Anna

Development

Origins and conception

Attempts to produce an adaption of "The Snow Queen" in the Disney studio dated back to 1943, when Walt Disney considered collaborating with Samuel Goldwyn to produce a biography film of Hans Christian Andersen. However, the story and particularly the Snow Queen character proved to be too problematic to Disney and his animators. Namely one of the troubles they encountered was that the original story lacked necessary interaction between the main protagonist, Gerda (who later served as an inspiration for Anna), and the Snow Queen. Most obviously, Andersen's version did not feature any confrontation between them: when brave little Gerda enters the Snow Queen's ice castle and sheds her tears on Kay, the Snow Queen is nowhere to be seen. There just was not enough character conflict to form a full-length feature. Later on, Glen Keane, Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, Harvey Fierstein, Dick Zondag and Dave Goetz were among other Disney executives to make efforts towards translating this potential material to the big screen, but none of them made their way. Around 2008, Chris Buck pitched Disney his version of The Snow Queen. At the time, the project was planned to be traditionally animated under the name of Anna and the Snow Queen. However, by early 2010, the project encountered the same problem and was stuck again. Jennifer Lee, Frozen's co-director, later recalled, "The issue with the original for us in a lot of ways is it's a very symbolic story. It's very hard to translate symbolism into concrete things. Film is concrete, so you translate it."

After the success of Tangled (2010), on December 22, 2011, Disney announced a release date, November 27, 2013, for the film, together with a new title, Frozen, and Peter Del Vecho and John Lasseter took up as the project's producers. Once the film was revived again, one of the main challenges for Buck and his team was the character. The storyboards were presented to John Lasseter, who told the assembled production team, "You haven't dug deep enough." Lasseter said that Chris Buck's latest version was fun and very light-hearted, but the characters were not multifaceted, and thus did not resonate with the producer.

The original character of Gerda, known as Anna, was one of the three major characters in the script at this time, along with the Snow Queen, Elsa and Kristoff, loosely based on Kay. The characters were not considered to be well-rounded or relatable. An interpersonal and family dynamic was created once Anna and Elsa were established as sisters, an idea suggested by someone on the writing team, but no one remembered who made the suggestion. This changed the story dramatically, shifting from the conflict between the good and the evil to the conflict between love and fear. Buck stated that their script still retained basic parts of the story and the character of Gerda, citing the similarities between the original story and his version, "[Gerda] won't give up on finding her friend Kay. The only thing she really has in her, because she's not a superhero or anything, is love. In the end it's love that conquers fear."

Voice

On March 5, 2012, Kristen Bell was cast to voice the adult Anna. Livvy Stubenrauch was chosen to portray Anna as a young child, while Katie Lopez, daughter of the husband-and-wife songwriting team of the film, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, provided the singing voice for young Anna in "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" musical sequence. Additionally, Agatha Lee Monn, daughter of the film's director Jennifer Lee, portrayed teenage Anna in this song. Lee explained about these casting decisions, "We really wanted to use the first two verses of this song to show you Anna's personality. And we wanted the singing to be done by real-sounding kids, not necessarily Broadway kids." Bell and Idina Menzel, who voiced Elsa, had both auditioned for Rapunzel in Tangled and had already known each other, but they did not get the part.

Talking about her feelings when she got the part, Bell expressed, "Since I was 4 years old, I dreamed of being in a Disney animated film," she said. "It was the first goal I ever set for myself. It seemed like it would be a very unrealistic one." She described Disney films as "the ones [she] watched over and over again when [she] was a kid," and continued, "I knew every line from The Little Mermaid. I love Aladdin. When asked about her favorite Disney character, Bell said, "Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Because I think it was a shift that Disney had, where a female lead—the "princess," I guess—didn't just want to find her mate. She was singing "I want to be where the people are. I want to see the world. I want to venture outside my comfort zone."" Bell described her initial reaction when she first found that she was cast as "I was in glee". Lee admitted Bell's casting selection was influenced after the filmmakers listened a couple of vocal tracks from The Little Mermaid, including "Part of Your World" that the actress recorded when she was young, stating that without these recordings, it would've been very difficult to the find the right one to play Anna.

