Inside Out 2 Has A Secret Connection To Pixar’s $496 Million Surprise From Last Year

Inside Out 2 has a hidden connection to a Pixar hit from the previous year. The 2024 Pixar movie is a direct sequel to their 2015 movie Inside Out, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature the following year. The new installment features the return of many original emotions populating the world inside the head of young girl Riley (Kensington Tallman, originally Kaitlyn Dias) including Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale, originally Bill Hader), and Disgust (Liza Lapira, originally Mindy Kaling).

The Inside Out 2 cast also introduces new emotions including Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Like all Pixar movies, both Inside Out and its sequel contain references to previous entries in the company’s canon, including blink-and-miss-it glimpses of the Pizza Planet truck from the Toy Story universe. However, one particular element that connects the new movie to a previous movie is much more subtle.

Inside Out 2’s Adèle Exarchopoulos Also Voiced Ember In Elemental’s French Dub

The Actor Is Based In France

Before voicing Ennui in Inside Out 2, Adèle Exarchopoulos voiced the lead character Ember Lumen in the European French dub of Pixar’s 2023 box office hit Elemental, which had a major comeback after a lukewarm domestic opening of $29.6 million. It became a sleeper success, eventually earning $496.4 million worldwide and becoming the third highest-grossing animated movie of the year worldwide behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. In the original English-language version, the character was voiced by Nancy Drew and The Half of It star Leah Lewis.

Exarchopoulos is a well-known actor in France, though she has also held roles that have earned her international acclaim. Her worldwide breakout came when she starred opposite Léa Seydoux in 2013’s Blue is the Warmest Color, though since then she has also taken roles in more widely recognized projects including 2023’s Passages, in which she starred opposite Paddington and Skyfall star Ben Whishaw. She was likely chosen for the role of Ennui, even in the English-language version of Inside Out 2, because the emotion has a French name and is generally associated with European sensibilities.

Inside Out 2 Gives Adèle Exarchopoulos A Bigger Role Than Elemental

The Supporting Role Still Reached A Wider Audience

Although Ennui is a small supporting role whereas Ember is a lead, the Inside Out 2 box office, which earned more than $1.5 billion and marks it as the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, means that her performance has reached a much wider audience. What the role lacks in terms of screen time it more than makes up for with exposure, as the English-language version has been screened in more territories than the European French version and viewed significantly more times in theaters in general, given its commercial performance.