With her ability to skillfully tap into a wide range of emotions, Lana Condor (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before) was a no-brainer to voice the lead role of DreamWorks Animation’s Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. Now working alongside talents like Toni Collette, Jane Fonda, and Colman Domingo, Condor is stepping into her own and finding empowerment through roles she can take command over, not unlike her character, Ruby.

In her one-on-one with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Condor feels like a natural when it comes to voice acting work. Having had previous experience in the booth, she pinpoints how working with Ruby director Kirk DeMicco and co-director Faryn Pearl and DreamWorks differs from other voice acting projects prior. The actress still allowed room to grow in the experience, however, and shares what she took away from her time as Ruby Gillman, as well as what other aspects of animation caught her interest throughout production.

Check out Perri’s interview in the video above or in transcript form below to find out what DreamWorks Animation feature became a core memory for Condor, which effort in voice acting still gives her the ick, and more.

Image via DreamWorks

PERRI NEMIROFF: My niece is just discovering movies now. She’s four, and the thought that any movie that she sees at this point could be the one that she looks back on and thinks to herself, “That is the first time I understood the power of movie magic,” just fills my heart. So what is that movie for you? The first movie you can remember fully enveloping you and transporting you into a world that maybe isn’t real, but made you believe?

LANA CONDOR: Spirit. Spirit with the horse. Is Spirit DreamWorks?

I think it might be.

CONDOR: I know that the new Spirit was DreamWorks, but Spirit was the first movie that I ever saw, period, in a theater. I was really young. I was six maybe, or maybe even five or four, and I just remember – I think seeing it in the theater, I didn’t even know a screen could be that big, you know, like when you’re a kid? And it was so integral to how freeing that movie was, was amazing. I’m excited for you! You said niece?

Yes, a niece. I’m so pumped! She’s four.

CONDOR: That’s a fun time!

She just sat through all of The Little Mermaid, and it made me so happy! It signaled that now is the time, it begins, and that’s what the aunt is here for.

CONDOR: Yes, very good. I love that.

So I wanna talk a little bit about your voice acting experience because you have had some before, so can you give me a shared quality between all of the voice acting gigs you’ve had that you’ve appreciated, but then on top of that, I also want something unique to DreamWorks that made this process stand out?

CONDOR: What was unique to DreamWorks and made this project stand out was time. I had a lot of time to record this. I recorded over the course of like three years versus the other animation that I’ve done before. It’s pretty short. I’m in and out, and we’re done. But this was over three years, and what I really, really learned was the importance of warming up your voice and protecting your voice, because when you’re in a booth for four, five, six hours talking, talking, talking, screaming. In Ruby Gilman, there’s a lot of [screams], you really want to warm up your voice, protect your voice, conserve it when you don’t have to speak, because there were a couple of days where if I didn’t do that, I’d get into the booth, I’d be like, “Oh no, I can hear it,” you know? I think it’s always been making sure I warm up and stuff like that.

Image via DreamWorks

Because you mentioned it was a three-year process for you, how was the work spread out over those three years? Were you revisiting scenes as they were retooling things in the animation realm?

CONDOR: 100%, yes. We were constantly going back. We were never doing it in order. We were always basically recording to what production needed. Like, all the artists were doing this scene, so they really needed my voice in it, and then they would rework it. So, I would do the scenes over and over again over months and whatnot. The process was really cool because I loved being able to revisit a scene, too, because you’re like, “Oh, I can make it better!” But yeah, animation is a whole other world than live-action.

They’re magicians! It fascinates me how all these artists come together and spend years working on this thing, and everyone’s work comes together seamlessly.

CONDOR: Yes, totally. I know, it’s wild! I went to the crew screening of Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, and there were hundreds of crew members from all the different art departments and lighting and everything, and you’re just like, “This is really amazing,” just how many people it takes to make something so wonderful, and it’s so cohesive.

If you could learn more about one person’s job on the production, in any department you want, which would you pick and why?

CONDOR: I don’t know what the name of this is, but I was just actually watching an interview, I don’t know what his title was on our film, but they animate the clothes. And he was saying that the clothes are all knit because the Gillmans reach their arms and their legs a lot, and they’re super, super bendy, so the clothes reach with them. It’s not like how if I’m going like this [extends arm] the clothes are like this; the clothes also move. And I think that I would love to know more about. Like, how did you do that? How did you make that so real?

The level of detail is absolutely wild.

Back to your voice performance, this question could get weird, but I have a question about efforts. I wanna know which type of effort comes to you most naturally, where it’s the easiest thing for you to replicate, but then I also want the one that is the hardest, the thing that we do in everyday life, but it is just so difficult to replicate in your session.

CONDOR: That’s an amazing question. Thank you. The easiest for me is the effort of becoming overwhelmed, and I think that’s just because me, as a human, I get overwhelmed a lot and so it’s kind of second nature. But that effort of [hyperventilates], all of that comes naturally to me. And the hardest effort for me would be, we didn’t really do this effort in Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, but I have done voiceover before and the hardest is making out because what you don’t realize is you make out with your hand. It’s so gross. So the mic is there and there’s your hand, and you have to, like, extra make your [smacks] – ew! It’s so gross! And you’re making out with your hand, and everyone’s watching you in the booth, and you’re like, “What is my job?”

I promised you this question would get weird.

CONDOR: Yeah, that’s the hardest, hardest effort to do. Mainly because I’m just so uncomfortable. [Laughs]

Image via Netflix

In the worst transition ever, I’ll end on a more wholesome note. This movie is all about Ruby finding her voice, finding her power. I want to turn that towards you as an actor. Do you remember the first project you were on that showed you the power of your own voice and that acting wasn’t just about reading the lines on the page, but if you had an idea, you could speak up about it, people would listen, and it could change a project for the better?

CONDOR: That’s a great question. I think that that’s always the goal, at least for me as an entertainer, to get to that place. Early on in my career, I never felt really empowered to make a suggestion. I was definitely still trying to find my voice. I just finished a project, actually, we shot half of it in Malaysia, and I felt very empowered on that film. It’s rom-com-esque, and I love rom-coms, I’ve done a lot of them, and so I felt that the production was asking me for advice on how to make a successful rom-com. I was flattered. I was like, “Thank you so much for asking me that!” I felt very empowered on that set, but I felt very empowered on this set, and I’m at a point now in my career and in my life where I feel like I know my worth and I know my boundaries, and I’m happy to say what’s on my mind.

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is in theaters on June 30th. Check out Perri’s interview with Annie Murphy below!