The two directors, Buck and Lee, were also impressed by how Bell and Menzel related. "During one of our early read-throughs, Kristen and Idina sang a ballad to each other which had so much emotion that everyone in the room was in tears," Buck said. "It not only showed how great their voices were together, but showed the power the music would have in the story." However, Bell was not all confidence when recording with Menzel, described the experiences working with her co-star as "nerve-racking". The duo had rehearsed at Idina's house a song called "Wind Beneath My Wings", during which Bell praised Idina's powerful voice. Regarding the songs that she performed in the film, Bell said, "We're singing the lovely songs of Kristen and Bobby Lopez, who wrote 'Book of Mormon.' So it's really, really funny music. It's really good music. They're amazing to work for."

Design and characterization

Anna in particular and the whole film in general had undergone a number of changes in the story, most notably making the heroine the younger sister of the Snow Queen. Describing the character's development process, director Jennifer Lee admitted, "Even with Anna there was a tug of war for a long time. There are elements of it that we didn't land on with Anna until late into production, so we changed some of the animation to support it." Bell generally described her character as "She doesn't have good postures, she's not very elegant, but she's a good person and she's utterly determined." Lee added, "She doesn't have any superpowers, but Anna is one of these ordinary people doing an extraordinary thing." Contrary to her sister Elsa who represents fear, Anna represents love, she is filled with optimism with an extraordinary heart. Director Chris Buck later stated, "[Anna's] secret weapon is love," while head of story Paul Briggs commented that she is "a character who is willing to stand beside you and stand up for what's right. Her sister was born with a condition that's shaped a world where Anna doesn't belong." In the images of Frozen's main characters released by Disney in July 2013, Anna and her role in the film was described as follows:

Anna is more daring than graceful and, at times, can act before she thinks. But she’s also the most optimistic and caring person you’ll ever meet. She longs to reconnect with her sister, Elsa, as they were close during their childhood. When Elsa accidentally unleashes a magical secret that locks the kingdom of Arendelle in an eternal winter, Anna embarks on a dangerous adventure to make things right. Armed with only her fearlessness, a never-give-up attitude and her faith in others, Anna is determined to save both her kingdom and her family.

In order to have one person fully understand and develop their own character, as well as later be able to impart that to the crew, the film's directors and producers decided to have character leads and supervising animators on specific characters. First-time character lead Becky Bresee serves as the supervising animator for Anna. She described her job as "making the character more believable". To achieve this, she had to act out part of a sequence in the movie between Anna and Kristoff for a number of times, each of them emphasizing the character's gestures differently. "Anna's a little bit nervous and uncomfortable, and I had to find a way to put that into the animation," explained Bresee.

Bell said that at first Anna was written plainer and more general. "In the first draft of the script she was written more, in my opinion, prissy. She was kind of specific and very girly," which Bell did not find appealing. She admitted that she had always wanted to be part of Disney animated feature, but she "wanted to be a very specific type of princess", who "was way more awkward than the normal princesses", not someone with too good postures or too well-spoken. As she was offered the role of Anna, she came up with a lot of suggestions for the directors. They were responsive and allowed the actress to mold the character the way she wanted, since they wanted the film to be truthful. Bell significantly made specific changes to Anna, including the infusion and incorporation of the actress' own personality to the character, embodying a relatable heroine, which received full support from the directors. She called the scene where Anna first meets Hans is a "typical Disney moment", as they come too close physically and find out that they both fall in love with each other. Bell wanted Anna's words to reflect what she herself would say in real life, which included some "nonsensical rambling". "I think I said, "This is awkward. You're not awkward. Me, I'm awkward. You're gorgeous. Wait—what?" Words just spill out of her mouth too quickly and she has to backtrack." Bell continued. Or the whole scene where she wakes up in the beginning with saliva all over the face, Bell "wanted her to also have hair in her mouth", which took inspiration from her own real life. "Sometimes I wake up like that. Then you have hair in your mouth, and you start coughing. The animators totally got what I was trying to do. It's cool, and way more fun when stuff is realistic like that, instead of the perfection of waking up with mascara on." Anna's snorting and tripping over also drew inspirations from Bell's real life. Bell's recording sessions were also videotaped to assist in animating the character, and animators took into considerations even subtle things like the actress' biting her lip a lot. According to director Jennifer Lee, Anna is a bit flawed.

