Kristen Anderson-Lopez: Layers, Laughter & Living Intentionally

What happens when a creative powerhouse learns to embrace all facets of herself? Kristen Anderson-Lopez—the brilliant songwriter behind Frozen's "Let It Go," Coco's "Remember Me," and WandaVision's "Agatha All Along"—opens up about the delicate dance between artistic ambition and motherhood, revealing how these seemingly opposing forces have actually nourished each other.

"Having children gave us both, as artists, a lot of structure," Kristen shares, reflecting on how parenthood transformed her creative process with husband Robert Lopez. Far from limiting her artistry, this structure provided a framework that enhanced their work. The lullabies she created to comfort her children during work trips later inspired pivotal moments in Coco, while her personal experiences with anxiety directly informed Elsa's journey in Frozen.

Kristen speaks candidly about navigating the dizzying heights of success—particularly after Frozen became a global phenomenon. "We're going to try to enjoy the ride but not get addicted to the ride," she recalls deciding with her husband, describing success as "peeking your head out of the water for a little while, and then going back into the water to do your work." This grounded perspective allowed them to maintain their creative integrity while processing their newfound fame.

As she looks toward the next chapter of her life, with her children growing older, Kristen contemplates expanding beyond her established collaborative partnership. Whether directing an animated feature or creating a one-woman show, she's learning to embrace all her layers—not just the confident, take-charge energy she's known for, but also the "wise goddess" who finds renewal in quiet moments in nature.

Ready to discover how one of entertainment's most accomplished creators thinks about authenticity, creative collaboration, and intentional living? Listen now and be inspired to embrace your own multifaceted self.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Award-Winning Songwriter
• 6:20 Balancing Family and Creative Life
• 14:01 Artistic Process and Finding Inspiration
• 22:35 Navigating Success in the Entertainment Industry
• 30:33 Finding Different Layers of Self
• 42:08 Dreams, Future Projects, and New Directions
• 57:28 Rapid Fire Questions and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Lisa Hopkins: 0:24

This is the Stop Time Podcast. I'm your host, lisa Hopkins, and I'm here to engage you in thought-provoking, motivational conversations around practicing the art of living in the moment. I'm a certified life coach and I'm excited to dig deep and offer insights into embracing who we are and where we are at. So my next guest is a creative force whose songs have become the soundtrack of a generation. She's an Oscar, grammy and Emmy award winning songwriter whose work spans Disney, pixar, marvel, broadway and beyond. In collaboration with her husband and creative partner, robert Lopez, she co-wrote Frozen and Frozen 2, including the iconic and unforgettable Let it Go, as well as Coco's Remember Me. Her credits include WandaVision's Agatha All Along and the Hula musical series Up here On stage. She co-wrote In Transit, the first ever all acapella musical on Broadway, and adapted Frozen for the Broadway stage. Her work has earned Drama Desk, outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel nominations. She's a champion of new voices and a true creative visionary and my new friend already. I'm honored to introduce Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Welcome.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:44

Thank you. Thank you for that. It's funny. On the elevator I went out and walked before our Zoom today and on the elevator I stepped in and there was a landscaper going up to an apartment and he had a t-shirt that said let it grow, inc. And it seemed to be referencing my songs. There was just enough that was like snowy about it that I was like did they name their company as a pun on our lyric?

Lisa Hopkins: 2:16

That's funny, Curious. I always like to know like, what's the rhythm of your day? It seems ordinary to you, but I find context so interesting because if your context is only this is what she's done.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 2:27

Oh, totally.

Lisa Hopkins: 2:28

Who cares? I mean no offense, yeah, yeah, no, but do you know what I mean? Like who? Who are you now? What's your day like, but you know? And and what's the rhythm of your life right now?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 2:38

Um, uh, the rhythm of my life right now is I'm I'm still a mom with kids at home, I still have a teenager with a couple of years left to go, and so her rhythm really dictates my rhythm, our rhythm. Um, in that our schedule revolves around her, her school schedule. Her, like when I go to bed is about like, when are we going to get up? What time does Annie have to be at school? And you know, it's interesting because I do think that having children gave us both, as artists, a lot of structure. It just forced us to be like, okay, time means something, you can't procrastinate all day and then say like, well, right after Seinfeld, um, like, time is really important and it's finite. So our day starts often with waking up to get one of us will cook breakfast and sort of be there to be a presence for her, so she's not starting the day by herself. Um, then we tend to build in our a workout, like either I, either I do strength training and I try to walk with a friend, or not a friend Bobby does tennis. So exercise is in the morning and then we'll often dive in, and either when we're working on a Disney project or an animated project. Often by noon.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 4:07

