I have deep admiration for Glen, on many levels, and in watching his work over the years it seems to me that he has consistently raised the bar for not only himself and his colleagues, but also for people who are coming up in the industry. His work is always very, very different. There"s always something in each performance that is genuinely surprising and unique, and, of course, always very specific. In each film, the animator"s personality shines through in tell-tale ways, much like a Bogart performance is always a Bogart performance (as opposed to the indistinguishable chameleon-like Gary Oldman, for example.) But while these identifiable fingerprints of Glen are found on each character, they nevertheless should not be mistaken for tricks or crutches. They are not. If anything, they are an indication of the strength of the individual - the unshakable essential character of Keane himself.

GK

At a certain point I became enamored with heroes and heroines and characters that have a burning desire inside of them to do something, and I love that. Although, I sense that there"s something of the same motivation to - and why I love - Ratigan. I mean the guy truly, deeply believes in himself, and there was this burning desire inside of him to be considered like a mouse, not a rat. He really did want that. At a certain point, though, that shifted to characters that, uh..I don"t know..that really pursued their dream and obtained it. I…I guess I just fell into that. But I"ve got to tell you that there is probably no character that I had more fun on than Ratigan.

RW

It shows. There"s a real abandon there. At the same time, I look at the emotional depth and subtlety that you brought to performances like the Beast, and Aladdin and Pocahontas. I was torn at one point between Ratigan and Silver (and wondered if I would be accused of being the greatest living apologist for Treasure Planet as a result.) The complete freedom of the performance of Ratigan ultimately won me over. Still, in many ways, Silver is a real amalgam of all the best of the various emotional and spiritual aspects of character that you"ve had a chance to explore up to this point. It"s even in his design – part of him is very human, and therefore very warm, and psychologically complex, and part of him is larger than life – other than life –and therefore very broad and cartoonish, affording you great liberty in that direction. He has a strong emotional connection to the boy, Jim, shepherding and mentoring him. He also is bombastic, theatrical, obsessed and ambitious. I think, in part, I was responding to many of the same things in both Ratigan and Silver. I think of them as being very near to one another if you join together the start of your career with your most recent work, like a mobius strip. Unjoined they"re at opposite ends, even on opposite sides, but when bringing the “then�? together with the “now�? Ratigan and Silver seem…I don"t know…they seem very close to the same point, in my mind.

GK

It"s interesting that you would put it that way, because there was the hero and the villain living in him. I consider him close to the Beast in that sense. I really related to just the whole mentoring, shepherding, caring for a young man. So much of his relationship with Jim Hawkins was a reflection of my relationship with my son. I guess, once again, I have to know, I have to really relate to these characters. That"s what I"m trying to do now, with Rapunzel, I"m really trying to express myself in that. Animation is such as long marathon and you loose heart if you don"t have something really deep inside that you are trying to express personally, that is true inside of you. You really can lose that energy that it takes to animate, or to direct; now I"m finding. It"s pretty much the same. The same approach that I take to animating, I am approaching directing in the same way. It"s kind of a…a search. I don"t see things clearly in my head, I feel them a lot more in my heart. I move in the directions that I feel, as a director, which maybe makes it a little tougher for the people who are working around me. (He laughs) Nothing is ever as quite as clear and obvious until it"s done, then it"s like “Oh, yeah! Yeah! Well now I can see!�?

RW

That makes sense. It"s always very hard to express passion. The trick is how do you capture it, and contain it and apply it when it"s something so immediate, and personal, and it can sometimes feel very overwhelming.

GK

Yes. And life as an artist is…you"re not really living the life of an artist if you aren"t, kind of..I don"t know…fueled by that passion. You"ve got to find that in whatever character it is you"re working on. I will keep searching and searching and searching until I do. That"s why in designing Ratigan, first the skinny rat drawings were “yeah, they"re okay…they look good�?, but something wasn"t right, that wasn"t it. I guess that"s true, I still do believe that the character exists before I ever drew them, and somehow I"ve got to find that. I"ve got to get the lines around the character who actually is invisible, but he"s there. And I keep working until I find it. It"s a strange thing.

RW

It is a strange thing. It"s a miraculous process.

GK

It"s a lifelong commitment. I"m just really thankful that Ron and John are doing a hand drawn feature, and I can"t wait to get back into hand drawn animation. Once Rapunzel is given birth to, I"m planning on picking up a pencil and animating again.

RW

Are you the sole writer on Rapunzel?

GK

Yeah. Right now I am. Some of the sequences I"m writing, others we"re figuring out as we board them.

RW

What a refreshing thing to hear. It"s so nice to know that somebody is once again committed to the story process, and has abandoned this notion that you can"t draw anything until you have a script.

GK

Well, I"m finding that really the only way I can discover what the film is, is sometimes just getting in and, for me, writing it and boarding it, really exploring it. If I put that into a writer"s hands..uh, I don"t know, I"ll never quite discover what it was that I really wanted. At some point I may bring in a writer once the whole thing is clearly defined, you know, to sharpen dialogue and all of that, but I"m not sure. We"re still in the early phases, and I"m still figuring out what it means to be a director. I think everybody directs a little differently. I"m finding out what my approach is.

RW

Have you taken any cues from directors with whom you"ve worked previously?