International voices

At the time of its original theatrical release in 2013, Frozen numbered 43 versions all over the world, to which 3 more versions were added in the following years, along with some unofficial versions, created by independent studios around the world. In 2019, Frozen 2 was released in 47 versions worldwide, including a special Sami language dubbing, created specifically for this movie for the inspiration it took from the Sami culture.

Parineeti Chopra and her cousin Priyanka Chopra voiced Anna and Elsa respectively in the spoken parts in Frozen II in Hindi.

Serena Rossi and the cast of the Italian version of Frozen were awarded best foreign dubbing worldwide.

Véronique Claveau performed the Canadian French version of Anna.

Appearances

Frozen filmography

Anna is the main protagonist in the first film. The main storyline is her efforts to reconcile with her sister Elsa and end the winter Elsa has cast over Arendelle.

Anna first appears at the age of five. Following an accident while playing with Elsa one morning, Anna is locked in the castle for many years and separated from her sister. During this time, she remains unaware of Elsa's magic, due to Grand Pabbie, the chief of a tribe of trolls, having altered her memory. Elsa constantly ignores her, and she has no idea why.

On Elsa's coronation day, Anna is excited about being allowed out and meeting people, and quickly becomes engaged to Prince Hans. However, Elsa forbids their marriage and, during an argument between the sisters, Anna becomes aware again of Elsa's ice power when she unleashes it accidentally in her anger. As Elsa flees to the North Mountain, freezing Arendelle in the process, Anna decides she must go and find her to bring her back and end the winter.

At a shop along the way, Anna acquires her trademark outfit and meets Kristoff, whom she convinces to escort her up the North Mountain to see Elsa. En route, she meets and is befriended by Olaf, the sisters' childhood snowman whom Elsa has recreated and brought to life. But when Anna reaches Elsa's ice palace and begs her to return, Elsa refuses and orders Anna to leave for her own safety. Again Elsa unleashes her power in anger, this time freezing Anna's heart, as Grand Pabbie reveals when Kristoff takes her to the trolls after noticing her hair turning white. She learns that she will die unless an act of true love thaws her heart before her body freezes solid.

Believing a kiss with Hans is what Anna needs, Kristoff rushes her back to Arendelle. However, Anna is heartbroken to learn that Hans is not her true love, but planned to marry her only to seize control of Arendelle's throne. She is locked in a room of the castle and left to die, but saved by Olaf. Anna realizes she doesn't truly understand love, but Olaf makes her realize Kristoff loves her, and the two escape the castle to reunite with him. En route, she sees Hans about to kill Elsa. She quickly jumps in to block the attack, sacrificing herself to save her sister, and freezes solid at that moment. Since this sacrifice constitutes an act of true love, Anna survives and her heart and body thaw.

Miscellaneous

Although not members of the group, Anna and Elsa appear with the Disney Princesses in the 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet.

Anna is also one of the several characters from Walt Disney Animation Studios that appears in the 2023 short film Once Upon a Studio.

On November 6, 2013, Disney Consumer Products began releasing a line of merchandise featuring Anna in Disney Store and other retailers. Various versions of Anna dolls include the fashion doll set, the mini-doll set, plush doll, Anna-as-a-toddler doll, and a special version called Musical Magic Elsa and Anna Dolls, which lights up and plays their signature songs that appear in the film when users hold their hands or they hold each other's hands. Anna's merchandise also covers a wide range of other products, such as rolling luggage, boots, clothes, nightgowns, bowls, plates, coffee mugs, and home décors. In addition, the film was adapted as simplified storybooks for children, with diverse versions featuring sound effects, original character voices, and mini projectors that project movie images on the wall. One of those books, called A Sister More Like Me, includes illustrations by Brittney Lee, the film's visual development artist. Both Anna and Elsa appear as playable characters in Disney Infinity through the use of their corresponding figurines.

