If you've seen Pixar‘s Inside Out 2, you may notice the voices of Fear (Bill Hader) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) have changed. That is because the two have been recast. Tony Hale and Liza Lapira replaced them, respectively.
The rest of the OG emotions, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), and Anger (Lewis Black) returned in the sequel. They are joined by new emotions as Riley hits puberty, Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser).
Why Mindy Kaling and Bill Hader aren't in Inside Out 2
It all comes down to money. According to a report from Puck News, Poehler was being paid 50 times more than the rest of the cast. For her performance, Poehler made $5 million (before “additional fees and bonuses”) for the Pixar sequel.
However, the rest of the cast was initially offered $100,000 (without bonuses) for Inside Out 2. This is an offer that both Kaling and Hader “politely declined,” as Puck's report states. Disney did end up increasing the offer but were still declined by Kaling and Hader.
So, they went with the next logical option. They recast the roles of Disgust and Fear for their sequel. Liza Lapira is known for her role in NCIS. Tony Hale is known for his roles in Arrested Development and Veep.
This is not the first instance of Pixar attempting to save money. Per Puck's report, the talent fees for Disney+'s Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers were “laughably low.” It appears in the case of Inside Out 2, Poehler was the only voice they deemed worthy of shelling out for.
During an interview with LADbible, Inside Out 2 producer Mark Nielsen discussed losing Kaling and Hader while praising Lapira and Hale.
“It's been nine years since that first film, and you try to get their original cast back together, but it doesn't always work out,” he said. “Man, we love Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling, they're always going to be part of this Pixar family, but we also love Tony Hale, who was also Forky in Toy Story 4, and Liza Lapira.”
What is Inside Out 2 about?
Inside Out 2 picks up a couple of years after the events of the first movie. Riley (Kensington Tallman) is about to enter high school and just hit puberty.
As she goes to a weekend hockey camp, she discovers her best friends weren't assigned to the same high school. At the camp, Riley has to decide between sticking with her old friends and impressing the varsity high schoolers.
Inside her mind, the OG emotions are met with the new ones that come with puberty. Anxiety eventually takes over the control room and banishes the OG emotions.
Anxiety believes that compromising Riley's Sense of Self is the way to go. This sends the old emotions on a mission to the back of Riley's mind to recover her original Sense of Self.
Like its predecessor, Inside Out 2 has been a smash hit at the box office. It had a record-breaking opening weekend, grossing nearly $295 million worldwide. This shattered projections and even topped the domestic opening weekend of its predecessor ($90 million) with its $154 million haul.
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