The Making of We Bare Bears: The Movie

The nightmare scene never existed before; it used to be something completely different. When Grizz remembers that flashback with him as a kid, that scene actually used to have all three bears remembering it. But as we got into the writing, we realized, no, I think Grizz is the most important person here. He’s the one that had the nightmare that exposed his vulnerabilities of how much he was concerned about the wellbeing of everyone. He’s the one that can make the most change and bring everyone together. 

I love that bit where he’s locked up and he meets all the other bears and they don’t speak human, for lack of a better term. That was so striking to me that, even though he doesn’t understand his own kind, he’s still willing to help them out. That’s just Grizz, that’s just what he would do.

Yeah, totally. Having bears is a big rule breaker for our show. I never wanted to have other bears on our show because it would make our main characters less interesting, but this felt like the right time to do it.

For me, it almost related a lot to being Asian American because I don’t speak my own native tongue either. So I know what it’s like to go back to my country and realize that there are people who have my same heritage but I don’t speak their language. We talked a lot about that experience when we went into that scene and how we would play the miscommunication or the recognizing each other, but at the same time, not being able to communicate.

It’s just so much of your own experience and I’m sure the experience of a lot of people who worked on the film as well. I’m sure it’s just countless experience but feels like it all filtered into the film and made it like the best episodes of the show. They’re very funny but also very, very personal.

I think that is the key to what our show is. It’s the personal touch. Knowing that this story had a very personal message that I really cared about and experienced deeply is something that helps. But we try to give a voice to not just the writers or our directors, but even the story artists. We make it in a way that they also get to be participants in the writing and in the brainstorming so that they can put their contributions in. It becomes this amazing hive mind of, how can we make this as authentic of a feeling and experience as possible? I do think a lot of that is just getting the right team that gets along and just cares enough about the show or the movie. That even extends to the art team and the production.