Pete Docter’s Head

I paid hundreds of dollars to watch an old man wave his arms. That’s not normally my thing, but the man was John Williams, conducting an orchestra. His shoulders bounced. His coattails swayed in time to the music. The violinists smiled up at him with their chins pressed to their instruments, unable to hide their delight.

Nor could I. This man wrote the music for Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Indiana Jones, the soundtrack of my childhood. And now it played not from a speaker but all around me, bouncing off the theater walls, off the suits and gowns of the audience, off my own head. Live music surrounds you and folds you into itself, making you part of it.

I leaned back in my fuzzy red seat, stretched out my dress shoes, and looked around the audience, loving them all. These were my people, my tribe, my-

I sat up fast. I had spotted the back of a tall, boxy head. “That’s Pete Docter,” I breathed. The Pixar director who made Monsters, Inc. and Up. I recognized his cranium because I have obsessed over movies and the people who make them since I was old enough to embarrass myself. My social life is a series of small humiliations—awkward pauses, forgotten names, jokes taken the wrong way. Who needs it? Better to hide in my room and watch movies and videos about movies.

And now a talking head from those videos had appeared in my real life. I was awake in a dream like Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception. Or the dream had stepped into my life like Jeff Daniels in The Purple Rose of Cairo. Either way, I had seen enough movies to recognize the start of an adventure.

At intermission, I summoned my courage and tried to meet Pete Docter in the aisle. But the crowd carried me out of the theater into the packed foyer. I stood on tip-toe and searched the sea of hairdos till I spotted his head again, bobbing away from me. I snaked towards it, weaving around people in conversation, cutting through the line for the snack bar, repeating, “Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me…”

“Mister Docter?” I called as I reached his back, but the room was too noisy. He did not hear. I braced myself and tapped him on the shoulder, and he spun around, startled.

It really was him.

“Mister Docter?” I shouted above the crowd. My knees trembled.

“Yes?” Pete Docter shouted back.

“I’m Hank Voge.”

“Oh, hi,” Pete Docter said, nodding to show that, yes, he remembered me.

“No, we don’t know each other,” I said.

“Oh.”

I reached out my hand. I did not say, “Nice to meet you.” I just jabbed my hand at him.

Pete Docter looked at it, confused for a moment, then catching on, he extended his own hand.

But before our hands could meet, someone passed between us. Then another person did, too, then another and another. I kept my hand out, waiting for them to pass, but they kept coming, more and more people.

Pete Docter lowered his hand. But through the passing crowd, he saw my hand still outstretched. He smiled and extended his hand again and waited, keeping eye contact with me, turning the awkward moment into a game. We were in this together now, Pete Docter and I, and by God, we would shake hands if we had to wait for the whole building to pass between us.

We stood like that, two men frozen, looking into each other’s eyes, for at least a full minute while my brain buzzed. Pete Docter and I had the same sense of humor. Pete Docter and I were becoming friends.

When the line of people finally marched off, I shook Pete Docter’s hand and said, “Thank you for making Up.” Play it cool, I thought. Don’t ask him for anything; just thank him for his movie.

“I’m sorry?” Pete Docter shouted. The room was too loud.

“Thank you for making Up!” I shouted back.

“Making up?”

“Yes!”

He looked confused.

“No, your movie Up,” I said.

“Up?”

“Yes. Thank you for making it.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, nodding and shifting his weight away from me, the way people do when they want out of a conversation.

“OK, thank you,” I said, and I left to go faint somewhere. Life had brought me Pete Docter, and I had blown it.

But some weeks later I saw him again, this time at an event for the twentieth anniversary of Toy Story. It was at the Castro Theater, an old movie palace, my favorite spot in San Francisco. I arrived early, took my seat, and admired the theater—the chandelier, the murals, the organ. Then I noticed a familiar head.

Two familiar heads. They were sitting together at the front, Pete Docter and another Pixar director, Andrew Stanton.

Oh, if only my conversation with Pete Docter had gone well! I could walk up now and say, “Hiya, Pete. Good to see you again,” and he would introduce me to Andrew Stanton, and we would all get beers after the show, and they would proclaim me a long-lost brother and beg me to work at Pixar. But no.

Pete Docter swiveled to speak to a woman behind him, and seeing my opportunity, I stood. My head light, my throat tight, my stomach down at my feet, I approached Andrew Stanton—he was by the aisle—and said, “Mister Stanton?”

“Yes,” he said with a smile. “Hi.”

“I just wanted to come over and say thanks for making Finding Nemo.”

Pete Docter turned and looked at me. I pretended not to notice.

Andrew Stanton said he was glad I liked his movie, and he tried to make conversation, but all I could think about was Pete Docter's gaze.

“Well, thanks, um, for making Finding Nemo,” I said.

Andrew Stanton did not know how to respond this time. “Yeah,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, and I left.

Back at my seat, I stared at nothing for a minute, then snuck a peak at them. Pete Docter and Andrew Stanton were looking over their shoulders at me, muttering to each other. And this is why I prefer movies to real life. Give me social interactions through protective glass. Safer that way—every conversation planned out, every line just right. And the music of John Williams transporting me far, far away.