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AI Can’t Replace Mickey Mouse, Says Voice of Disney Mascot

Bret Iwan, the actor who is the voice of Mickey Mouse, speaks during an interview with AFP on June 20, 2023 at the Disney Studio lot, in Burbank, California. (AFP)
Bret Iwan, the actor who is the voice of Mickey Mouse, speaks during an interview with AFP on June 20, 2023 at the Disney Studio lot, in Burbank, California. (AFP)
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AI Can’t Replace Mickey Mouse, Says Voice of Disney Mascot

Bret Iwan, the actor who is the voice of Mickey Mouse, speaks during an interview with AFP on June 20, 2023 at the Disney Studio lot, in Burbank, California. (AFP)
Bret Iwan, the actor who is the voice of Mickey Mouse, speaks during an interview with AFP on June 20, 2023 at the Disney Studio lot, in Burbank, California. (AFP)

Aw, gee! The technology driving artificial intelligence sure is swell, but it could never capture the essence of Mickey Mouse, according to the man who voices Disney's mascot.

As part of Disney's upcoming 100th anniversary celebration, AFP spoke with animators, archivists and Mickey voice actor Bret Iwan about the company's past and future, including the potential for AI -- a topic currently roiling Hollywood.

"Gosh, I would say, of course there's amazing technology being developed with AI, and it's so impressive," said Iwan.

"But I don't think anything can replace the heart of a character and more importantly, the heart of storytelling."

Artificial intelligence, and the threat it poses to professions across the entertainment industry, has been a constant source of hand-wringing in Hollywood this summer.

AFP's visit to Disney's sprawling studio near Los Angeles came during the ongoing strike by writers, in part over fears that AI could replace them.

The issue is also among demands being negotiated by Hollywood actors who are worried about AI cloning their voices and likenesses, and who could strike as soon as Thursday.

But for Iwan, character and storytelling are "unique to a performer, a writer, an animator, an artist, a creator."

"I have to believe that that part is what's going to hold out, and keep real people doing the job for a while!"

Iwan is one of just four people to have ever been Mickey's official voice.

Mickey's falsetto was first voiced by company founder Walt Disney himself, with 1928's "Steamboat Willie." Two other men each voiced the character for more than three decades.

"I hope I get to do it as long as this holds out," said Iwan, pointing to his vocal cords.

'Replicating realism'

In animation -- perhaps the art form most associated with Disney -- the role of sophisticated computers is well-established.

Computer-generated animation has long overtaken traditional hand-drawn artistry as the genre's dominant form.

While humans are still designing and creating those films, the use of AI to generate the credits for the Disney+ show "Secret Invasion" recently triggered anger.

Eric Goldberg -- the Disney animator who designed the Genie in "Aladdin," and a stalwart champion of hand-drawn animation -- believes AI is unlikely to impact his work.

"I think AI has less of a chance of affecting hand-drawn animation than it does computer animation, because AI is about replicating realism," he said.

"The characters that I do, the Genie's head can turn into a toaster! Which you can't do with an AI character!"

"So hand-drawn gives us a little bit of an advantage that way."

Goldberg recently finished training five new Disney hand-drawn apprentices, and believes there will always "be a core of us who want to see hand-drawn animation."

"Because we have to use our imaginations so much to represent hand-drawn characters, because of the flexibility of what they can do, I don't think AI is going to be a problem to that side of medium," said Goldberg.

"As long as there are people who still want to do it!"

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JoJo Was a Teen Sensation. At 33, She’s Found Her Voice Again

Singer Joanna Levesque, who rose to fame as “JoJo” when she was 13, poses for a portrait to promote her memoir, “Over the Influence,” on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in New York. (Invision/AP)
Singer Joanna Levesque, who rose to fame as “JoJo” when she was 13, poses for a portrait to promote her memoir, “Over the Influence,” on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in New York. (Invision/AP)
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JoJo Was a Teen Sensation. At 33, She’s Found Her Voice Again

Singer Joanna Levesque, who rose to fame as “JoJo” when she was 13, poses for a portrait to promote her memoir, “Over the Influence,” on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in New York. (Invision/AP)
Singer Joanna Levesque, who rose to fame as “JoJo” when she was 13, poses for a portrait to promote her memoir, “Over the Influence,” on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in New York. (Invision/AP)

Joanna Levesque shot to stardom at 13. Two decades later, “JoJo” — as she’s better known — has written a memoir and says the song responsible for her meteoric rise, “Leave (Get Out),” was foreign to her. In fact, she cried when her label told her they wanted to make it her first single.

Lyrics about a boy who treated her poorly were not relatable to the sixth grader who recorded the hit. And sonically, the pop sound was far away from the young prodigy's R&B and hip-hop comfort zone.

“I think that’s where the initial seed of confusion was planted within me, where I was like, 'Oh, you should trust other people over yourself because ... look at this. You trusted other people and look how big it paid off,’” she said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

“Leave (Get Out)” went on to top the Billboard charts, making Levesque the youngest solo artist ever to have a No. 1 hit.

“I grew to love it. But initially, I just didn’t get it,” she said.

Much of Levesque’s experience with young pop stardom was similarly unpredictable or tumultuous, and she details those feelings in her new memoir, “Over the Influence.”

With “Leave (Get Out)” and her several other commercial hits like “Too Little Too Late” and “Baby It’s You,” Levesque’s formative years were spent in recording studios and tour buses. Still, she had a strong resonance with teens and young people, and her raw talent grabbed the attention of music fans of all ages.

“Sometimes, I don’t know what to say when people are like, ‘I grew up with you’ and I’m like, ‘We grew up together’ because I still am just a baby lady. But I feel really grateful to have this longevity and to still be here after all the crazy stuff that was going on,” she said.

Some of that “crazy stuff” Levesque is referring to is a years-long legal battle with her former record label. Blackground Records, which signed her as a 12-year-old, stalled the release of her third album and slowed down the trajectory of her blazing career.

Levesque said she knows, despite the hurdles and roadblocks the label and its executives put in her path, they shaped “what JoJo is."

“Even though there were things that were chaotic and frustrating and scary and not at all what I would have wanted to go through, I take the good and the bad,” she said.

Levesque felt like the executives and team she worked with at the label were family, describing them as her “father figures and my uncles and my brothers." “I love them, now, still, even though it didn’t work out,” she said.

With new music on the way, Levesque said she thinks the industry is headed in a direction that grants artists more freedom over their work and more of a voice in discussions about the direction of their careers. In 2018, she re-recorded her first two albums, which were not made available on streaming, to regain control of the rights. Three years later, Taylor Swift started doing the same.

“Things are changing and it’s crumbling — the old way of doing things,” she said. “I think it’s great. The structure of major labels still offers a lot, but at what cost?”

As she looks forward to the next chapter of her already veteran-level career, Levesque said it’s “refreshing” for her to see a new generation of young women in music who are defying the standards she felt she had to follow when she was coming up.

“'You have to be nice. You have to be acceptable in these ways. You have to play these politics of politeness.’ It’s just exhausting,” she said, “So many of us that grew up with that woven into the fabric of our beliefs burn out and crash and burn.”

It’s “healing” to see artists like Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish play by their own rules, she said.

In writing her memoir and tracing her life from the earliest childhood memories to today, Levesque said she’s “reclaiming ownership” over her life.

“My hope is that other people will read this, in my gross transparency sometimes in this book, and hopefully be inspired to carve their own path, whatever that looks like for them.”