Peter Sohn

Actor / Additional Crew / Animation Department

Birthdate – October 18, 1977 (47 Years Old)

Birthplace – New York City, New York, USA

A multi-talented force in the Disney-Pixar world, Peter Sohn is a voice actor and writer-director of animated features. A product of the prestigious animation school at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Sohn began at the animation unit at Warner Bros., working on Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant (1999). He joined Disney-Pixar in 2000, again collaborating with Bird in the art and story departments for The Incredibles (2004).

Sohn expanded his portfolio on Bird’s Ratatouille (2007) beyond the animation departments by voicing the role of Emile. Sohn further expanded his responsibilities as co-director (with John Lasseter and Brad Lewis) on the English-language version of Miyazaki Hayao’s Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008), and directed his debut short film, Partly Cloudy in 2009.

Peter Sohn not only directed and wrote the Disney-Pixar feature, The Good Dinosaur (2015), but also voiced one of the movie’s characters, Forrest Woodbush. His other major vocal acting credits include Monsters University (2013) and Luca (2021), on which Sohn was also an executive producer.

Sohn was the voice actor on Disney-Pixar’s much-anticipated Toy Story off-shoot feature, Lightyear (2022). Sohn’s second feature animated directorial assignment was Disney/Pixar’s anticipated but commercially under-performing Elemental (2023), for which Sohn also wrote the story (drawing on some of his experiences growing up in The Bronx) and which premiered out of competition at the Cannes film festival.

Sohn served on Pixar’s senior creative team on the company’s animated productions of Elio (2024), written and directed by Adrian Molina, as well as the sequel, Inside Out 2 (2024), starring Amy Poehler, Diane Lane, and Lewis Black, and directed by Kelsey Mann.

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Personal Details

Born in The Bronx to Korean immigrant parents, Peter Sohn attended New York City public schools, and studied animation at CalArts, starting in 1996. Sohn is married to artist Anna Chambers and lives in California’s Bay Area. 

Filmography

The Good Dinosaur

Pet Collector (voice) (2015)

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Ganke (voice) (2023)

Lightyear

SOX (2022)

Luca

Ciccio (2021)

Monsters University

Squishy (voice) (2013)

Some Facts About Peter Sohn

Inspiring a Character: The boy character of Russell in Disney-Pixar’s Up is based on Peter Sohn. 

 

Awards

Two-time Nominee, Character Animation/Storyboarding, Annie Awards (2005, 2010).