We have a call, either three times a week or sometimes every day, our team in the studio and we'll talk about, like, what are we tackling today? Right now I'm in a tiny pause, so we are our own team and we kind of have to say, well, what are we tackling today? Because we're working on something for the stage that I don't think I'm allowed to fully announce. So today we'll probably we're finishing up a song that we will send to our collaborators, probably this afternoon. And then either it's like if we hit five, 36 o'clock and it's time to start cooking dinner and our child comes home uh, who's still home? We also have a college age kid who is a glorious source of chaos. You never know when she's going to call or what, so, um, but right now she's off at Brown, so she weighs in when she weighs in. But either we'll cook dinner and then usually go like what are we going to watch? Or we go to the theater to like one to two times a week, because we're Tony voters.

Lisa Hopkins: 5:25

Okay.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 5:26

And we're Oscar voters a week, because we're Tony voters and we're Oscar voters. So we have a lot of content to digest and a lot of assignments to hit.

Lisa Hopkins: 5:38

Yeah, that's a big responsibility. It's interesting. As a creative, you know some people don't like to. I've worked with writers, right, who don't want to see anything else. They're afraid of being influenced or overwhelmed. How do you guys feel about that, like, when you're in this heavy season right, where you're sort of I mean, it's an obligation, but it's also a great service right to be a voter in these areas? Do you ever get, does it overwhelm you for, like, how do you stay clear for or for your own work?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 6:04

Oh, I think that seeing art is how you're in the conversation, showing up to see like oh. So that's how they turned all of those songs into Ann Juliet or Love it. Oh, look at, tonight we're gonna see John Proctor as the villain. So it's also spending time with different artists, different voices, getting that beautiful restlessness when you see something great and you're like, oh, I want to do that, Like how did to do?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 6:45

that Like yes, how did they do that? And what layers in myself would I need to to tap into to create something of that tone or that with that message? Or I think that even something that didn't quite get there or doesn't quite work or has structural problems is a really great way to remind yourself of like oh okay, your protagonist like loses their agency and you kind of love a show, will laugh in the wind when things are just happening to them, instead of the protagonist driving in. Like you're reminding yourself oh yeah, you know, in that act two song is my protagonist Like what's my protagonist going for in that act two song? It's a great way to be in dialogue with your own work.

Lisa Hopkins: 7:48

Yeah, 100% Okay. So you used the word luff just now.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 7:51

Yes, oh, luff in the wind, yes.

Lisa Hopkins: 7:53

Which is a great word, but no one ever uses it. I love words. What is your? I mean, you're a lyricist, right, You're a writer. So how do you play with words? Do they delight you? Do you find a new one?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 8:09

You know what it's actually it's I. I think, like I don't know where the word love came from. It came from um, the fact that I actually think the word recall is a bit of a problem. Like I, I think that I have a lot of um, my file cabinets are further away sometimes than other people's and so I have to look for it through visual. Uh, like I, I I'm often visual or an intuitive. Like I feel, like, yeah, my relationship to language goes through like one of those family circus cartoons to to find what I'm trying to say, and so I am a little nonlinear and creative with language, because I know these words but and I can even, like, feel them and taste them and I can't find it. I think it's just a different way of thinking. And also I hear the rhythm of language a lot. I unconsciously rhyme. I'll do it quite a bit in our conversation.

Lisa Hopkins: 9:11

That's awesome. I love that. I love words and I love when I hear new words. I get excited by it and if I'm hearing you correctly, I think that you're saying it's funny because everybody's perception is different. So when you're, when you're telling me about yourself and your words and you've kind of analyzed it already and figured it out and even in your brain starting to go, maybe there was maybe something's wrong with that, it's funny because from where I'm sitting, I'm like no, actually I was commenting on it because you had beautiful access to a word that beautifully described something that I never hear anyone use, use, and.

Lisa Hopkins: 9:44

And then you went on to talk about you know how you get it and stuff, and the word that just kept coming into my head was visceral. It's visceral and you said rhythm. Then right, like you feel it right, it's got to connect. That makes sense to me. That's, that's the intuition piece, that's the piece where it makes sense. It's so cool. I mean it's like a core. As a choreographer, you know, you know I could do all sorts of movements but somehow and they're all nice or whatever, and they all might tell the story, but you can tell when it's the right one, because it feels right.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 10:17

Yes, and there are those times that, and usually it's when I'm talking to somebody who I'm like, intimidated by or trying to impress, like when I'm not aligned with my yes. That I'll miss the mark and say like horribly embarrassing things sometimes and my husband does like to call me Miss Malaprop because I do get a little creative with the language.

