There is such amazing talent at Disney. My job is 100% creative

Host:
The morning sun slanted through tall glass walls, flooding the animation studio with gold. Dust particles floated in the air like lazy, glowing confetti, suspended above storyboards, sketches, and color palettes pinned to the walls. The place looked alive — even though no one had started drawing yet.

Rows of desks bore traces of wild imagination: model cars, tiny toy aliens, and half-empty coffee mugs ringed with evidence of late nights spent chasing wonder. Somewhere in the background, a digital clock ticked quietly beneath a hand-painted sign that read in bold, playful letters: “Dream Big, Draw Bigger.”

In the center of the room, Jeeny sat at a cluttered table, scrolling through an article on her tablet. She read aloud with a kind of reverence — not for the fame, but for the philosophy:

“There is such amazing talent at Disney. My job is 100% creative, and I am very excited to creatively lead them.”
— John Lasseter

Across from her, Jack leaned against a drafting chair, his hands streaked faintly with graphite and ink. His eyes, grey and sharp, flicked between the quote and the sketches on the wall — a storyboard that looked halfway between chaos and genius.

Jeeny: (smiling) Can you imagine having a job like that? Getting to lead creativity itself?

Jack: (grinning) Yeah. The dream and the nightmare all in one.

Jeeny: (laughs) Why nightmare?

Jack: (leans back) Because leading creative people is like trying to conduct a thunderstorm. Everyone’s brilliant — and unpredictable. You don’t tell lightning where to strike.

Jeeny: (softly) Maybe you just make sure it strikes in the right sky.

Jack: (nods) Exactly. That’s what leadership is in art — not control, but curation.

Host: The sunlight spread wider across the sketches, illuminating characters frozen mid-expression — laughter, fear, wonder. The drawings felt alive, as if they were waiting to be spoken into motion.

Jeeny: (thoughtful) You know what amazes me about people like Lasseter? They still talk like dreamers even when they’re in charge of empires.

Jack: (smiling faintly) Maybe that’s how they stay dreamers — by surrounding themselves with people whose imaginations never age.

Jeeny: (softly) That’s the secret, isn’t it? Keeping the child alive even when you’re paying bills and managing deadlines.

Jack: (nods) That’s harder than it sounds. Most people grow out of imagination. The great ones grow into it.

Host: The sound of pencils scratching filled the room as other artists began to arrive — quiet morning greetings, the shuffle of sketchpads, the first hum of creation awakening. The air carried that particular tension found only in places where art and discipline coexist.

Jeeny: (after a moment) I wonder how you lead artists without killing what makes them free.

Jack: (smirking) You don’t lead them. You listen to them. You give structure to chaos, not a cage to creativity.

Jeeny: (smiling) That sounds romantic.

Jack: (softly) It’s not. It’s hard. Everyone here lives in their own universe — and you have to make them orbit the same star without dimming anyone’s light.

Jeeny: (gently) So leadership is just… gravity.

Jack: (grinning) Exactly. Gentle enough to hold, strong enough to keep them from flying apart.

Host: The light glinted off the storyboard pinned behind them, a scene of a young explorer gazing up at the stars — unfinished, but full of promise. The whole room seemed to echo that same feeling: anticipation without fear.

Jeeny: (quietly) You ever wish you’d gone into animation?

Jack: (chuckles) No. I’m terrible at drawing. But I love stories.

Jeeny: (smiling) So you animate with words.

Jack: (nods) Yeah. Everyone’s animating something — emotions, ideas, hearts. We’re all trying to give motion to stillness.

Jeeny: (softly) That’s beautiful.

Jack: (grinning) Don’t sound so surprised.

Jeeny: (laughs) I’m not. I just forget sometimes that cynics can sound poetic when they stop hiding behind logic.

Jack: (smiling faintly) I’m not a cynic, Jeeny. I just… don’t trust magic unless I can see who’s behind the curtain.

Jeeny: (softly) That’s the tragedy of smart people — they dissect wonder until it stops breathing.

Jack: (quietly) Or maybe they just want to understand it enough to protect it.

Host: The hum of computers began to rise now as screens lit up — concept art glowing like stained glass. For a brief second, the entire studio looked like a chapel built for imagination.

Jeeny: (looking around) You know, it’s crazy. Every character, every movie that’s ever made someone cry — it all starts in a room like this. Just people with pencils and coffee and too many ideas.

Jack: (nodding) That’s the miracle of it. Humanity’s most powerful force isn’t technology or money — it’s collaboration.

Jeeny: (smiling) You sound like Lasseter now.

Jack: (grinning) Maybe he’s right. You take a room full of misfits, dreamers, perfectionists, and fools — and you ask them to imagine together. That’s creation at its purest.

Jeeny: (softly) And its most fragile.

Jack: (nodding) Yeah. One ego, one cynic, one careless word — and the magic cracks.

Jeeny: (quietly) So you protect it.

Jack: (gently) You nurture it. That’s what leading creativity means. Not steering the ship — tending the fire.

Host: The room glowed brighter now, morning fully claiming it. There was laughter from the far corner, someone humming the tune of an unfinished score. The world of animation was alive again — fragile and fierce, naive and knowing.

Jeeny: (softly) You ever think that’s what the world needs more of? Places where people believe imagination is serious work?

Jack: (smiles) Yeah. Not childish, but sacred.

Jeeny: (after a pause) Sacred — that’s a big word.

Jack: (quietly) It should be. Creating anything that makes someone feel again? That’s the closest thing we have to grace.

Jeeny: (smiling) You should’ve worked for Disney.

Jack: (laughs) I’d get fired for questioning the magic.

Jeeny: (softly) No — you’d make it honest.

Host: The light outside grew sharper, but inside, the world still shimmered with color — paper, ink, and the invisible energy of hundreds of stories waiting to be born.

Host (closing):
As the first sketches of the day came to life across the desks, the room pulsed with quiet purpose.

“There is such amazing talent at Disney. My job is 100% creative, and I am very excited to creatively lead them.”

And perhaps that was the truth of it — that leadership in art is not about power, but permission:
permission to dream,
to fail,
to believe that imagination deserves stewardship, not control.

Because to lead the creative is to listen to the miraculous —
to turn chaos into collaboration,
and ego into empathy.

As Jack and Jeeny stepped out into the hallway, the hum of imagination followed them — the sound of artists at work, breathing life into lines and pixels, turning ideas into emotion.

Jeeny smiled, watching them, and whispered,

“They’re not drawing pictures, Jack. They’re drawing hope.”

And Jack — his grey eyes softened — replied,

“Then Lasseter’s right. That really is an amazing job.”