Riley Elphaba Andersen is one of the overarching protagonists of the 2015 Disney/Pixar film, Inside Out, and its 2024 sequel, Inside Out 2. She is an 11-year-old girl (later 12; 13 in the sequel) who loves hockey and other sports. She was uprooted from her happy and simple life in Minnesota, and taken to San Francisco, California, where she experiences various changes in her life. Her emotions are Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger, who will help her through this tough time. She is voiced by Kaitlyn Dias and by Kensington Tallman.
Places In Riley's Brain[]
- Emotions' Headquarters - The main center where Riley's emotions operate.
- Long Term Memory - All of Riley's life long memories, where it's easy to get lost.
- Imagination Land - A theme park where Riley's imagination exists.
- Dream Productions - A studio where Riley's dreams are made.
- Train of Thought - A train that leads to any area in Riley's mind.
- Cloud Town - Where Riley gets her head in the clouds.
- Goofball Island - Where Riley is funny and goofy.
- Hockey Island - Riley's island representing her love of hockey.
- Friendship Island - Where Riley values friendship.
- Honesty Island - Where Riley is honest.
- Family Island - The island about Riley's family.
Background[]
Personality[]
Riley's emotions contribute to her primary behaviors in the film. Overall, Riley is upbeat, honest, and goofy when she is content. However, at adolescence, Riley becomes more sentimental, a bit shy, and uncertain of herself as her other emotions begin appearing. By the time her family moves to San Francisco, she starts to be more troubled, irked, and lonely. Her emotions at this point try to help her get adjusted to the new life. Riley can second-guess herself, but she doesn't always repent her actions.
Riley really misses Minnesota and is unable to cope with the transition. However, Riley is afraid to tell her parents her true feelings on how they want her to accept the new home and because she has always been their "happy girl".
As time goes on, however, Riley becomes emotionally vulnerable, entering a sort of apathetic state of mind and coming to the point where she tries to run away, almost losing herself in the process. But it is here where she realizes that she had almost given up on the things that matter the most to her in life and realizes the risk just in time. Returning home and admitting to her parents that she's greatly depressed, she learns to accept San Francisco when her parents comfort her over the personal loss and Riley (with the guide of her emotions) eventually adapts to her new home.
Physical Appearance[]
In the first film, Riley is an 11-year-old preteen (later 12) with a slender figure. She has bobbed dirty blonde hair and cornflower-blue eyes. Both her parents have brown hair and brown eyes, implying that both the dirty blonde hair and cornflower-blue eyes are recessive traits. She has very faint freckles around her nose, and she also has a noticeable gap between her two front teeth. In the second film, Riley is now 13 years old. Her hair becomes sandy blonde and has grown longer, and she puts it up in a ponytail, just like her mother. She also has braces on her teeth, and an acne mark on her chin to signify her transition into puberty.
Riley is seen in a variety of outfits throughout the film. In the teaser trailer, she wears a long-sleeved shirt with thin horizontal red, yellow, and light green zigzag lines, brown pants, and red Converse sneakers. On her first day of school, she adds a yellow jacket to this outfit. When Riley experiences a brain freeze, she changes into a solid pink short-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and green Converse sneakers. Upon arriving in San Francisco, she dons a long-sleeved rainbow shirt, blue jeans, and pink socks. During her period of depression when her Personality Islands break down, Riley's outfit becomes a black hoodie, black shirt, black jeans, and dark shoes. For pajamas, Riley wears a green short-sleeved shirt with blue trim featuring a koala bear on the front and dark blue sweatpants. In the second film, Riley's pajamas changed to her father's old 'Brang' t-shirt and black sweatpants.
In the book, Don't Get Angry!, Riley is seen wearing a large-sleeved pink shirt.
In the second film, Riley's wardrobe currently consists of an azure blue zip-up sweater with a hood over a mint green t-shirt mixed with pastel blue, purple, and light yellow, black leggings, white socks with yellow and purple stripes, and black Chuck Converse-style sneakers with white soles. A flashback of how Riley's sense of self is formed shows her being her 12-year-old self where she wears a blue jacket with the Foghorns logo and some blue jeans. Now, she has a seafoam green hair clip for her bangs.