Lisa Hopkins: 10:46

Sometimes that's so funny, but the distinction there sounds like it's because that usually happens when you're feeling intimidated or not ready or whatever, and then you just kind of go on. I mean, you operate at a pretty high energetic level, I can feel it, and so it makes sense that you fire quickly. And you probably fire quickly even when you're feeling off.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 11:08

Yes, totally yeah. Um yeah, sometimes it's like um the person is rushing around the file cabinet and grabbing and their pins are flying everywhere.

Lisa Hopkins: 11:21

Oh, my God, that is awesome. Wait that. That brings me to remember I had a question I wanted to ask you about. You talked about. I asked you what do people most often get wrong about you? You said they think I'm stronger and more confident than I am. That's a layer, for sure, but I have other layers I'm trying to bring into the room with me as well. That's interesting. Talk to me about those layers and what layers you'd like to bring more into the room.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 11:48

the spectrum, but it's hard to get a 51-year-old man diagnosed at this age. He's a wonderful, also wonderful creative force of chaos in our lives. But I really grew up with strong mandates of like take care of your brother. The other day I was talking with a friend and I don't know how this came up, but I was like, oh, I don't want them to think I'm not trying. And my friend was like nobody will ever accuse you of not trying hard, but I definitely have that Like, I'm showing up, I'm engaging.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 12:41

If you call on me or you ask a question, I'll raise my hand. I'm first in the alphabet with Anderson. A question I'll raise my hand. Um, yeah, I'm first in the alphabet with anderson, so I was used to always having to go first for things and act as if and just be like. You know, whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect, uh, and whistle a happy tune um, I really took oscar hammerstein's words to heart there, and so I lead with like I'll lead the team down the field and I think what I'm starting to learn to do is also go. You know, there's a part of me that would love to see five other people do the thing before I go, that I don't have to have so fearlessly brave and bold that I am able to act like a third child instead of the first child and let somebody else go first. Or like I'm trying to exercise less of the I'm responsible muscle and more of like the what. What would happen if I, if I am quiet?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 13:58

for a second and let somebody else take the lead and then react. It's not always easy. I'm very programmed to. Yeah, first child all over the place yeah, yeah.

Lisa Hopkins: 14:14

Well, it's interesting because I work a lot with my clients on recognizing that their strengths and that's a strength, I mean I think you could acknowledge that that's a real strength so you've become known for it, both from self self and from others. Ergo, you show up that way and you could do it in your sleep and what's happened is, you know, your strength has become a default and what we work on is, you know, taking our strengths and putting them in our toolbox so that they don't overshadow and become our weakness, right, because there's so much, absolutely so many other aspects of you and shades of you, um, to explore that could be fun and scary and edgy for you, but also really wonderful and for others as well.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 15:00

Yeah, I used to be like like you know where's the party where? Like, put me around people all the time, um, and I I am an extrovert. I do get energy from being around people, um, but I'm also getting a. I get a different kind of energy from being out in the woods. I really love the woods I get energy from sunsets.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 15:25

I don't know if it's like a chakra thing, but there are certainly lots of like, more, let's call it like. Let's call it the wise goddess there. Like, the wise goddess is better off in the woods than at a um, another opening party, another opening party. Like I'm better off like, communing with the trees and leaping over streams, to, to cultivate the, the deeper layers, and and I'm excited about that, and I actually these days I find that more fulfilling than. I love an opening party. I don't love wearing Spanx.

Lisa Hopkins: 16:12

I love that you have this emergence of I call it access. I believe it's already there. I think you would probably agree that it's already there, but it's been again overshadowed by you know that, the A-type, whatever label you want how you've been showing up and then, as I said, especially if you're successful at showing up that way and that's the orbit that you live in, that is how people expect you to be and it's easy to do, because you've always done it and you know to be able to wholeheartedly still go to the opening, but go with the goddess state of mind, as opposed to saying I'm not going to the opening, I'm going to go to the woods, which is very binary. Right, you can go to the woods at the gala.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 16:59

Yes, do you know what I mean? I mean that's right, absolutely, and that's like the work that I'm doing every day these days.

Lisa Hopkins: 17:07

Yeah, that's cool.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 17:10

This new transition into whatever the empty nester me is going to look like, and my husband and I are both having a really good time.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 17:24

I think the pandemic brought a lot of hard things, but it also brought us to the woods, honestly yes, it slowed us down and it got us off a a train that was running, that we were, we were, we were like gotta stay on the train, and I think that we we both were given this gift of of time in the woods with our family and that opened up areas that we were like Ooh, I'd like to cultivate this more.

