By: Cynthia He

Kelsey Mann, the director’s thoughts on the antagonist, Anxiety, are different from what most think.

The sequel to the famous film, Inside Out, was released on the 14th of this month.

One of the biggest reasons why its director, Kelsey Mann, wanted to be the director of this sequel was because he hoped to answer some of the questions left from the first film. He also wished to make teenagers’ lives easier through this particular story, which follows Riley in her teenage years and the feelings she has.

“It’s all about navigating those different emotions,” Mann told the Walt Disney Company.

When Mann reflected on the film, he commented that he felt a connection with the emotions.

“I always envisioned this being a movie about anxiety taking over, and was reflecting on my own life and how my anxiety does that in me,” he said to the New York Times.

Inside Out 2 introduced four new emotions: Envy, Embarrassment, Ennui, and Anxiety. Anxiety has the biggest role in the movie. She was all over the place and a control freak who’s always on edge. Anxiety makes Riley think of the worst-case scenarios in her life, eventually kicking the other five emotions out of the control panel.

Even though Anxiety is seen as a destructive character in Riley’s life, Kelsey Mann reveals that he does not think of her as a villain — only as an antagonist. He declares that after all the research on emotions he has done for the film, his opinions have changed on them.

“I see them as positive now… even Anxiety, she has the potential to do harm. But really, she’s trying to help and all of them were there to love and take care of us,” said Kelsey Mann to the Collider Interviews. [Put one concluding sentence at the end. Or pick a stronger quote to finish. Maybe a shortened version of this quote will work.]