In November 2013, prior to the release of Frozen, Anna and Elsa began daily meet-and-greet sessions at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts in Florida and California, US. In Walt Disney World, the sisters had their debut on October 22, 2013, in a temporary attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios while their main attractions in Epcot were being built, then officially made appearances in the Norway Pavilion of Epcot on November 2, 2013, alongside a gallery of Norwegian culture which the film's setting and design drew inspirations from. A cottage called the "Royal Reception" was set up in the Fantasyland section of Disneyland, featuring the pair and an audio-animatronic Olaf speaking on the cottage roof. In February 2014, these meet-and-greet sessions were extended indefinitely, with wait time to meet the princesses frequently exceeding two hours, which is longer than any previous Disney characters. As of March 2014, it was reported that this wait time had reached four or five hours. Additionally, Elsa, Anna, and Olaf were given a Frozen-themed float for Disneyland Paris' Disney Magic on Parade. On March 9, 2014, the three made appearances again on their own Frozen parade float in Festival of Fantasy Parade at Magic Kingdom theme park, Walt Disney World, with Anna showing up in her coronation dress for the first time in a Disney park. On April 20, 2014, Anna and Elsa moved from Epcot to the Princess Fairytale Hall at Magic Kingdom, with wait time to see the characters amounted to three hours, comparing to Cinderella and Rapunzel's 15 minutes.

Reception

Critical reviews

Collider.com writer Matt Goldberg referred to Anna as a character who "can go from cute to melancholy to odd to defiant and never miss a beat". Emma Koonse of Christian Post described her and Elsa as the "most lovable and charismatic characters yet", while Tony Hicks of San Jose Mercury News wrote that both Anna and Elsa were depicted as devoted from the start, and "[Anna's] confusion and Elsa's anguish as she shuts herself away from the world—and her sister—is palatable." Deepanjana Pal from First Post commented that Anna "is very much a child who needs to grow up and she does in the course of the film." The Wall Street Journal suggested that the character become more endearing for being "exactly the free spirit she seems to be". Noah Lee of The Coast News was impressed by the heroine duo Anna and Elsa, and said, "I never lost interest in the drastic measures Anna took or the tribulations Elsa faced." Travis Bean, a reviewer of Community Newspaper Group put emphasis on the lessons that kids could perceive from the film, saying, "Children can also root for Anna to race through the forest and break through Elsa's icy walls and prove that love conquers all fears." Linda Barnard, Toronto Star film critic, described the sisters as "engaging female characters", particularly praised Anna for her funny and iron-willed characteristics. Sabina Ibarra from Geek Exchange commended the directors for crafting two very real girls "who come into their own and also come together in this amazing tale."

Kristen Bell was lauded for her performance as Anna in the film. Michelle Im, writing for the Eye of the Tiger referred to the character as "bubbly and spirited", and commented, "Not only was [Bell] able to nail those vibratos and belting notes in her songs, it was actually her singing them." The Coast News review of the film wrote that Bell "earns top marks" for instilling a spirited sensibility in the clumsy but well-meaning Anna. Cinenerd, a film critic for Blogcritics, commended the actress' singing ability, stating that she and Menzel "sing their hearts out, with two showstoppers in Let it Go and For the First Time in Forever". Colin Covert of Colorado Springs' The Gazette considered Bell's performance as a "flawless delivery". Matt Goldberg extolled the relationship between Anna and her elder sister Elsa, writing, "There's so much to love about Frozen, but at the top of the list is the emphasis on [Anna] and Elsa's relationship. Anna still has an infatuation with the charming Hans and romantic chemistry with the flustered Kristoff, but her greatest love is for her sister. [Elsa] is mostly scared and guilt-ridden. She's an incredibly sympathetic character, and it's a fresh spin on depicting estrangement between siblings. Anna has so much life and enthusiasm, and we want to see her share it with Elsa." Magdalena Lachowicz of The Heights referred to this sisterly bond as "what truly makes the film and the moral that comes with it", commenting, "the plot is set up to lead the viewer into thinking that it needs to be true love's kiss—something which Anna then goes to seek. This journey sends her on a difficult adventure in which she learns about both sacrifice and love." Debbie Lynn Elias of Culver City Observer commented, "Female driven with confidence and positivity, Elsa and Anna are like two sides of a coin, both strong, albeit one through power and confidence and the other through clumsy sticktuitiveness and love," while Stephen Holden from The New York Times appreciated that instead of a romantic attachment, it was a sisterly love and devotion that drove the story, which departed greatly from traditional Disney formula. Noah Lee described Anna and Elsa's relationship as "genuine", saying, "watching those themes of family and love versus isolation and fear touched my heart in more ways than one."

Accolades

Both Anna and Elsa were nominated for Best Animated Female by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, with only Anna winning the award. Frozen also won Women Film Critics Circle award in the same category.