Appearances[]
Inside Out[]
Riley is a major character in the film. Her mind is the main location and the main priority of it. When Riley is born, Joy, her first living emotion, is conjured up with baby Riley smiling right at her parents. A few seconds later, another emotion named Sadness appears and makes Riley cry. Joy pushes Sadness out of the way and makes Riley happy again. Over the years, Riley starts to grow up in Minnesota and her other emotions, Disgust, Anger, and Fear, are born. Riley becomes happy and jolly pretty much all the time and hardly sad at all. Because of her happiness and joy, Joy unintentionally mistreats Sadness (who was only used when Riley threw tantrums). Riley also becomes one of the best players on her hockey team, the Prairie Dogs.
When it is time for Riley and her parents to move to San Francisco, Riley becomes sad and misses her life in Minnesota. Riley starts to go from joyous and happy to sentimental and a bit depressed because she misses the good old days in Minnesota, not to mention that their new house is horrible, and the only type of pizza they serve at a pizza restaurant is broccoli pizza. Riley becomes even sadder, and Joy does all she can to prevent this from happening. Things go from bad to worse when Sadness accidentally humiliates Riley by making her sob in front of the class while telling her class about the good old days in Minnesota (although the other kids had empathetic looks on their faces when she was crying). This causes a new core memory to be created, which is a sad one. Joy doesn't want Riley to ever be sad, so she decides to get rid of it. But during an argument, Joy and Sadness literally get lost in Riley's mind, leaving the others to try to keep Riley's head on straight, but only end up causing Riley to become rude, reclusive, and cantankerous.
From there, matters start taking turns for the worse. The next day, Riley video chats with her old friend Meg from Minnesota. Things go well until Meg tells Riley all about the wonders of her new best friend, whereupon Riley feels replaced and gets so angry that she hangs up on Meg. When she attends the hockey tryouts, she doesn't perform well, partly because of Anger ruled over her. When an excellent slap shot fails to get to the goal, Riley is frustrated.
Riley figures that since everything in San Francisco is horrible, combined with her being so nostalgic about Minnesota, she decides to run away and return to Minnesota (an idea that Anger created, believing it was in her best interest). She steals her mother's credit card and skips school to catch a bus back to Minnesota. As her emotions struggle inside her mind, Riley becomes apathetic and fully depressed. When Joy and Sadness finally make it back to Headquarters, Riley finally realizes what she's doing is wrong and decides to run back home. When Riley returns to her worried parents, she confesses that she was pretending to still be happy and misses the good old days in Minnesota. Her parents confess that they miss Minnesota as well, and Riley finally lets her feelings out. Soon enough, things are finally looking up for the Andersen family. One year later, Riley is part of a brand-new hockey team, the Fog Horns, and there are new islands in her mind. She has finally accepted San Francisco as her new home.
Riley's First Date[]
Riley returns in the short film, where she goes out skating with a boy named Jordan (whom she met at the end of the film). Meanwhile, her parents suspect that she is going out on a date with him and the Andersen's emotions all try to find a way to make it through this, like when her mother tells Riley in a "cool way" that Riley is hanging with Jordan, leaving Riley confused, with weird and comical results. After assuring her mother that she and Jordan are going skating with a group of friends, she soon realizes that Jordan was left alone with her father. She rushes downstairs to find her father and Jordan listening to loud rock music while playing air guitars. Embarrassed, Riley drags Jordan out the door.
Inside Out 2[]
Riley's emotions are happily tending to her during a hockey game and preparing her for high school. As they work in tandem, the emotions have created a sub-basement in Headquarters called the "Sense of Self" where they place the memories that help build Riley's character. This results in the creation of a ball of strands that voices Riley's inner self; "I am a good person". Joy has also built a pipe that shoots out terrible memories that they want to forget to the "back of the mind". Riley wants to try out for her high school's hockey team, the Fire Hawks, and the emotions make sure that Riley feels her best self.
