John Alan Lasseter (born January 12, 1957) is an American animator and film producer who has worked as a director, screenwriter, and executive in major animation companies. He was previously chief creative officer at Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios, and later became head of animation at Skydance Animation in 2019. Lasseter started at the Walt Disney Company as an animator, was fired for promoting computer animation, and then joined Lucasfilm, where he helped develop early CGI animation. He then played a major role at Pixar, directing films such as Toy Story and Cars, and overseeing many other projects, while also leading Disney animation releases for a time. His films have earned more than $19 billion worldwide, and he won two Academy Awards for Tin Toy and a special achievement for Toy Story. In 2017, he took a leave after accusations of sexual misconduct, later left Pixar and Disney in 2018, and was eventually hired by David Ellison to run Skydance Animation. John Lasseter was born on January 12, 1957, in Los Angeles and grew up in Whittier. He is a fraternal twin, and his mother, an art teacher, strongly influenced his interest in animation through his early drawing and cartoon watching. At school and in childhood he studied animation books and made flipbooks and early stop-motion-style attempts with a Super 8 camera. After graduating in 1975, he enrolled at CalArts, where he learned from Disney’s veteran animators and created award-winning student shorts; during breaks he also worked at Disneyland as a Jungle Cruise skipper, learning how to entertain using comedy and timing. After graduating in 1979, John Lasseter quickly got a job at Walt Disney Productions, impressing the studio with his student film Lady and the Lamp. While working on early projects, he became fascinated by computer animation through new conference tapes and the CGI shown in Tron, realizing computers could create 3D backgrounds that would make animated characters look more real. He later tried to bring this idea into a new feature based on The Brave Little Toaster, including testing it with a short film, but Disney canceled the project and Lasseter was fired during a meeting with his supervisors. For a short time he stayed on only to finish the test work, before the project later moved forward in different form with help from people connected to Pixar. After being fired from Disney, John Lasseter reconnected with Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull at Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group. Catmull hired him to help on early computer animation work, leading to the first animated computer short, The Adventures of André & Wally B., where Lasseter and the team also exchanged filmmaking knowledge for new computer tools. After the success of that project, Lasseter later helped develop major CGI breakthroughs at Lucasfilm/ILM, and Lucasfilm’s computer graphics team eventually became Pixar, where Lasseter became a key leader and helped produce films such as Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and the Cars series. In 2006, Disney bought Pixar, and Lasseter took major creative leadership roles across Pixar and Disney’s animation studios, overseeing productions and helping guide Disney park attractions. He also helped expand Disney Animation’s use of animated shorts and brought Disneytoon Studios under his and Catmull’s control, managing multiple studios with separate production routines. Lasseter was inspired by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, meeting him in 1987 and later helping bring Miyazaki’s films to U.S. audiences through executive production and English dubbing. He also served on the Academy’s board, received a Walk of Fame star in 2011, and supported translations that helped his favorite international work reach more viewers.

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