In Your Dreams: Cast & Creatives Share Biggest Surprises From Netflix’s Next Oscar Contender
In Your Dreams was just as much of a delight for the filmmakers and stars as it is for viewers. The Netflix animated film, which follows a pair of siblings as they venture into the dream realm to gain a wish from the mythical Sandman, is an emotionally rich and visually striking swing from the streamer and Kuku Studios.
Screen Rant got the chance to attend the Hollywood premiere of the film and speak with some of the stars (including Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Elias Janseen, Simu Liu, Craig Robinson, and Gia Carides) as well as filmmakers like director Alex Woo, composer John Debney, and producers Tim Hahn and Gregg Taylor about the magic that drew them into In Your Dreams.
In Your Dreams Stars And Creatives On The Film’s Heart & Biggest Surprises
In Your Dreams is being set up as a potential awards contender for Netflix, which has been a dream come true for director Alex Woo. “Movie making is like cooking a great meal, and you’re inviting a bunch of friends over. You’ve poured all this love, blood, sweat, and tears into the meal, and you just want to nourish ’em.”
For producers Tim Hahn and Gregg Taylor, it was a labor of love that they still can’t believe came out so well. “I think it means the world to have something you’ve invented out of thin air but that comes from your own experiences,” Hahn explained. “You get to connect across generations, that’s the magic of the movies.”
Taylor noted that “there are no guarantees that these things are going to work, or that a character is going to pop. But I think it’s fair to say that pretty early on, when we had our first recordings with Craig, we knew that was going to be pretty memorable. I’m just so excited for audiences to meet Tony.”
In Your Dreams was a rare opportunity for Simu Liu to be a lead vocalist for an original song, though he was quick to point out it wasn’t his first time singing on-screen. “I did sing choir on ‘I’m Just Ken.’ It’s not my first singing on camera, but maybe my first time singing solo, which was the best experience.”
“I didn’t realize that would be part of the film! We were already a year into the process, and Alex went ‘You want to hear something cool? Here’s an original song that we have made for you and Cristin to sing.’ It was beautiful, especially when he showed me the sequence in the movie that it would be set to.”
Baloney Tony is just super funny and always makes you laugh and brings such joy.
Beyond the family dynamics is plenty of comedy, thanks to concepts like Baloney Tony, a stuffed giraffe voiced in the dream world by Craig Robinson. “He was already a favorite character,” said Elias Janseen, recalling his first time seeing the character. “He’s just super funny and always makes you laugh and brings such joy.”
For Robinson, Tony was a joy to play because of the passion of the filmmakers behind the project. “Alex has so much passion for this movie. It is infectious. I got in the booth and just wanted to do my best. So it was all about following the script. Then we got to play around and improv. It was great.”
The Joys At The Heart Of In Your Dreams
Reflecting on other characters he’d pair up Tony with, Robinson admitted that “Mr. Shark from The Bad Guys” would be a perfect pairing. “A giraffe and a shark just rolling around? Come on!” Reflecting on kids growing up with Tony, Robinson said that “It’s a beautiful thing. I love to see it, and I will hold that responsibility with grace.”
Jolie Hoang-Rappaport loved the film and explained that “I hope [families] think it’s fun and funny, but also get the message that leaning on your family and leaning on the people that really care is how you get through tough times. I think the film does a good job of imbuing itself with that message in ways kids can understand.”
For Hoang-Rappaport, the special spirit of the film was apparent from the earliest days of auditioning. “From the audition, I knew I wanted this. It’s really rare, especially in animation as a kid, to get a script and some audition sides with such nuance.”
There were really emotional scenes, and I really gravitated towards that because I could tell that this film was going to have a lot of heart. It’s going to have a lot of depth, especially for a family movie. I was really excited for that.
To Hoang-Rappaport’s on-screen sibling, Elias Janseen, the real draw was “the comedy! I mean, there’s so much comedy in this movie. My character and Baloney Tony, their bond together is just super funny. I love all of their lines and their deliveries together.”
One of the key elements of the process for Gia Carides was the development of Nightmara, who serves as a contrast to the Sandman. According to Carides, she was given a lot of freedom to work with Alex Woo and the rest of the team on developing the character and her specific voice.