Lisa Hopkins: 18:04

Yeah, yeah, no for sure.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 18:07

I'm going to try not to talk in the us. That's another like. So much of my life is connected with Bobby's and it's very easy for me to find myself in us land because there is a lot of what we do is connected.

Lisa Hopkins: 18:24

Were you happy that I invited you and not both of you?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 18:27

You know I was interested. I actually I made him listen to the podcast on our way up to the woods this weekend and I think he would love doing this as well, and I think you would. You'd see very different and complimentary energies.

Lisa Hopkins: 18:44

Totally, it was. It was really my instinct not to have you both together. I would love to speak with him separately. You said you feel most alive when you're doing anything that feels like playing. So what does play mean to you? What are the shades of play? Since we're talking about shades these days, okay, there's an aspect of unbridled joy.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 19:01

There's an aspect of creativity. There's an aspect of unbridled joy. There's an aspect of creativity. There's an aspect of non-results, like results aren't important, it's process oriented. And you know that's not true. Let's walk that back. I want to pressure test that because I actually think there's a lot of play, like as a. As a kid, I like literally created plays in my backyard and there was a we were playing but we were going towards a result, like forcing all the neighborhood parents to watch our insane version of Cinderella or something. So I actually think play can be results oriented. If the result is something you're really looking forward to and is aspirational, I think play can happen alone or together. That sounds dirtier than it should.

Lisa Hopkins: 20:19

Only if you're thinking that way, Kristen.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 20:23

Something about it. You're so cute. Yeah, there's something about it, you're so cute. Yeah. I think maybe the biggest thing is, with play, the self-consciousness is out of the room, like the self-consciousness is taking a smoke break, and you are, you know. You're left just with all the other parts of you and not censoring yourself.

Lisa Hopkins: 20:49

Yeah, I love that. Are we playing right now?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 20:53

Uh, yeah, I think so, I think so too. Yeah, I mean, I actually think long podcast interviews are a form of improv.

Lisa Hopkins: 21:03

Like.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 21:04

I think of it. It excites the improv piece of me. Um, because you know you're you're lobbing, you're lobbing questions. I'm trying to hit it back. I'm saying things like my self-consciousness is taking a smoke break. I'm not a smoker yeah, oh, that's brilliant.

Lisa Hopkins: 21:23

I love that. Yeah, that's super cool. And um, you taught. You've been talking a lot about transition. Well, what's a transition to? What's the story you're telling yourself in your head about what transition means? What does that evoke for you?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 21:37

Well, so many of my friends are in the sandwich years. My parents are here. I just moved them up to a senior assisted living facility, but I worry about them and I worry about my kids. Like you said, the, um, the can't go to sleep until they come home, and um, and yet there's going to be a moment in 2027 when we drop our second child at whatever school she ends up in, and our schedule will be different. Do a show in the West end, or our ability to say we're going to go live in LA and work with the animators for four weeks will be different.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 22:33

So there's all kinds of freedom ahead and yet, because I am a I am a person fascinated with psychology and what you do, I'm also having conversations with Bobby right now about, like, let's be intentional about what we want to do with that freedom, because it is easy with our lives to take on a lot of projects and then, once the trains start going a metaphor I used earlier, like you're on that train until it opens and you're not necessarily in charge of when you're on that train, like driving the train or chasing the train, jumping onto the train, jumping on desperately, flailing in the wind with the train, but once it goes, it's going. And so, you know, being intentional about what trains we sign up for, knowing that there aren't infinite trains to go on either and that sometimes these trains take 7 to 13 years to do, so it's really important to go. What haven't we done already? Ask ourselves the questions, like you ask on this podcast. I'm like what would you do if you could do anything?

Lisa Hopkins: 24:15

Yeah, If you couldn't, yeah, If you couldn't do what you're doing now. Actually that's a great question what would you do?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 24:21

There are two answers I use. One would be what you do. I think I'd actually really love couples counseling, because I spend so much time in collaboration and thinking about the ways that couples can lift each other up or destroy each other. I Also I love looking for patterns. So I am an epidemiologist at heart too, like I am really fascinated with looking at the origins of diseases and how to cover that, and I think had I gone into the medical industry, I would be an epidemiologist.

Lisa Hopkins: 25:08

Wow, that's pretty cool.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 25:11

Weird, weird hobby.

Lisa Hopkins: 25:13

Not at all. Not at all. It's so funny, you know it's.

