How did it feel revisiting the world of Cars?

Making Cars 2 has been a blast. Cars and Cars 2 are extremely personal for me. My father was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership. I’m a car guy. You know, I read every car magazine every month. I love that. I loved the characters and the world that we created in Cars. They are near and dear to my heart. I always say that I have the greatest job in the world, and directing Cars 2 made it even more fun. I didn’t think my job could get more fun, but it did. Pixar is a filmmaker-led studio and all the films and story ideas come from each director and each group of filmmakers, and they’re very personal in the way that it comes from your own life. We make the kind of movies we like to watch. And I’m a big kid. I wear Hawaiian shirts all the time and I’ve discovered I don’t have to grow up. I like to put that in the movies, too. We’ve had so much fun making this film.

What prompted you to make a sequel?

At Pixar, we will only do a sequel if we have a great story idea and we always strive to be different than the original. If you look at all three Toy Story movies, they’re completely different in theme from one another, but they all take place in Andy’s room and around the world of the toys. What’s so different about this movie is that the world of Cars 2 is as big as the world that you and I live in.

This movie is vastly different than Cars in nearly every way, yet it’s still a part of the world of Cars. That’s what made it so much fun. The settings all over the world, the glitz, the glamour, the cool hipness of the European cities and Japan, the whole spy genre, the type of racing that they do, the type of race cars that are there. Everything about it was cool.

How does the friendship between Lightning McQueen and Mater evolve in Cars 2?

Lightning McQueen and Mater have this deep friendship and it’s the emotional core of this movie. This special friendship gets tested in a very different and interesting way. It’s about how the strength of a friendship can be tested. What may be solid in one place can appear much different in another.

Mater is such a special character; he’s honest and completely straightforward and tells it exactly like it is. He’s just fun and loveable. When a character as innocent as that discovers that people are not laughing with him, like he’s always thought his entire life, but laughing at him, it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see him become immediately and more realistically aware, and learn the truth about himself — or what he thinks is the truth about himself. It’s very touching because through his own journey, his friendship with Lightning McQueen is eventually made even stronger. They both realise that, you know what? Mater is who he is, and it’s not Mater who has to change, it’s the world that should change.

How does 3-D elevate Cars 2?

I love 3-D probably more than any other director. I took my wedding pictures in 3-D! Our short film Knick Knack that we made in 1989 was made in 3-D before there were any 3-D theatres out there. And I always felt our medium of computer animation is perfectly matched to it.

Cars 2 is really made with 3-D in mind. And 3-D for a Pixar film is not about all the coming-at-you stuff, it’s just about making the world that much more believable and immersive, like a window into that world. You get invested in it. And I think that when you see Cars 2 in 3-D, there is so much thought put into the elements — things are very reflective to make it very glitzy and glamorous and sexy and cool. But it’s also thought out, because the lighting adds a tremendous amount of depth in 3-D. Wet streets, shiny cars, shiny buildings. It’s like, wow!

How do you relate to the Cars 2 characters?

There’s a little bit of me in the Cars characters, like Lightning McQueen. The first story was really about me discovering that the journey in life is the reward. Working, working, working, working and meanwhile, I have five sons — so I learnt to slow down and enjoy living every day to its fullest.

On this movie, I relate to Mater. During our first research trip for Cars 2, Brad Lewis and I went over to the Italian Grand Prix in Milan. The Red Bull Formula 1 racing team was so generous and showed us everything. We were invited to the Red Bull party at the Milan Museum of Modern Art. I thought, ‘this will be fun.’ So I got dressed up like I normally do [in a Hawaiian shirt], and I walk in and it’s Milan. It’s the home of Armani. It’s like modern art and I walked in and I felt like Mater.

Who is Finn McMissile’s counterpart?

Finn has a new partner — an analyst on her first field assignment, secret agent car Holley Shiftwell, and she is voiced by the amazing Emily Mortimer. Holley is one of the most beautiful cars you’ve ever seen. She is very high-tech, sleek, sophisticated and state-of-the-art.

Who is Francesco Bernoulli?

He’s not just any Formula car. He’s the star from Italy, Francesco Bernoulli. He is so full of himself — he’s an open-wheel car and in the car world, an open-wheel car is like those guys who barely button their shirts. He talks about himself in the third person. Voicing Francesco Bernoulli is John Turturro and he hit it out of the park. It’s one of the most entertaining characters we’ve ever created.

What are your car credentials?

My father, Paul Lasseter, was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership all of my life. When I was a little kid, I would go help them count parts for inventory. In high school, I would work summers and weekends — I became a parts delivery boy. That was the muscle-car era and I was a fanatic for them during the early ’70s. My dad got a ’69 Chevelle station wagon with the towing package. You could tow a trailer, but you could also burn rubber — even with an automatic transmission — down an entire block with this thing. My parents had no idea that they had just handed the keys to one of the hottest cars in Whittier, California, to their boy. Whittier Boulevard was one of the cruising capitals of southern California.

What’s your favourite car of all time?

Well, I was born in 1957 and we were a Chevy family, so I would say my favourite car — I don’t have one yet; I’m hoping one day to get one — is a 1957 Corvette. I think it’s great. I do own, I think, the most beautiful car ever designed, which is a 1952 Jaguar XK120. It is gorgeous.

How do you feel about Pixar’s 25-year milestone this year?

Well, I just can’t believe it’s been 25 years and we’ve completed our 12th movie. It’s about making the highest-quality films. Not just animated films, but films that truly, deeply entertain audiences of all ages, of all genders, of all nationalities.

Who’s John Lasseter?

A two-time Academy Award winner, who creatively oversees all films and associated projects from Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.

Wrote, directed and animated Pixar’s first short films, including Luxo Jr., Red’s Dream, Tin Toy and Knick Knack.

Made his feature directorial debut in 1995 with Toy Story, for which he received a Special Achievement Oscar.

His other films are A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2 and Cars. Cars won him a Golden Globe in 2006.