“Alex invited me in to kind of help create this character. They knew they had an idea for her, but they weren’t sure if she was an entity or a character. They wanted me to play and experiment and read several scenes that they’d written where she had different energies until they kind of nailed it down and found her.”
“It was so much fun being part of that creative process, getting to do different accents and voices. I did a British version. I probably toyed with an Australian version, but we landed on this beautiful New York accent, where she’s kind of wise and has been around the block. It was really fun.”
In Your Dreams Is Full Of Surprises
That sense of whimsy was key to composer John Debney’s experience as well, who explained that “I think the idea of the Sandman in the world of dreams was something that was really, really important for me to latch onto.
“The great thing about this film musically is that we go from kind of Western to big, beautiful, imaginative, almost impressionistic music. So it’s been fun to be able to do all these different kinds of music in one film.”
With other animators in mind, Woo explained that even if they face hardships in their own careers that it’s important to “keep going. This is my first film. The last film that I made was a short in 2004. It took me 21 years to get to this point, which is a long time.
“I know it can be really discouraging when you’re hitting a wall. I think that’s just part of the journey. I think if I had had this chance earlier in my career, the film would not have turned out as well as it did. Patience is the key, and holding on to that faith in yourself is what matters.“
Any film comes with its wealth of challenges and surprises, and In Your Dreams is no different. The director and cast looked back on their overall experience to reveal what surprised them most about the process:
Alex Woo: I think the movie turned out better than I expected, which is rare. When I started the movie, it was just a pipe dream. I thought maybe we would be able to get maybe a low budget version of it made because we were a small, independent animation studio.
We had no backing, we had no connections. We had never done anything before. But man, it just exceeded my expectations. We’ve got such an amazing cast. Image Works is just incredible. The best animation studio… I just could not ask for better partners. So I think it’s just exceeded all of my expectations.
Craig Robinson: I love that Tony had to overcome his fears. That’s a strong moment, and I’ve had to do that. I really was in touch with that.
Simu Liu: I think just how emotional it can feel being in a recording booth coming in and sitting down with Alex, our amazing director, who really just above all else really got to the emotional truth of everything. I think I was really surprised by how emotional I got.
We would record these scenes over and over again and every time — sometimes these sessions would be months apart. But I would get really emotional recording a scene, and then four months later we’d come back and do another session, and I’d do the scene all over again, only maybe a slightly different way or with some of the lines change
Suddenly, I’d feel all of these feelings all over again. It was just a really beautiful and a really kind emblematic of how emotionally beautiful this film is.
Jolie Hoang-Rappaport: I think just how it developed. There’s so many times where you’re re-recording. That isn’t because the film has changed, but because they want to come at it with a new angle.
And that’s not necessarily because my performance was bad. It’s because they put the movie together and they figure out the tone as they’re developing it.
To kind of come back and look at it with a new angle, a new understanding of what we tried and being able to come at it from all these different angles, it’s a nice challenge as an actor. How can I bring the same piece of material to life in a bunch of different ways?
Elias Janseen: Alex was just a great director. It was just great working with Alex because you could tell he was very passionate about it and he would be my scene partner basically, so it was great working with him.
Gia Carides: I think the depth and the kind of groundedness that we found and brought to [Nightmara] so that she wasn’t just an evil villain. We got to make it human. I’ve played a couple of villains. I always want to bring a human element to the development. It’s just fun to make it complicated like that.
John Debney: It’s always a surprise to me. I think the thing that surprised me most was the relationship of the brother and sister and how dramatic that is towards the end. It’s a happy ending.
But that was really a challenge musically, and that’s my favorite part of the movie, because really at one point you’ve got a lot of action and adventure and then all of a sudden it comes down to the relationship. That’s what I love.
In Your Dreams will have a limited theatrical run starting November 7 before streaming on Netflix on November 14.
In Your Dreams
Release Date
November 14, 2025
Runtime
99 minutes
Director
Alex Woo, Erik Benson
Writers
Erik Benson, Alex Woo, Stanley Moore
