Just under two months remain until Disney’s newest animated featureWishreleases in theaters. Set in the kingdom of Rosas, the film follows Asha (Ariana DeBose), who makes a wish so powerful that it captures the attention of a cosmic being called Star. Meanwhile,King Magnifico (Chris Pine)has some nefarious intentions in play, forcing Asha and Star to stop him before he destroys the kingdom. But every good adventure needs a cute animal companion, which is where Asha’s pet goat, Valentino, comes into play —and he wears pajamas.
When speaking with Collider’sChristina Radish, co-directorsChris BuckandFawn Veerasunthorn, and producerJuan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jonesrevealed how Asha’s animal companion wound up wearing pajamas. Buck shared that the idea initially came fromwriterJennifer Lee, who loves videos starring baby goats wearing pajamas. It was that love that helped click an important facet of Valentino’s personality into place. Additionally,Wishproduction designerLisa Keeneis a goat in pajamas owner. Veerasunthorn later noted that they approached Valentino with a “dog mom vibe.”
“We did have designs for Valentino without the pajamas. We went even further with Valentino and had many different outfits. Like when you go to pet stores, and you get costumes for your pets, Valentino had a little bumblebee costume, a little strawberry costume, and all sorts of things. It was a little much. The story couldn’t handle all of that, so we whittled it down to this. One of our production designers, Lisa Keene, has goats, and she has goats in pajamas, so it seemed to be the perfect thing to do.”
Alan Tudyk Helped Cement Valentino
In a separate interview with Radish,Lancaster-Jones further supportedthe draw of Valentino wearing pajamas, saying it was “a concept that we all gravitated towards. Jen [Lee] always pushes us to make the characters very specific, so not only should it be a goat, but it should have pajamas.” However, the pajamas are only a part of what makes Valentino an endearing character. Lancaster-Jones added thatAlan Tudyk, who voices Valentino, was integral in discovering the character. During an early voice recording session, Valentino went from a goat with no set voice to a fully realized character: “We chose [Tudyk], and hehelped us figure out the voice and style of the character. He tried many different things, and he was a part of that discovery.”
