This is the transcript for this episode.

Allen Wolf: 00:03
Welcome to the Navigating Hollywood Podcast. My name is Allen Wolf, and I’m a filmmaker and an author. Navigating Hollywood helps media professionals build holistic, creative, and spiritual lives through this podcast and discussion groups at the major studios. If you work in entertainment, visit navigatinghollywood.org to discover how you can get involved. Today, we’re joined by animation legend Mark Henn, the man behind some of Disney’s most beloved characters. Over his 43-year career at Walt Disney Animation Studios, Mark became known as the Princess Guy for his masterful work bringing Disney’s most iconic heroines to life, such as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Jasmine from Aladdin, Young Simba from The Lion King, Mulan from Mulan, and Princess Tiana from The Princess and the Frog. His artistry helped define the Disney Renaissance era and continues to inspire animators worldwide. In 2013, Mark received the prestigious Windsor McKay Award for lifetime achievement in animation. And in 2024, he was honored as a Disney legend. Mark retired in 2023, but continues to be celebrated as one of the most influential character animators of his generation. Welcome, Mark.

Mark Henn: 01:33
Wow. Thank you, Allen. Thanks for having me.

Allen Wolf: 01:35
Now, in England, when you’re knighted, you have to start calling someone Sir, whatever their name is. When you become a Disney legend, is there something, some way people have to address you now?

Mark Henn: 01:46
They just say, hey you.

Allen Wolf: 01:50
Okay, okay. You decided to become an animator at age seven after watching a reissue of Cinderella. What about that experience sparked that idea?

Mark Henn: 02:01
Cinderella was one of the first films, feature films that I remember seeing as a small boy. It was just magic in my mind. The other film that I saw at the around the same time was The Reluctant Dragon, which was the film that Walt created around the 1940s to pull the curtain back to show people how animated films were done at the studio. And he’s looking over uh Ward Kimball’s shoulder as he’s finishing a drawing of Goofy, and Ward says, You want to see it move? And he takes this one drawing, puts it on a stack of drawings, starts flipping it, and Goofy came to life. As and I was just, I was hooked. So the combination of those two films kind of laid the groundwork for my decision as a small boy growing up in Ohio to tell people when they’d ask, so what do you want to be when you grow up? I’d say, I’d like to be a Disney animator. And that would they’d say, that’s nice.

Allen Wolf: 02:60
Well, you faced multiple rejections from Disney before getting in. And one rejection letter said, You didn’t have what it took to travel the narrow roads that their animators travel. Did that fuel your determination?

Mark Henn: 03:16
That was the third and final official rejection from the studio. The first portfolio I sent in, they expressed an interest. They saw something in my work, told me what I needed to do, what I needed to improve on. I sent a second portfolio in, thinking I had met those improvements. But they said, no, you just need to stay in school and become a better artist. So by the time I got to that third portfolio, I thought for sure I had nailed everything that they wanted me to do. And then that was their response. And it just kind of like I looked into two schools, two art schools. I told myself I need to get a better art education. So I applied to a school in Colorado, the uh Rocky Mountain School of Art, it was called. Founded the back advertisement in the back of an art magazine. But a friend of mine in high school had given me the catalog California Institute of the Arts here in Valencia after that third rejection. Basically, with the same portfolio that the studio had rejected, redid a few little things, and I sent that off to both schools, the Rocky Mountain School in Colorado and uh CalArts here in California, and then just sat back and waited to get hopefully a positive response. And when I got the letter from CalArts, I didn’t get any further than the first word which said, Congratulations. So I was like, yay! So got on a TWA flight direct from Dayton, Ohio to Los Angeles and kind of had my Mary Tyler Moore moment as I arrived in Los Angeles in a downpour of rain. And everybody on the flyaway bus as I was riding up, they were all grumping and grouching and you know the traffic and the rain. And I was just like, wow, I’m in Los Angeles.

Allen Wolf: 04:57
At CalArt, you studied alongside future legends like John Lassiter and Joe Ranft. What was that creative environment like?

