Robert Peterson is an American animator, director, screenwriter, storyboard supervisor and voice actor who works at Pixar. He was hired at Pixar by Roger Gould in 1994 as an animator for commercials, before subsequently becoming an animator on Toy Story (1995). He was the co-director and co-writer for Up (2009), in which he also voiced the characters Dug and Alpha. His work as a writer for the films Up and Finding Nemo (2003) earned him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He was also a co-writer on Cars 3 (2017) and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program for his work on Forky Asks A Question (2020).
Peterson in 2015
Up is a 2009 American animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Bob Peterson, and produced by Jonas Rivera. Docter and Peterson also wrote the film's screenplay and story, with Tom McCarthy co-writing the latter. The film stars the voices of Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, and Bob Peterson. The film centers on Carl Fredricksen (Asner), an elderly widower who travels to South America with wilderness explorer Russell (Nagai) in order to fulfill a promise that he made to his late wife Ellie. Along the way, they meet a talking dog named Dug (Peterson) and encounter a giant bird named Kevin, who is being hunted by the explorer Charles Muntz (Plummer), whom Carl had idolized in his childhood.
Theatrical release poster
Director Pete Docter in 2009
Docter and eleven other Pixar artists visited tepuis in Venezuela in 2004 for research.
Image: Ed Asner 2015