Pre-production animation of ANASTASIA that had been drawn to a previous MEG RYAN performance. The footage was produced to convince Ryan into voicing the animated heroine.
DON BLUTH: “I remember what we did to find Anastasia is, everyone liked Meg Ryan, because she represents a really courageous female figure. So we said, ‘Let’s take an old piece of dialogue out of one of her movies and we’ll animate what we think it should look like, and fit it with that piece of dialogue. It was from Sleepless in Seattle.”
MEG RYAN: “And then I went into this room at Fox, and all the animators were there. And they had animated a piece of, like, I think it was Sleepless in Seattle? I’m not sure, but they animated it, so that it was unbelievable to see you as a cartoon. It was amazing. Then, they were just so enthusiastic about everything.”
DON BLUTH: “And it worked very well. She saw herself as an animated figure, and I think it helped bring her in to the mix so that she was part of building this movie.”