Mark Henn: 05:06
We were the class I was in was the fourth year of the character program. So John Lassiter was in his fourth year, my first year, but Joe Ramft and I, we were in the same class. So we were the largest class that they had had at that point. There was about maybe 30 of us. You know, it was neat to be in a room with a bunch of people that were very like-minded in terms of their goals and their dreams of working in the industry. But specifically, I think working for Disney, we all had these amazing teachers, which were all former Disney animators, Disney artists. Jack Hanna was the department head, and he was, of course, known for being the Donald Duck short director. We were all like sponges. Anything and everything we could learn from them was kind of the agenda for our class. A lot of what we had to do was kind of self-learning, and they kind of just guided us along the way, particularly in the animation class. That was kind of trial and error on our own and you know, learning from others.

Allen Wolf: 06:07
Now, Disney dubbed you as the princess guy. How do you feel about that title?

Mark Henn: 06:13
It’s meant very respectfully, very lovingly, and I embrace it. It’s just kind of what’s, you know, my lot in terms of you know being cast on characters. People have asked over the years why why I had done so many. And I’m thinking, well, when you really look back over my career, most of the characters that I’ve done are the leading characters. So I’ve done a lot of dogs and cats, like an Oliver and Company and the Great Mouse, the detective. They I handled a lot of the lead characters. And I think over time I’ve learned that I think they have arguably the most interesting journey, the heroes and the leading characters. We just happen to have told a lot of stories that were chosen to be told that involve a leading lady. And for whatever reason, the directors on those films have felt um my approach, my sensibilities have worked best for them. So, but like on Mulan, I started with animating Mulan, but then the directors came to me and said, you know, her father is equally important to this relationship, and we’d like you to also do his animate him. So I also animated her father because that relationship was kind of the emotional uh heart and soul of the movie Mulan. This kind of the way things have uh fallen into my lap as far as being cast.

Allen Wolf: 07:33
What do you think makes a compelling Disney princess from an animator’s perspective?

Mark Henn: 07:39
Well, for me, one of the greatest challenges is coming up with something unique for each one because I did Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine, one right after the other, right after the other. So the challenge with any of the characters, regardless if it’s a princess or a lion or a mouse, what is that character? What is that unique personality, and how do I, through my animation, make them stand out as unique? How do I make Belle different than Ariel? How do I make Jasmine different than Belle? And those are the great challenges for the animators because it is, it’s an acting job being an animator. It’s just you don’t see me on stage, you see what I’m able to draw on the screen instead.

Allen Wolf: 08:18
What does that process look like for developing those character traits?

Mark Henn: 08:22
It varies a little bit from production to production. For example, we had uh kind of a character design retreat on uh Princess and the Frog, and all we did that whole weekend was sit in a room and we took each character one by one, and everybody contributed ideas, sketches. And again, the director’s going, I like this, I don’t like this, I like this. So it was a really amazing weekend, something we hadn’t done on other films, but it was the same idea of just you know, kind of focusing, in this case, just kind of focusing on, you know, character design specifically. So, regardless of who I was cast to do, Tiana, of course, but we all chipped in and looked at you know drawings of Facilier and Lewis the Alligator, and it was a really fun weekend to that we spent developing that. But a certain point, you know, the directors and the producers have to say that’s it. So, for example, on uh Lion King, I had been doing, we had, you know, a lot of uh experts come in to look at a lot of footage of lions and things. I was just doing drawing after drawing after drawing, and I flew out here for a meeting, and I, you know, had a board of my Simba sketches up and Jeffrey Katzenberg at at some point that was part of the agenda for the meeting. He just went through and was like, mm-hmm, okay, yeah, all right. And Don Hahn turned to me and said, I think you just got Simba approved. So it was like arguably one of the fastest design approvals I think I’d ever experienced. That’s basically the way it happens. So it’s it’s very collaborative. You work with a lot of incredibly talented people, you do a lot of research on your own. They’ve done a lot of research of their own, and you take what they’ve learned, you do the research yourself, take what you’ve learned, and you just, you know, it’s kind of you put it all together and and put together a design and hopefully create a memorable character.