In the middle the night, the emotions are awoken by the sound of the puberty alarm. Headquarters is suddenly swarmed with workers who proceed to take apart the place and make additions to the control board. They leave without having finished, but warn them of new people coming in. The emotions quickly learn that their effect on Riley is much more unstable with her overreacting over minute details. Riley gets ready to go to hockey camp with her friends Grace and Bree. She calms down when she voices her intent for the three of them to make the Fire Hawks together, but Grace reveals that she and Bree are actually going to another high school, much to Riley's worry.
Upon arriving at camp, the emotions are shocked to be greeted by Anxiety, a new emotion who constantly concerns herself with the worst case scenario in Riley's future. They also meet Envy, who is constantly jealous and amused at the other's traits, Embarrassment, who rarely speaks to the others, Ennui, who chills out on her couch and alters the control board with her phone, and Nostalgia, who constantly reflects on the past, but remains downstairs throughout the majority of the film.
Riley runs into her idol Valentina "Val" Ortiz who became a Fire Hawk during her freshman year. Anxiety and Envy ensure that Riley comes off as assured in front of Val, though they manage to make it incredibly awkward. When Riley struggles with either going with Val or her friends, Anxiety forces Riley to ignore her Sense of Self. While in the locker room, Joy gets Riley to goof off with Grace and Bree, however Coach Roberts catches them and orders everyone to give up their phones and has them do exercises, making Riley embarrassed.
Anxiety continues to push Riley to look cool in front of Val and ignore Grace and Bree. To accomplish this, she takes her Sense of Self and launches it to the back of the mind. Anxiety tells Joy that she needs to reinvent Riley for the future and has Embarrassment literally bottle up Joy, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear and send them all the way back to the vault along with Riley's other hidden beliefs and emotions. In the meantime, Anxiety gets Riley to get back on Val's good side and motivates her to practice extra hard and to look good in front of her and Coach Roberts.
While in the vault, the emotions meet Bloofy and Pouchy, characters from a cartoon show that Riley still likes, Lance Slashblade, a video game character that Riley and Disgust have a crush on, and Deep Dark Secret, a large being that hides Riley's most terrible secret. Deep Dark Secret breaks them out of their bottle while Pouchy produces a stick of dynamite to help them get out. Lance manages to defeat the security guards (by rolling into a ball and inadvertently knocking them into each other) and the emotions escape. They find the stream of consciousness and Joy plans for them to find Riley's Sense of Self at the back of the mind and coerces Sadness to go back up to Headquarters so that she can recall them back via walkie talkies.
Anxiety continues to have Riley alienate her friends in favor of Val and her group. During this time, she has her sarcastically quip about a band she likes, has her eating a protein bar that lacks flavor, and pushes her to constantly overwork herself, making her act out. Joy, Anger, Disgust, and Fear's journey to the back of Riley's mind is blocked off by the Sar-chasm, forcing them to go the long way around through the aisles of Riley's long term memory.
After Fear, Disgust, and Anger voice their frustration with their predicament, Joy admits that she does not know what to do and that she feels hopeless and pushed to her limit over constantly having an upbeat attitude. The others apologize and proceed to venture further. They eventually get to Imagination Land, but find that everything is being rearranged, save for "Mount Crushmore". They find that the massive pillow fort has been converted into a studio that creates future anxieties for Riley. The emotions convince the workers to envision positive ideas for Riley. While this causes Riley to be put at ease, this upsets Anxiety as she finds them unrealistic. The workers start ignoring Anxiety and the emotions flee from security.
The emotions run into a literal parade of future jobs and capture a balloon of Riley as a judge and fly away. Back at Headquarters, Sadness has holed herself up in a corner trying to read through the manuals for an answer. She is found out by Embarrassment, but he chooses to keep quiet about her existence. Anxiety decides to pull ideas, portrayed as light bulbs, so that she can make Riley change her mind. They call upon several, causing a brain storm to form and hindering Joy, Disgust, Anger, and Fear's adventure. They ultimately escape the storm, but a giant light bulb is brought back to Headquarters.