Lisa Hopkins: 25:18

I feel like we get programmed in the arts in particular. I can only really speak for the arts because that's really my experience as well. But we get programmed to think because we feel it, because it does usually start from a really passionate place, a calling, if you want. We get sort of conditioned to well to stay on the train because that's the train that you wanted and it's arrived. You've arrived, you know, and, and it's like you know, or or there's another one going and you were invited, you know, first class. So we don't ever really think about that because we're so busy. It makes sense. I mean, you know the external world is telling us yeah, keep doing it. I can imagine for you that must be a thing. And I'm really interested in that space between, like when you first started and where you are now that you have this level of success. Do you feel the weight of expectations? Do you feel that people are your yes, people and they're not telling you the truth? Do you feel like, talk to me about, you know, the challenges of success?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 26:20

You know the challenges of success and this is something that my husband wrote Avenue Q and had a big success when he was 24 years old and we were just dating at the time. And he said once he was like success is very stressful. And I was like I would love that kind of stress that would go well for me. Love that kind of stress that would go well for me. Um, and, and I really couldn't fully understand what he was talking about until it happened to me, um, and I think that I think that with success comes often changes in your personal relationships.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 27:11

I mean with with the success of of frozen and the way that it just kind of took over the world for a little while, our challenge and our promise to each other was like we are keeping our feet on the ground, we are, we're going to be really careful around what press we read. We're going to be really careful around what our kids are exposed to. Um, with this, we're going to try to enjoy the ride but not get addicted to the ride. Um, because it I think it's mike white just talked about, uh, with the white Lotus. He's like sometimes you are, sometimes you were riding that surfboard like through the tunnel and the bulk of what we do is out, out, paddling around, um, trying to find the right wave, right and, and a lot of waiting, waiting, um, and a lot of work out there. So getting addicted to the, the ride of, of the red carpets and the interviews, um it's, I now think of it as like peeking your head out of the water for a little while, and then going back into the water to do your work.

Lisa Hopkins: 28:35

Yeah, when you talk about caution, the words that we speak into the universe we're saying to our brain. So when, when we say, go with caution, again, that primitive brain is going to be careful. And when we're operating from being careful, we also limit ourselves right. So when you say be careful to not get on the ride because it's dangerous is very different than rephrasing it as I don't know. Well, just simply enjoying the ride for what it is. It's just a ride. You know the ride ends, do you know what I mean?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 29:10

And yeah, yes, maybe intentional about it and there was, while we were intentional, it was also still like completely overwhelming, unpredictable, never imagined kind of kind of season of our lives. Yeah, and and really fun and really great. But also, you know, we still had to to buy eggs and we still had to do dishes and we still had to get our children to preschool and and elementary school and, uh, I mean that that in itself is a big gift too for just keeping things, keeping things normal. Um, you know, two days after the Oscars, uh, you know, I was back in my yoga pants, with my hair in a messy bun doing school drop-off.

Lisa Hopkins: 30:07

Yeah, in your happy place.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 30:09

Yes, it's important not to let it define you because it's an external. It's an external thing that's happening and what can be tricky is in your personal relationships. You can fall into a place where people are treating you differently or they're feeling that you're defined by this outward thing that has happened to you. You're the same person, in fact. In a lot of ways you're more vulnerable because you're looking to the people around you to say, like things are regular right, yeah, yeah, like we're are regular right, yeah, yeah, like we're, we're, we're good, right. Like you're not going to treat me differently, we're not going to Yep.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 30:56

And you know that that can be a a strange moment. You know, in in all of this, one of the things, one of the great blessings in my life, is that when we have a moment like like frozen, or we have a moment like our TV show just didn't go that well, like nobody really watched it, it was right when the pandemic was finally sort of ending and everyone was like, whether the waves are up or the waves are down, we are together, experiencing it, so it doesn't feel so alone. Even the down parts, the important parts with the down down parts, are to not spiral yes yeah, not be like, well, we should have done this.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 31:46

Oh, I didn't even think of that. No, I feel bad about the thing I was thinking about and the thing you're thinking about. So we have to be really careful to not spiral each other in the down or the anxious moments. But on the up moments and that vulnerability, like he was right there, we were holding each other's hands during that rollercoaster. You know our, our family, our, our two girls are a big part of our life as well and, like the four of us are really grounding unit of play and fun.