Allen Wolf: 10:14
You modeled Jasmine after your sister Beth. Can you tell us about using other personal references in your work and how that impacted the character’s development?

Mark Henn: 10:26
Jasmine was number three in a row for me. I kind of hit an artist block in terms of just finding the look of Jasmine. Originally, I was scheduled, I was asked to animate Aladdin’s mother, usually a pregnant pause there, because you kind of go, I don’t remember Aladdin’s mother in the movie. Well, that’s right, because we had what’s very common in our process, uh major story meltdown, Black Monday, in fact. This not working, and Jeffrey said no, put the brakes on, said we gotta we gotta rethink this. And how finished was the film at that point? Oh, just story reels. I see. Okay. If you’re gonna make changes like that, that’s the best time to do it. It’s it’s a little painful, but it’s important. So it was Aladdin’s mother was out, and Jasmine’s role got bigger as a result. And so the directors came to me and said, We’d like you to, you know, take over working on Jasmine, so it was great. Visually, I was having a hard time coming up with her look. And at that point, Eric Goldberg had joined the studio, and of course, he was impressing everybody with his Al Hirschfeld approach with the way he handled the genie. So there was that influence going on. I just was having a hard time getting a hook on how Jasmine looked. But eventually I reached into my hip pocket and pulled out my wallet, and I got thinking, I was like, okay, well, Jasmine’s kind of this age. And uh I just got thinking about it, and I pulled out the picture of my sister’s high school graduation photo that I had in my wallet, Beth. And I was just like, you know, there’s there’s something there. And I started using that then. That kind of got me over that artistic hump. It worked really well. And after the movie came out, she’s an excellent seamstress. So she made herself a jasmine costume and a wig and laid down on some pillows and had her picture taken, and it was just like jasmine in the flesh. Oh, yeah. As good, if not better, than you know, some of the park characters. She is jasmine, so but in terms of other you accumulate uh a body of memories as you grow up. And you know, you and I both grew up in in the Ohio area, pretty normal Americana, you know, type of an upbringing. But there’s a lot of experiences that I’m sure you have, and as you bring to your work that I go back to with my own work. One one example, I swam a lot when I was a kid. I was on a swim team from like age eight up through about my sophomore year in high school. I was a competitive swimmer, so I spent a lot of time in a pool. And on Milan, we had that great sequence where she sneaks off to get a bath, wash away the grit and grime of her training that particular day. So she goes off, she was into the water. I remember experiencing this, I remember seeing this countless times when I was in a pool. That’s what I called the double dip, where you would jump in, you’d come out of the water, you’d flip your hair up, the hair would go in the crazy thing, and then you’d do what I called the double dip, where you just gently lock raw back and just you know, brush the hair out of your uh face. I saw that so many times and experienced that when I was in a pool. I said, Well, I gotta do that. Well, the director, he thought it was he didn’t understand it. He was like, I I don’t get this. And I said, Trust me, it’s it’s right. And I kind of had to put my foot down and he wanted me to change it, and I kind of had to say no. So it stayed in something that you you start digging through the files of your memories growing up and things you experience, things you see. And that was one in particular that I I remember very vividly because I I lived it for so many years.

Allen Wolf: 14:09
There’s been an ongoing discussion about body representation in Disney films, with critics pointing out that many Disney princesses have unrealistic proportions, like extremely small waists, large eyes, idealized features. As the animator responsible for bringing those characters to life, how do you balance creating appealing character designs with being mindful of the body image messages being sent to young audiences?

Mark Henn: 14:36
Yes, I’ve I’ve heard that. And frankly, I I don’t think about it. I mean, I think about what’s the most appealing design for that particular character. Our society’s a little schizo right now with if you’re considered heavy or overweight, they kind of encourage people to go on a diet and you know be healthy. And yet on the other hand, they’re saying be who you are, you know, and if you’re on the heavier side, be your healthiest heaviness. I mean, it there’s kind of a so you can’t win in one sense. So decisions just have to be made in terms of just what we at the studio and the the the directors and everybody involved, we just feel is the most appealing design for these characters. I don’t let it, you know, weigh on me too heavily. I I’ve heard those arguments. Like I said, it’s kind of you can’t win, you’re never gonna please everybody. So we have to basically please ourselves as filmmakers first. And hopefully that appeals to you know most of our people in our audience. You’re not gonna please everybody.

