Disney gaat groots scoren met Christopher Robin, de film waar in Winnie de Pooh prachtig realistisch rond loop. De man die hier verantwoordelijk voor is, is Marc Forster en de website Collider had met hem een interview over deze aankomende film die vanaf 9 augustus te zien is in de Nederlandse bioscopen.

Collider: What was it like to bring these characters from the Hundred Acre Wood to life, in such a believable way?

MARC FORSTER: I had, in my office, these different fabrics for Pooh, and Jenny Beavan, our costume designer, knitted the red sweater and figured out the red. We recorded it in the live version of Pooh, and then we had to transform that into digital. It was very tricky to get the facial expressions so that they were not too much and not too cartoony. Because it was a cartoon, it was much more over the top. I wanted to go back to the early origin story of how Pooh was created, and how he has wear and tear on him because Christopher Robin played with him, as a boy. You get this feeling that he's a bear that was played with and hugged, which adds to the emotional patina of them separating, and him leaving for boarding school and leaving Pooh behind. When he asks, "Why did you leave me?," it's that thing of how we all leave our childhood behind, and we all lose our inner child and ultimately have to find it again. It's interesting because the story is very simple, and I thought that simplicity was important because that's how Pooh is. Pooh is simple. You don't want to have it be complicated. Life should be simple. That's how Pooh sees us. All of the Pooh-isms and the Tao of Pooh reduces everything to pure essence. What's important in life is to spend time with people you love and enjoy the things you do, and we all don't do that enough. No matter who you are, you never find enough time to spend time with the people you love.

How much did you feel like you had to adjust your own personal tone and style to the established style of Disney and Winnie the Pooh?

FORSTER: To be honest, I didn't. I went in and Sean Bailey and I sat down, and I presented him this very clear vision of the movie that I had. I basically said, "This is the world I want to create," and it was very specific and clear because I didn't want to have any conflict, later down the road. He loved the vision and supported it, and it just grew from there. They were great partners, so it was very positive and very happy.