Inside animated sci-fi coming-of-age tale WondLa
Curious, enthusiastic and spirited teenager Eva (Jeanine Mason) is dying to explore the world — not unlike millions of teenagers that came before her. A protective Muthr (Teri Hatcher) wants Eva to take her time, thoroughly educating herself on what is out in the world before exiting the nest. But Eva is impatient, inviting danger into her life, mostly out of careless abandon.
A coming-of-age tale looks similar, whether it takes place in the 1950s or, as in the case of WondLa, in a dystopian future. In the animated adaptation of Tony DiTerlizzi’s children’s sci-fi book series, coming of age is nothing short of fantastical, while still awfully familiar. “Part of Tony D’s inspiration for writing the books was his own daughter and the idea of raising her and sending her out into the world without him, where she will have to make decisions and decide between right and wrong,” explains Apple TV+ series creator Bobs Gannaway. “I love how he took that idea and then dialed it up.”
Indeed, Eva is being raised in an underground bunker by a robot caretaker before venturing out into a world that is not at all what she was told it was going to be. “She’s going to have to navigate it, using what she’s learned from her upbringing,” says Gannaway. “It’s going to get challenging.” What Eva wants, most of all, is to find others like her. “She wants to find her human family,” explains Gannaway. “But, as she works her way through this first season, she finds family in a way that she wasn’t defining it earlier. She’s going to grow, having to become more resourceful and flexible as she goes.”
Voicing Eva’s robotic mother, or Muthr, is an actress who is no stranger to DiTerlizzi’s narrative. “Years and years ago, Tony asked me to read the audio books of the trilogy, and that was when I first became familiar with it,” says Hatcher. “He’s a beautiful writer, an unbelievable illustrator. When he and [producer] John Lasseter asked me to be involved with the animated series, I jumped at the chance.” As a fan of family entertainment with a universal appeal, there was also another aspect of the story that attracted the actress to the show. “I love being a part of stories that offer a female lead that is strong and on a journey that is independent,” she says. “This project has that.”
Playing a robot with programmed motherly instincts, Hatcher compares the series to her experience playing Dottie the forklift on Planes and its 2014 sequel, Planes: Fire & Rescue. “Those movies were all about humanizing inanimate objects, and so it was about a personality dropping into a car or a forklift,” she says. “The key, here, was finding the difference in the emotion. For me, it was when the scenarios amped up in their urgency, you would see some of the other characters also ramp up. That’s where you saw that Muthr still had this level of reserve and programmed response. But because she’s evolved and she raised this little human girl from birth, I think she, herself, was conflicted. What is this that I’m feeling? What do I do with this sense of love that feels separate from my mandate?”
As a mother herself, Hatcher easily related to her character’s emotional challenges. “I think it’s about letting go,” she says. “All of us parents struggle with it. My daughter’s 26 and still, I find myself wondering, ‘I wonder if she made it home safe? Did she get back to bed? Is she safe?’ And I resist the urge to call or check in or demand that she let me know because I understand that there’s a healthy amount of separation that needs to happen. That story is definitely here within Eva. How do we let our children grow up, and have we given them the appropriate toolbox to succeed in life without us?”
As a long-time producer and writer for many animated Disney films, this was Gannaway’s first time working on serialized television. “Because it’s a serialized show, we can flesh out characters a lot more than you might be able to in a feature,” he says. “The first thing you want to do is for the audience to go, ‘Yes, I’m willing to go on the journey with these characters.’ In the first episode, I focus on primary relationships, and then we start to open up the world.” What Gannaway was able to bring was his experience of making content with a broad appeal. “We were really focused on making sure we were making it for everyone,” he says. “Our main character is a 16-year-old girl, but what we were trying to do is make sure that we elevate the look of show and the storytelling so that anybody can watch this — tell a great story that everybody can connect to.”
WondLa, streaming on Apple TV+