Allen Wolf: 15:41
Do you find that you have to kind of put those criticisms aside to have more freedom?

Mark Henn: 15:48
And when you’re developing something, in one sense, we’re making the film for ourselves first. We make films that we find appealing, that we would, you know, go see. Because if you start listening to all the outside voices and, you know, telling you this, telling you that, you’re never going to get anything done. There’s kind of a quality to filmmaking that, you know, the buck stops with the directors and the producer. They m have the final decision. And, you know, we’re very sensitive to doing our research, doing our due diligence, you know, like with Moana, Pocahontas. I mean, there was a lot of effort, a lot of research to partner with uh Native Americans on Pocahontas to understand, you know, culturally what’s right. So we weren’t doing things that were just stereotypical. Same with the research for Moana. The director spent, you know, rough job off to the South Pacific to uh uh do a lot of research. But it was all intended to make sure that not only how the characters looked, but you know, how they acted and worlds that we were creating were correct as far as that we could make them with regards to the the needs of the story.

Allen Wolf: 16:57
Your directorial debut, John Henry, won awards, but had a troubled release due to Disney’s concerns about potentially offending audiences. Can you talk about that experience and what the film meant to you?

Mark Henn: 17:10
It goes under the category of it was a passion project, the story of John Henry, a song and all that was something I grew up with. And it just was one of my favorite tall tales and legends. I had spent a lot of time having conversations with myself to say, well, if you’re gonna do this, you know, you gotta just you gotta do it. You just have to kind of do it. I just started developing it. I wrote an outline, I started doing some boards, and then I slowly incorporated people like I had a couple of friends in Florida that I knew were interested in story and writing. After I wrote an outline, I approached them with it and they were eager and excited, so they came on board and it just very gradually started to grow. I worked with a gal in development in Burbank, and I told her, I said, I really don’t want anybody to know about this yet. And she said, Fine, I’ll gladly help you. But she’s she said, when you get to a point where I feel like it’s ready to pitch to Peter and Tom, you know, will you trust me? And I’m like, yes, absolutely. So that’s what we did. I don’t know how many months we spent, you know, developing, writing, boarding. And then we got to a point where she said, I think it’s time to pitch it to uh Peter and Tom. So I was out here for a business trip, pitched it to Peter and Tom, and they both loved it. They just they just loved it. And there was nothing like having the might of the studio behind you when you’ve got a project like that, and they they’re on board with it, and things really just took off after that. We had a it was one of the best experiences I had at this working at the studio. It was just a great experience. Unfortunately, for reasons still unknown to me, the studio kind of buried it. Nationally, they made February uh Black History Month. And so somebody at the studio, and I still don’t know who it was, came up with the idea of doing a short live-action film uh as part of a package to environments, and they put this thing together. It was just like a two or three-minute little film, and it ends with a shot of John Henry’s hammer in a display case, and it was like, you know, an honor of Black History Month, the Walt Disney Company is proud to present John Henry, and that’s the way it was going to be released in the theaters, hopefully. And it was beautiful, it was really a very lovely, very well done, and it disappeared after that. It never happened. And and I was only told that whoever was behind the the live-action film evidently stepped on some toes by you know exceeding their pay grade or whatever and doing this. And they they just kind of buried it. So we were able to submit John Henry to several film festivals and it won a couple of awards. But then Disney Education got a hold of it. They kind of created an in-classroom package. It kind of had a second life via the Disney Education wing. And I’ve had a lot of people, surprisingly, a lot of people have come up to me and said that that’s you know, either theirs or their children’s favorite shorts that Disney’s ever done. You know, a couple years ago, Disney Animation put together its own shorts collection, just like Pixar had put together a shorts collection and released it on DVD. John Henry was included on that, and they had a lot of us do little intros for each of our shorts.

