Netflix’s ‘In Your Dreams’ Is The ‘White Whale’ Of Animated Movies

“Dreams have always fascinated me, and a dream movie, in the animated space, has been a white whale,” explains director Alex Woo at a sneak peek footage screening for his directorial debut, In Your Dreams. “Every animation studio in the world has had a dream movie in development at some point over the last couple of decades, but none of them have ever been made because I don’t think anyone could figure out how to give a dream movie stakes. When we started our company, and we were dreaming up different movie ideas, when we cracked it, we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve got to make this.’”

In Your Dreams, which lands on Netflix this fall, is a comedy adventure that follows Stevie and her brother Elliot as they journey into the absurd landscape of their own dreams. If the siblings can withstand a snarky stuffed giraffe, zombie breakfast foods, and the queen of nightmares, the Sandman will grant them their ultimate dream come true-the perfect family.

“I grew up on movies that told me that if I wished hard enough, if I wanted something badly enough, that my dreams could come true,” Woo, who previously worked on WALL·E and Incredibles 2, continues. “As I got older, I realized that sometimes that’s true, but sometimes it’s not, and I wanted to make a movie that explores the question, ‘What do you do when your dreams don’t come true? How do you find hope? How do you keep moving forward in life? How do you find a way through?’ That was why I wanted so desperately to make it.”

‘In Your Dreams’ Is A Love Letter To Family

Already tipped as an awards season contender, In Your Dreams has taken Woo on a personal journey of discovery within his own relationships that he never, to be honest, dreamed of.

“I have a little brother, and Elliot is based on him. I’m very much like Stevie. My brother and I had our epic battles throughout our childhood,” he explains to a handpicked group of journalists and other guests at Netflix HQ in Hollywood. “I’m sort of the perfectionist, overbearing older sibling, and he’s the carefree, fun, loving, charming little brother. A lot of this movie was about me trying to understand and appreciate him and his unique perspective on life. One of my good friends, who knows me a little too well, saw the movie and said, ‘You know, this film is just a circuitous way of you telling your brother that you love him?’ and I was like, ‘I guess so?’ Making movies is easier than dealing with your feelings.”

In Your Dreams’ ensemble voice cast includes Shang-Chi’s Simu Liu and The Penguin’s Cristin Milioti as the kids’ parents and Hot Tub Time Machine’s Craig Robinson as Elliot’s lost cuddly toy, Baloney Tony. The streamer is so convinced that horse plushy will be popular with audiences that they have even recreated him for real. Expect it to be on Christmas lists this year.

“I’ve been a huge fan of Craig’s for years,” Woo enthuses. “He’s a genius, so I was so thrilled when he agreed to be in the movie, yeah. His performance as Tony is just fantastic. He just brought so much energy to that character. We improved so many of his lines, and he brought a lot of comedy that we couldn’t come up with ourselves. It was just a fantastic time.”

Robinson adds, “The script touches all of us. Everybody dreams. You daydream, and we all dream about dreaming, so to be a part of it was something real. Tony was just so funny and silly, and I could see myself as this crazy stuffed animal.”

“It is a love letter to our brothers and sisters. I have a younger brother and an older sister. My brother and I are relentless in teasing our sister, but it’s with love and fun. For instance, with text messages, you can’t misspell a word in our text chain, or it’s over. We’re like, ‘What does that mean? I never heard that word before.'”

The Cast Has Deep Connections With ‘In Your Dreams’

The comedian also understands Baloney Tony on a deeper level, admitting he still has all of his stuffed animals.

“When I was growing up, I had this teddy bear, but it was later, in my teens,” he shares. “I had it in college. For some reason, I had all these stuffed animals. I put them all in storage in LA, but I said to myself, ‘Why don’t I have like 30 stuffed animals?’ Anyway, my teddy bear is in there, too.”

Woo also believes that casting Simu Liu was kismet and recalls approaching him with the project at precisely the right time.

“We cast Simu before Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings came out in 2021,” the filmmaker, who also co-wrote the movie, reveals. “I have a friend who is good friends with him, and he was filming Shang-Chi at the time. My friend was like, ‘Hey, you should think about this actor because he’s going to be huge. He’s really charismatic.’ We were introduced, and I was charmed by him, his good looks, and that charisma. I just asked him if he’d be willing to be a part of this film. I think what hooked him is that his character, the dad, is a musician, and he’s this struggling musician himself. He sings a song in the film, and Simu loves singing, and he’s very good. I told him, ‘It’s not musical, but you’re going to be able to sing in this film,’ and he was like, ‘Oh yeah, Sign me up.’ That was fantastic.”

‘In Your Dreams’ Respectfully Hits Cultural Touchstones

In addition to the relationships between siblings and our love for our cuddly childhood companions, In Your Dreams also explores the iconic lore of The Sandman. The character, voiced by British comedian Omid Djalili, turned out to be a bigger piece of the puzzle than he expected.

“To be honest, it helped us crack the movie,” he confirms. “He has this Scandinavian folklore about why kids have dreams when they sleep. The mythology is that when you go to sleep, the Sandman sprinkles sand over your eyes, which is why you wake up with a little crust in the morning, but that’s how you get dreams. The story is limited to that origin story of why we have dreams, so what we did was extend that and say, ‘Well, what if we could find him in the dream world and he can make your dreams come true?’ Suddenly, you can have something in the dream world affect the real world, and that’s how we connected those two realities and then gave the film stakes.”

“Also, one of my favorite movies in the world is Back to the Future, and the song Mr. Sandman, sung by The Chordettes, was used in that movie and this one, so it’s a secret homage to that film from me by using that.”

Finally, what is in Woo’s dreams, and did any of them make it into the movie?

“That naked dream moment we see in the trailer is shot-for-shot one of the recurring dreams that I have,” the In Your Dreams co-writer laughs. “It’s me in a department store trying to find a place to hide from all these strangers because I’m completely naked. I forgot to put on clothes when I went out. I also used to have a recurring dream of my parents as lobsters, but I didn’t know they were lobsters at the time. Mom and Dad are like, ‘Don’t cook us,’ and I’m putting them in the boiling pot. It’s dark, and I don’t know what it means.”