Lisa Hopkins: 32:23

I love that. That's beautiful. You mentioned earlier and I completely understand why you know that association, because you're collaborators and have been, and your success has been a lot of it not all of it by any means, but the well-net has been together. I'm curious to know for you where you stand in all this, or where you'd like to stand in all this, because I did hear you say right that you're interested in not not separation is not the right word, but but really really understanding and being more, being more expansive in who you are as as you. I'm curious to know what that looks like for you.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 33:04

And so am I, like it's been. It's been a while since, for very many reasons, we merged careers and like such amazing gifts came out of that, Like our ability to stay married, our ability to raise children whose parents had control over their schedule. A lot more Like when, when we were in two careers, we were looking at at, at a situation where, like you, were never going to have a mom and a dad home on this Doing theater, which is a nighttime sport, um, uh, so there was a really good reason that we merged, um, and we want to stay merged in a lot of ways. But you know, having those conversations about like are, are there things you know bobby is exploring. He had this really cool idea for an ai performance art kind of thing I am, I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about lots of things.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 34:11

I'm thinking about seven different things. I'm thinking I would. I've always wanted to direct. My friends are always talking about how I have to do a one woman show. Um, and like maybe I start small and like just work on a moth story and and or you adventures that I can even begin to think about because our job as as child rearers is moving into adult children consultants.

Lisa Hopkins: 35:01

Yeah, I love that, yeah, totally.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 35:05

Um. So you know it's an exciting and scary time to talk about, have those talks and um and be really intentional about how we're spending our time and what, what we want the next five years to look like and going forward yeah, it is exciting, it's I mean it really is.

Lisa Hopkins: 35:27

There's nothing but possibilities, right, and sometimes that can be overwhelming too and like hike the route they took or whatever for the next three months.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 35:35

Yes, that's, that's a possibility. I don't know that that's like I should give too much effort to that, because that's like a bigger I'm not sure I need to do that in such a pressing way. That's like a fun fantasy. So like also taking out the, the fantasy ideas and really and getting real about like what would what is aligned and you know that's I divine like why are you here Really checking in with every one of these decisions and going like does it tap into the third eye, that white light of like why am I here? Or am I just distracting myself? Everything that we're, that you do is so rich. Like, yes, we could, and I'm, I'm, I'm happy to go there with you, yeah.

Lisa Hopkins: 36:55

Let's do it. Let me ask you this Now we'll do the podcast. See, it's like what I love about you already is is that you resonate at a really high frequency, and I and I recognize that because I do too and you know what we're most attracted to usually is what we see. We see something in ourselves. So, so, whatever it is about my stuff that you see, you see, you see yourself in, either as a right and that, and that's a really interesting place to play by the way which is really, really interesting.

Lisa Hopkins: 37:29

Let me ask you this. Oh well, I probably should ask you I'm not going to ask you that you know what I call should.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 37:37

No, tell me.

Lisa Hopkins: 37:38

I call I, should, I could, with shame, ah. So you lose the shame and then you're standing in could and you're standing in capability and then you're back in choice. I could do that, do I want to? I love that. Now why is it shame? Because think about it. Every time you say I should, there's shame Because you're like I should, because I, you know, or I should have.

Lisa Hopkins: 38:03

I heard you say you and Robert sometimes look back and go. I should have done that. You know you could have done that. You chose not to Right. What can I learn from that? When we're looking back and should, it's great to really lose the shame and then to live in that, in that you know that's something I could have done, but I didn't. And guess what? We always do the very best Right, always, in every moment. In retrospect, it's easy to go now. Now, that wasn't very good. No, that's bullshit. Nobody plays to lose, nobody right. Yes, that's where we get to be. Have empathy for others instead of judging them, because, even though they're not showing up in a way that we think is very good, they're doing the best they can.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 38:47

I do love. That is such a great reset in in those moments that you're like, even when you're like why are you looking at your phone while you're going up the subway stairs? And then you just have to tell yourself like I'm sure she's doing her best, like maybe it's her caregiver or you know she's getting an emergency text, or maybe she's just anxious and she's needing to touch in. Like you just have to kind of reframe it and use that storytelling mind in a good way, rather than everybody.

Lisa Hopkins: 39:27

Totally yeah, you could have fun with that, could use fun, which is a value of yours to. So when you start to feel agitated is to go into that fun, creative mode and go okay, that person is really annoying and is obviously just you know, you know it's going too slow and you know making a line in the grocery store and and on their phone and not looking up and not caring, or you know what else could be true about this character. Ooh, maybe they're talking too. I mean, you can just have fun with it and time will pass and it may be true that they were just doing bullshit on their phone, but you had fun.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 40:00

They could have been doing the connections.

