CHARISE CASTRO-SMITH
CASTRO-SMITH, a playwright, actress and producer of Cuban descent, was working on the Starz episodic drama “Sweetbitter” when her agent sent a sample of her work to Disney Animation. That first exchange led to a meeting with directors Byron Howard and Jared Bush, who shared a bare-bones concept of what would become the Colombia-set fantasy “Encanto.” She eventually joined them as coscreenwriter and co-director.
“Looking back on my life, I’ve loved animation since I was a child, but I never actually thought about working in animation,” she said. “It really came about in a fortuitous way.”
Ecstatic to partake in the creation of a Latino animated musical for Disney, but simultaneously overwhelmed by the responsibility of crafting it in an unfamiliar medium, Castro Smith found a support system in producer Yvett Merino and Familia, a group for Latino employees within the studio that provided feedback on the project.
“When I first heard it was going be translated into 42 languages, I was like, ‘What?’ I put a lot of pressure on myself. Some of it was not necessary, but I felt the potential for this to be a story that could be a positive way for all Latinx children to see themselves,” CastroSmith noted. “But also for people who are not Latinx to see these incredibly human characters, love them and maybe change their perceptions about other people they see in the world.”
Castro-Smith started out as an actor and remembers auditioning for dehumanizing parts like the nameless “drug dealer’s girlfriend.” When she transitioned into writing, her mission was anchored in a desire to create better roles for Latinos and to “change the narrative of what Hollywood thought it was possible for us to do.”
Growing up, she found role models in performer Chita Rivera, in José Rivera’s plays and in the one-man theater shows of John Leguizamo (who voices the character of Bruno in “Encanto”). Much like Mirabel, the “Encanto” heroine, CastroSmith walked the world as an outsider.
“One of the reasons I gravitated toward this project so quickly was the fact that this movie was going to be centered around an awkward 15-year-old girl who didn’t know where she fit in. I was like a total weirdo when I was her age.”
Like many immigrant families, Castro-Smith’s parents had reservations about her prospects of making a living in the arts. “They always encouraged me, but I think there was always this pressure to have a backup plan. When I got into the Yale School of Drama as an actor, my mom asked me, ‘Is that good? Is that worth it?’ So she called a friend of hers who was an actor and she reassured her. They’ve always been supportive, but I had to prove myself, and hopefully, I’ve proved myself finally.” She definitely has.
Since her family didn’t get to see the finished film before its release, Castro-Smith’s father watched it at a movie theater on opening day. His reaction to one of the most poignant segments of the story assured her that she’d touched a sensitive fiber. “About the scene with Mirabel and Abuela in the river near the