When I think of John Lasseter, two words come to mind: personality and passion. You’ve never seen a grown man get so excited about things like animated characters and theme parks, which is obviously key to his amazing success. But not only is John passionate about his work, he is also passionate about family, and the fact that this value underlies his work is, I think, another very important factor in why Disney/Pixar films reflect such heart and reach so many.

We sat down with John at a roundtable interview in conjunction with the premiere of Cars 2, and here is what John had to say to a group of moms who pressed him on moviemaking, family content, and more:
On three important things that make a good movie...

...For all good movies you have to do three things really well. You have to tell a compelling story that keeps people on the edge of their seat where they can’t wait to see what happens next, and it works for adults as well as kids. You populate that story with really memorable characters, and appealing characters. That’s really the important thing for me. Even the bad guy should be appealing -- that you enjoy watching. And you put those characters in that story in a believable world. Not realistic, but believable for the story you’re telling.

Advice from his wife on making movies...

My wife always said, "Don’t make a movie for the first time someone sees it. Make it for the one hundred time a parent has to suffer through it on video."

On making sequels...

...In the case of our sequels we always try to do something that’s very different. We don’t want to rehash the same thing. What’s so important to us in every Pixar feel is the emotional heart of the film. I think that’s the foundation of what we do and the emotional heart of our films has to do with what does the main character learn? That’s at the basis of every Pixar film. And as we approach all of our sequels we want to take a look at the main character and what can he learn that’s different than the original?

On the responsibility of making high quality family movies...

Well, I take it very seriously as the chief creator officer at Disney Pixar Animation. You know, I have five boys, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to the movie theaters as a dad, not as a filmmaker but as a dad, and just been like, here’s a movie that’s been advertised as a family film and you go in and there’s language that’s inappropriate, you know, not the language I speak with my kids at home. It’s subject matter that’s inappropriate, that I think oh, they’re not ready for this subject matter. And, in Hollywood they tend to want to make things, you hear the word edgy, right? Because they want to appeal to the core movie going audience which is kind of a little older.

And so they feel they have to do these things or kind of humor that is, you know, fart humor or something like that. I mean, a good fart humor every now and then is okay, you know, because we all deal with it with our kids, you know. We have our names for them and stuff...But I just look at it from a father’s point of view, and I think that’s what’s so great about Pixar is that is that we’re all family. We all are family people, and we all love movies ourselves. And I am devoted to making movies that you, all of you enjoy just as much as your kids, and you walk out feeling like it’s okay and you don’t mind them watching it again and again, because at the end they are wholesome, because there are nice, nice messages in there.

On movie messages and content...

We don’t make our movies to teach lessons. We’re not into that. We have great messages in our film that are there to help tell the heart of the story. And, I take great responsibility...We never have smoking in our films. We have smoking tailpipes, but they’re cars, we don’t have smoking.

We don’t have overt drinking. We don’t have all that stuff and in this case [Cars 2], they’re cars, and it’s all about oil and that was really important for me to say that to you. And language is an important thing too. Violence is something we take a look at. The Incredibles and Cars 2 are both a certain kind of genre that naturally has a certain level of violence that comes in there.

I’m very conscience of the violence in there and sort of like where do you draw the line...all the stuff our kids watch there’s a lot of this going on and there’s a certain level that is accepted for the kind of genre that they’re watching, superheroes or spy movies. And then there’s stuff where it starts being kind of cruel, and we draw the line there.

On family...

I love my boys so much, and they’re so much apart of my life and what I’ve done, and it’s one of those things that I really -- being a father is one of the great things. And at Pixar whenever, uh, I see two people get married, you know, I’m always so excited for them. And then when they get pregnant it’s like, I’m really excited, and when they have a baby I say don’t stop, keep going! Oh, I don’t know if we can. I say yes, you can, go, you know. You want more. Trust me, you’ll regret it if you don’t. I love having five kids.

On female lead characters...

My wife is very, very strong about having strong female characters, and we have amazingly strong women at Pixar. And so, that’s why I think all of the female characters like Jessie and Holley Shiftwell and Sally and Eve and all these characters are very, very, strong characters and we’re very excited about having the first female lead with Brave, and so that’s next year.