went into a cartoon, you would be too depressed to watch it. You want those characters to be alive and to make it seem like it happens magically. I have an expression. I like to say, “It’s boring, but it’s tedious.”
