| Andrew Stanton | |
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Andrew Stanton, 2009 |
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| Born | Andrew Stanton December 3, 1965 Rockport, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Director, producer, screenwriter, voice actor |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Spouse | Julie Stanton |
Andrew Stanton (born December 3, 1965) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional voice actor based at Pixar Animation Studios. His film work includes writing and directing Finding Nemo and WALL-E; both films earned him the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
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Stanton was born and raised in Rockport, Massachusetts. He studied character animation at The California Institute of the Arts and graduated from the school in 1983. His earliest known venture into professional animation was at Ralph Bakshi Productions, where he worked on "Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures" along with other young animators like Jeff Pidgeon, Eddie Fitzgerald, Tom Minton, John Kricfalusi, and Jim Reardon. All of them have done worthwhile things, including Pidgeon who joined him at Pixar. Stanton joined Pixar in January 1990 and was the second animator (John Lasseter being the first) and ninth overall employee hired at the studio. He now lives in Mill Valley, California and is married to Julie Stanton. He has a daughter named Audrey and a son named Ben. In addition to his direction and writing work for Pixar, he voiced Crush, the laidback turtle in Finding Nemo.
According to pg. 17 of the book 'Outlaw Animation: Cutting-Edge Cartoons from the Spike and Mike Festivals' by Jerry Beck, Stanton was also friends with famed animation promoters "Spike and Mike". In one particular instance Spike visited Stanton's home in a super hero costume calling himself "the Centaur". After frightening the neighborhood parents and captivating the imaginations of the children near an ice cream truck Stanton had to get Spike back inside before anyone alerted the authorities.
In an interview with World Magazine's Megan Basham, Stanton explained his singular vision for WALL-E: "What really interested me was the idea of the most human thing in the universe being a machine because it has more interest in finding out what the point of living is than actual people. The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that's not always our priority. So I came up with this premise that could demonstrate what I was trying to say—that irrational love defeats the world's programming. You've got these two robots that are trying to go above their basest directives, literally their programming, to experience love."[1]
Stanton has started working on his next film, John Carter, set for release early 2012 by Disney.[2]
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