Allen Wolf: 20:32
You witnessed Disney’s evolution from the dark period of the early 80s through the Renaissance and then into the modern CG area. What were the most significant changes you observed in storytelling and animation techniques?

Mark Henn: 20:47
Ah, the dark days. When I when I arrived at the studio, it was yeah, the the dust hadn’t settled because when I came back out to California for my second year at CalArts, the water cooler talk was, Did you hear about Don Bluth? And they all left. They quit. He took half of the animators, and that that was like so. I started my second year at CalArts, knowing that that had just recently happened at the studio, which you know was a major, major blow. They were in the Fox and the Hound was in production. Kind of in our own minds, I think, thought, well, you know, maybe there’ll be four jobs available. Um since a lot of people left. And so there was some tensions there, and the dust was still kind of settling as you know, we were trying to kind of find our way. And uh, you know, we we muscled our way through, you know, finishing up the fox and the hound. And then after that, the big the big project that Frank and Ollie had also been involved with initially and Milled uh was the black cauldron. You just you know kind of put your head down and did the job you were asked to do. Thankfully, for me personally, the bright light in that those dark days, if you want to call it that, was uh Bernie Mattenson, and started at the studio in 1953. So he was kind of that that intermediate generation between the nine old men and then my generation. He was kind of that filler, but he was kind of by himself. But he was very much a supporter of our generation, and he was willing to work with us, and he came up with because he had had, you know, I think he had butted heads with some of the other folks as well, but he came up with the Mickey’s Christmas Carol idea, and that was essentially Bernie and a whole group of uh younger artists. So Bernie pulled me out. I had done a Mickey uh animation test for to get a promotion, and he was part of the review board and he saw it and he liked it. He approached me and said, I think you could handle Mickey Mouse. So my first animation assignment as an animator for the studio was animating Mickey Mouse, which I always thought was incredibly special. Bernie was very instrumental in working and developing a lot of our generation because after Mickey’s Christmas Carol, he and Ron and John, who had been kind of stuck in story Purgatory on Black Cauldron until they were, you know, removed. He took them on and they started developing the Great Mouse detective, Basil at Baker Street. And from that point on, things started to slowly turn around. Eventually, the technology, the major change, of course, was after Home on the Range, which was supposed to be our last hand-drawn film. You could kind of see the writing on the wall as Pixar was becoming those types of movies. Computer films were becoming the it movies. The writing was on the wall that we were going to have to do that. But the neat thing is that’s just a tool change. The philosophy of the storytelling, character development, all of those kind of things hasn’t really changed because what’s really fun is as you talk to people at the studio, more often than not, you know, you hear the same story, different variations, but it’s the same story how they grew up and they wanted to come and work for Disney and be a Disney animator or layout artist or whatever the job is. There was a a dream to work for Disney. And I think that’s that’s been key to you know continuing the success and the legacy that we’ve had.

Allen Wolf: 24:22
Disney Animation has faced some recent box office challenges with films like Strange World and Wish Not Performing as expected. Well, earlier successes like Frozen and Milana were massive hits. From your perspective, as someone who helped define Disney’s golden age of animation, what do you think makes the difference between an animated film that resonates with audiences and one that doesn’t?

