Andreas Deja

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Andreas Deja (born in 1957 in Gdańsk, Poland), is a Polish-born German character animator for The Walt Disney Company. Since 1958, he lived in Dinslaken, Germany and studied graphic design at the Folkwang-Schule in Essen, Germany. A lifelong fan of Disney animated films, he started with the studio in 1980. The first film on which he worked was The Black Cauldron, during which time he shared a cubicle with now-renowned director Tim Burton.

Deja is best known as the supervising animator of some of the most memorable Disney villains, such as Beauty and the Beast's Gaston, Aladdin's Jafar, and The Lion King's Scar. In addition, he is the current resident specialist for the animation of Mickey Mouse. He also animated Roger Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, King Triton from The Little Mermaid, the title character from Hercules, and Lilo from Lilo & Stitch. He also animated the evil Queen Narissa in the partly-animated romantic-comedy Enchanted, released in November 2007.

In 2007 Deja was awarded the Winsor McCay Award at the 35th Annual Annie Awards.

Since his rookie days at Disney, Deja would seek some sort of mentorship and practical advice from each of the Nine Old Men (who were already retired before his tenure). On an interview with Clay Katis on the Animation Podcast, he stated that if the podcast needed anything on the Nine Old Men, to refer to him because of the vast amount of information he has collected over the years. Currently, it has been revealed that one of Deja's longtime goals is to publish one book for each of the Nine Old Men.^[1]