Lisa Hopkins: 40:01

They could have been, or they could have been, doing exactly what you were judging them for doing. But why must you suffer Because you're judging someone else we create suffering for for our, of our own, Yep. So what's the hardest thing that you've ever done?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 40:18

I think the hardest thing that I've ever done was raise children while having a bi-coastal career, the logistics of that and the discipline that I had to sort of implement and be intentional about. I'm still exhausted from leaving three days of hour by hour, micro, micro scheduling. I don't think I could have done it without my two sisters, who are 14 years younger than me.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 40:56

They really allowed me to do it, but it was also just huge amounts of gray matter work to write down what I would have been doing if I were here and not at Disney animation.

Lisa Hopkins: 41:14

That was that was hard. That's huge and, I think, the the inherent associated emotions that go with that, because these are your children, right, right, but also this is your other child, whatever you're working on.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 41:30

Right, yeah, those few times that I was really pulled to have to decide time with the kids or get this deadline in, because we're going to preview tonight and if you don't write that scene it's not getting in Like those were the hardest moments and those tend to come more from theater than from from animation. Theater put me in those hard like all the children are fighting and they all need my time right now. Marsha Norman when I was pregnant. Marsha Norman is a playwright who wrote Night Mother and also a librettist, and when I was pregnant she was like here's the piece of advice I'm going to give you Get your teams in place, get your supports in place. They don't need you for every pickup, every. They remember the vacations and they remember the laughter. So make sure that you don't sacrifice what makes you laugh and take great vacations.

Lisa Hopkins: 42:50

Yeah, and, and it's it again, it's also, it's also like such important, that's great advice, because it's a limiting belief that more time is better, and boy, oh boy, have we ever been shamed by that as parents, right, oh yeah, Especially ladies. But again, modeling that there's not only one way to do things, I think is so important. So consistency, yes, traditions, rituals, of course, but I think understanding that they can be contextualized too just broadens our world, absolutely, you know.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 43:24

Yeah, for so many. I think so many people are like well, when I have a kid, it's going to change everything and it's not easy Like it is. I'm not going to lie, it was the answer to what was the hardest thing you ever did. For sure, me too, and yet I'm so glad that I really worked to have both that.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 43:51

I give up. There were. There was a moment, early, early, when, when I had like a little one who wasn't sleeping, my vet, I thought, oh, is this the end of my career? Like, is this? Am I going to do something else Interesting? But I was in a, I had gotten the Drominus Guild Fellowship and it kind of forced me to have a deadline with the real. You know, I was showing my songs to Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty once a month, and so I wasn't, I couldn't phone it in Nope month, and so I wasn't, I couldn't phone it in nope um, and it forced me to follow marcia norman's advice and get, at the time, like I think I had a babysitter 12 hours, like she'd come for three hour chunks, uh, like during the afternoon, while for the afternoon nap or whatever, in those three hours.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 44:49

I did more work in those three hours than I would in a week when my school was totally open and I could be like well, first I have to sharpen my pencils. Oh, these pencils aren't right. They don't smell right. I need to get good smelling pencils.

Lisa Hopkins: 45:06

I love that, yeah, no, for for sure, that's brilliant. So what gifts do you think came out of that hardest thing, aside from the fact that you here you are and you've got great kids and all that but for you, what? What gifts? And learning?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 45:21

well, um, one gift that we have talked about in the press is that, uh, we would, when we had to leave, I would make up these little lullabies for them so that they and I was like, you'll sing this with aunt kate every night, but it's a song, so you know that we are with you. Um, and then those that lullaby and that idea turned into a plot point for Coco, oh, nice, um, and so, like, the gifts of everything that we do, um, resonates with what we're making at the time. I just can't, I can't, keep them separate. They, they just are in dialogue with what we're doing.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 46:17

So, you know, those years of Elsa's anxiety, elsa's feeling like she had to, she had, it was just only up to her, and that kind of anxiety, you know, I could really tap into that idea because I was dealing with it of like, oh, I am, I'm in California right now and the baby has croup and I've got to find the pediatrician, figure out how the dexamethasone is going to get delivered to her, make it to this, you know, party with the studio execs. Yeah, I definitely understood the feeling of like playing lots of parts and feeling like it was all on my shoulders.

Lisa Hopkins: 47:10

Yeah, no, totally. And just earlier, when you were talking about how things just kind of the word that came to my mind was synthesis using using this beautiful thing that came out of you and giving it to your child as something to say you know, I'm with, I'm with you. This came from me, just like they came out of you. The music came out of you too, and you know, and I think that's so spectacularly beautiful and and poignant, um, and and then, since I just just got the, the feeling of synthesis right, that that's all part of the we're not just on the wave, right, that we're all in the water together, we are all the water.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 47:58

Absolutely. I do think that when I talk about my work, it's just amazing, and maybe it's circling right back to the very beginning, that word that we can't remember, which is that whatever it is that we're focusing on tends to show up so so often. The issues that I, that we're grappling with, are the issues that I'm grappling with in my work, and that they're they're in dialogue with each other.