Mark Henn: 24:48
You ask these simple questions. You know, if I had the answer, I, you know, I I every film would be uh wonderful. I mean, for us at the studio, it’s always been about story and character. And hopefully you you create a story that is compelling, but then it’s populated with characters that people can identify with, that people can say, I know what that character is thinking, and they can kind of get in and in the vehicle with them and kind of go on the same journey. That’s that’s still always the goal, and to try to find a compelling story and populate it with, you know, appealing, compelling characters as well that audiences can identify with. You know, when you have that, that seems to be part of the formulas when the films are are bigger successes. And it could be any number of things. And there’s been several cases that I’ve known of where I get fan letters, you know, from people that talk about how much these characters mean to them or have gotten them through a hard time, a difficult time. There was a famous uh letter. It was actually written to Michael Eisner, I believe, after uh Beauty and the Beast. And it was from a mother on behalf of her daughter who said that, you know, the little girl was having doubts about herself, low esteem, because she was a brunette, and all of her friends and the popular girls were blondes, no offense to blondes. But in her mind, she felt her esteem was very low because she wasn’t a blonde, blue-eyed girl. And then Beauty and the Beast came out, and Belle is a brunette, and she was the mother wrote how that just 180 her daughter’s self-esteem, and you know, I gave her something to to hang on to. And I personally have had several letters after Princess and the Frog from mothers saying I threw a birthday party for my my little girl, these are African American mothers saying how much it meant for her daughter to see a Disney princess that looked like her. Wow. You know, that kind of gets me all choked up even now. But it just you never know what what it’s gonna take. It’s a Disney princess or if it’s Simba. You know, we we hear a lot of stories and then letters, fan letters, um, explaining you know what these films meet to us. And then you go to D23 convention and you meet the public, you know, the your fans in person. And for me, I always hear the one of the nicest compliments is you animated my childhood. And you know, you and I, you and I grew up, Frank and Ollie animated my childhood, and they animated the things that inspired me and wanted me to do this. And now I’m hearing that, and I feel very old. But um I don’t want to say it’s uh a gamble, but you know, we have no way of knowing until the films come out because usually it’s a director, story person. Somebody comes in and says, I’ve got an idea for a film, and this is my vision for it. And this if the studio agrees, then they you know they get the opportunity to execute that that vision. And sometimes it works fabulous, and sometimes it’s not as successful, but that’s that’s just kind of the way it way it goes. There’s a lot of cases where over time what was initially not successful, Pinocchio was not successful, Fantasia. There were a lot of quote flops early in the Disney films for a variety of different reasons. I mean, the war was going on, and you know, they lost their European market and things like that. But a lot of considered flops then are now considered classics and masterpieces. So and sometimes, you know, it’s just maybe it’s just a matter of time. And people get a second look at it and go, you know, it’s actually pretty good.

Allen Wolf: 28:39
You mentioned D23. At the 2024 D23 event, all five voice actresses of your Disney princesses appeared together to honor you. What was that like seeing the impact of your work celebrated?

Mark Henn: 28:55
Oh, I I I still pinch myself that it it’s been a year ago now. We’ve we’ve exceeded a year.

Allen Wolf: 29:02
Mark Henn is a brilliant animator with overflowing kindness and loyalty. He doesn’t just design characters on Peter. He creates images infused with passion, vulnerability, and authenticity that I connect with people for generations.

Mark Henn: 29:26
I’ve stayed in touch. Uh, we run into each other, a couple of them every so often, Jody and Paige. I hadn’t seen Linda for a while. I was blown away. The same thing happened when I was received my Windsor McKay Award, Ming Na when introduced me. And I again had the same impact because I didn’t know she was going to do that. It meant so much to me for her to take the time to do that, and then to see her part of this group as well. To be there on stage with me, thankfully, because I was so nervous. I was I was very nervous, and um, they’ve met some. So much. And you know, these voice actors contribute a lot to the characters. It’s a part of them. It’s a part of me. You know, the story artists, the director. And so very, again, very collaborative in how these characters come to life. It meant a lot. It just it’s it’s hard to express, but it it meant it meant a lot to me to have them there.

Allen Wolf: 30:19
What has your spiritual journey looked like?