Anxiety has Riley get out of bed and head to Coach Roberts' office so that she can see how well she is doing at camp. Sadness manages to get Ennui's phone to prevent her from going through with it, but she is found out and captured. The emotions discover that Riley is "not ready yet", causing Anxiety to suggest completely devoting themselves to making themselves look better than everyone else. Riley's new Sense of Self forms, created entirely with Anxiety's emotions, and now utters "I'm not good enough", though Anxiety insists that it will go away eventually.
Joy, Disgust, Anger, and Fear finally reach the back of the mind and climb the mountain of abandoned memories. They found the Sense of Self and contact Sadness who managed to escape thanks to Embarrassment. She is too late to save the other emotions as Anxiety tears apart the pipe back. Joy finally breaks down as she is incapable of trying to put together how to save Riley who has grown into a self-conscious, self-hating individual. Anger calls upon Pouchy who gives them a lot of dynamite so that they can ride a flood of memories back to Headquarters.
During her hockey game, Riley injures Grace and is sidelined, causing her to have an anxiety attack, caused by Anxiety rapidly attempting to fix Riley and creating a wind storm in Headquarters. The rest of the emotions return with the memories imbuing themselves into the threads of Riley's Sense of Self. As they make it back to the top, Joy reaches out to Anxiety telling that everything will be okay and that she needs to let Riley go, freeing her from her own anxiety.
Joy places the original Sense of Self on the pedestal, but it is not enough to stop the storm. Realizing that pushing her mistakes to the back of her mind limited Riley's world view, Joy removes the Sense of Self and allows the flood of memories to create a new one, making Riley complex and emotional. Grace and Bree check on Riley who admits that she was upset over them going to different high schools and wanted to prove herself to make up for it. She apologizes for how she behaved and Grace and Bree forgive her, promising her that they will always be friends. The control panel willingly calls Joy to make Riley happy now that she is better.
Riley continues to warm up with Val and the rest of the Fire Hawks while still keeping tabs on Grace and Bree. Anxiety now has a corner for herself so that she can relax, Embarrassment becomes more open, though he is still shy, and the rest of the Emotions embrace their expanding family, though Nostalgia still remains in the basement. Riley, now having an ever changing Sense of Self, continues to live her life as she gets a text about her possible Fire Hawks recruitment. She opens it and smiles.
In the mid-credits scene, Riley's parents ask her how hockey camp went. The emotions grow worried, but Ennui simply has her say it was alright. Mom's emotions start to wonder what Riley meant by that, then Mom's Anxiety appeared when she looked at her red locks and wondered if she joined a band. And Mom's Sadness welcomed Mom's Anxiety back to Headquarters while Dad's Anxiety appeared and wondering the same thing that Mom's emotions wondered, and Dad's emotions affirmed that it's exactly what Riley said. Then they to go back to watching the game.
In the post credits scene, Joy lets Deep Dark Secret out and asks what his secret is. He admits that Riley was the one who burnt the hole in the rug, with Joy admitting that she thought it was when she peed in the pool. This causes Deep Dark Secret to lock himself in the vault again.
Finding Dory[]
Riley makes a cameo appearance in the movie. When Dory is thrown into Destiny's aquarium, she swims back and fears with a child, together with the group of children and Riley.
Trivia[]
- Riley is the first Pixar character to be a location.
- In the teaser trailer, Riley with her mom and dad are eating from Chinese food boxes of the same type as the one seen in A Bug's Life and several other Pixar films.
- In said teaser trailer, the playground seen in Riley's Memory Orbs is the playground from Sunnyside Daycare in Toy Story 3.
- Both of Riley's parents have brown hair and brown eyes, suggesting her blonde hair and blue eyes were inherited recessively.
- Riley is the only character so far known to have emotions of different genders. Her mother's emotions are all female, and her father's are all male.
- Riley's yelling after refusing to eat her broccoli when she was two is actually a re-used recording of Boo's shouting from Monsters, Inc.
- Coincidentally, both of these films were directed by Pete Docter.
- Riley is a similar to Kenai from Disney's Brother Bear.
Gallery[]
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