Twenty-five years ago, Annie Potts got a call from her agents about a company named Pixar asking her to do a voice role in “Toy Story,” the first entirely computer-animated feature film.
“I was like, ‘I don’t even know what you just said. What?'” she recalled during the Variety Screening Series presented by Vudu. She was a little skeptical about the ambitious project and busy raising her kids, but Pixar mailed a collection of their animated short films for her to watch.
The package went unopened on Potts’ kitchen counter for a couple weeks until her 3-year-old son got a hold of it and started playing it on their TV. He frantically called her over, enthralled with the kid-friendly, animated films.
“Those magnificent little shorts unspooled. I was like, ‘Wait one minute, Mommy has to go make a call.’ So that’s how I came to it,” Potts said. “Boy, what fun it’s been.”
She went on to voice Bo Peep in the first two “Toy Story” films, then returned in “Toy Story 4” to close out her and Woody’s story.
“She’s grown so much, commensurate with the times. She’s a real girl now. She’s amazing and strong and a great role model for girls,” she said.