Mark Henn: 30:21
Well, you know, I was thinking about this this morning. I was at a men’s breakfast at church on Saturday, and uh the speaker made a quote, forget who he quoted, but I th it was a good quote because he said he stole it from somebody because he thought it was good. How that God connects the dots, but that God also makes the dots. He said that was really stuck with him, and he meant shared that with us at the men’s breakfast. And I was like, yeah, that really makes a lot of sense. And I as I at this point in my life and my career, and I look back first at, you know, how God connected the dots, but then I realized, you know, how God made those dots along the way. Everything going back to, you know, what initially got me excited about Disney animation, wanting to be an animator, you know, that process. I was saved when I was in college. I got a phone call from uh to this day. I have no idea how what my contact was with them, but it was a campus crusade. A young man called me and said, I’d like to come over and talk with you. Could I do that? I said, sure. But as I look back and kind of try to analyze it a little bit, I realized at that point in my life, first year in college, I was away from home and thinking about how I was gonna, you know, run my life and you know what I thought would be best and what I which included still working for Disney, but you know, it was all about my way of doing things. And then I get this phone call. I grew up going to church. That was it was just a normal part of you know, growing up in southwestern Ohio, middle class America. You know, I didn’t fully understand, you know, what it was, what Christ’s sacrifice meant, and God’s forgiveness was all about. So this person walked me through that. That’s when God opened my eyes and my heart. You know, there’s an image, there’s a bridge, God over here, man over here, and you know, Christ is that bridge to, you know, restore that relationship that was for the first time explained to me. And I was in the light bulb, you know, it clicked in my head. I accepted Christ. It’s been a good journey. I can’t say that it hasn’t been without bumps along the way, and nobody can, but God has been very faithful. And when I look back at those dots that were connected, and then think about the fact that God made those dots, it just kind of blows me away to think just how that all came together. And I’m thinking, gosh, how did I get through that without him? And even if I didn’t, you know, always acknowledge that it was him behind the scenes, it was. I said I’ve learned a lot, I’ve made mistakes, but God has always been very faithful. And, you know, like I said, 43 years of doing what I’ve loved to do, what I dreamt of doing as a small boy to start with is just certainly God connecting dots and creating those dots along the way. How has your faith impacted what you do? First and foremost is doing whatever you do with excellence. You know, there’s the verse about whatever you do in word or deed, you know, doing it unto the Lord. And I think, you know, that’s always been kind of foundational for me. It’s just it’s a level of excellence, it’s a standard that I think God expects of his people that love him to do their very best at whatever they’re asked to do, whatever you’re asked to do, whatever your profession is, you know, just do it heartily as to the Lord. And that’s always been, you know, foundational for me first and foremost, and just I always find myself saying, you know, asking the Lord to let me, you know, just represent him well as much as I possibly can. That’s kind of where it all begins. You know, having the opportunity to be a Disney animator, being the best animator I could possibly be. I said it isn’t a competition. You know, I don’t do this alone. There’s, you know, hundreds of incredibly talented artists that I’ve worked with along the way. I’ve been in a more of a leadership position than a lot, just wanting to make sure I’m, you know, the work that I do is excellent, that there’s a level of excellence that I think God expects of us.

Allen Wolf: 34:13
How do you stay spiritually healthy while in the role that you’ve had for so long?

Mark Henn: 34:19
You know, I used to try to start each day by, you know, reading a verse or two uh in the Word, pray all the time. I mean, there’s no set time, and you can if you’re walking across to the lot, you can be praying. I mean, that’s one of my favorite things that I kind of miss in retirement is taking a lot walk, walking around the lot and just again, just talking with the Lord and you know, expressing my gratitude for you know being having the opportunity to work there. I’ve had the opportunity to also work with a lot of fellow Christians, and we’ve had a variety of Bible studies across over the years, just knowing that you’re not alone, that there are other believers at the studio that you can talk to and share with. It’s about you know just living a life that, you know, honoring to the Lord as far as I’m concerned.

Allen Wolf: 35:05
At the end of your life, what kind of legacy would you like to leave behind?

Mark Henn: 35:09
Well, I often think of the title uh King David had that he was a man after God’s own heart. And I suppose in one respects uh I’d like to have that as part of my legacy. A good father, a good artist, and uh, man who loved God as much as I possibly can. I think that’s as much as any of us can expect. You know, all the awards and accolades are all gonna burn up and you know it’s not gonna be, you know, it’s gonna go somewhere, but it’s not gonna go with you to heaven, that’s for sure. But if it represents a level of excellence of doing a job well done, being thankful that uh God has allowed me to have this career and people knowing about that, I think that that’s part of the legacy as well.

Allen Wolf: 35:53
Well, thank you so much for being my guest and sharing incredible stories, Mark.

Mark Henn: 35:58
Well, thank you for having me. This has been fun. I appreciate it.

Allen Wolf: 36:01
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