Lisa Hopkins: 48:32

Totally, yeah, no, totally. And you know, we, we also, we teach what we most need to learn. So it's, it's really a great, a great thing to like if you hear yourself either telling someone, you know, like you're thinking, yeah, and you know the universe provides.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 48:51

We write that song we most need to hear.

Lisa Hopkins: 48:54

Yeah.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 48:55

Yeah, in my life.

Lisa Hopkins: 48:57

Yeah, Interesting Right. So so that was the most difficult. What was the easiest decision you ever made?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 49:06

Oh gosh, this one was harder, and every time I listened to ask this to somebody else I was like okay, what's my answer? Going to be, solved it. And I since I've already talked so much about my children, I mean wait, wait, wait, wait.

Lisa Hopkins: 49:26

So just let's do this in real time. Wait, wait, wait. So just let's do this in real time. There's no right or wrong. Right, and you can always change Right. So bring yourself to this moment Right and tap into what comes up right now not what you thought you might say before, or don't analyze.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 49:45

The easiest thing I ever did was become a songwriter. Uh was flip into. This is a hard one to answer because it it wasn't emotional, it wasn't owning that, I was a writer.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 50:08

Um and it. It was easy when it finally felt like, oh, of course, um and it. It had been years of struggle before that. Um, so it's, it was hard and it was easy, like when the the first time I wrote my first song for the BMI workshop. Um, and it went well and it connected. That was the easy moment where I was like bye-bye acting. I'm a writer, but that had taken years of exploring. So I'm answering with a paradox.

Lisa Hopkins: 50:55

I know I love paradoxes, so that's great. It's interesting, though, that you said that it again. It was sort of a binary thing that you said bye-bye acting. This is what I am. That's interesting because in my head I was going yes, and and I am also this.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 51:15

Yes, I had, and that is something that I'm probably going to. I've always joked that once the kids are passed and if we're lucky enough to, you know, have enough money, one of these days I want to just play aunt eller at like an encore or something like. One of these days I want to get back onto the stage. I love performing.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 51:39

Oh yeah, I, I love it, but at the time I had been like a regional actress I the other standard joke is if there was a nun to be played in New Hampshire, I played it. I just spent years playing nuns in New Hampshire. It was the nonsense boom. And then there was a couple of dabbles with Maria Von Trapp, but that involved like going away. And that involved like going away and BMI. I got this opportunity to learn how to be a songwriter through the BMI workshop and that meant like okay, you're committing, you have to be there every Monday. You weren't allowed to miss more than three classes or you got kicked out. So it was a commitment and I wrote my first song and I had been. I had missed like two classes because I had been doing a show in New Hampshire, a review in New Hampshire, and that was really fun. But there was this moment where I was like, okay, no more auditioning, no more like I'm doing this, and that was the easy choice.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 52:54

Cool Like I'm doing this and that was the easy choice. Cool, but, like I said, I had spent a very long journey denying that I was a writer or director, from the time that I stopped directing in my backyard. Interesting, why do you think that is? I think it's because it was the 80s and we didn't see women songwriters. We didn't see women directors.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 53:27

Every cast album had a bunch of very worried looking men gathered around a piano smoking with alcohol, and the songwriters looked like angry smoking men and um. So and and I was clearly a girl who loved theater from a very very young age. Yeah, I think that the the formula was for a girl who loved theater like oh, you want to be an actress and you could sing too, right.

Lisa Hopkins: 53:55

So it's like, oh, gotta go sing and be an actress. Yeah, just talk about how you said, you like patterns, you know, and pattern recognition is a huge part of what I do in my work and I can see a tremendous pattern going on here with with with that, with the the. You know, step up, here are the parameters and you do step up and you like the parameters because they help you do it the way it's supposed to do, because Right and it's, and then, and then there's when, when two things, the paradoxes come up, when two things are going on. That's that's where the work and the growth has come Right, where you start to recognize that, oh no, I can be a mother and I can be an Oscar winning. You know, these are all part of me and the rest is the how.

Lisa Hopkins: 54:43

I mean how is the thing right? I mean we all talk about our why. Our why is very, very important, obviously, but once when we're really living in our why and in our values and living intentionally, you know, that's not meant to keep us in with parameters, but rather to keep us open so that we can figure out how, and that's the Venn diagram of like, so you're not living woo-woo on a mountain, but where you can really tap into that when you want to. We always talk about like, ultimate, the ultimate things, like I want to be here and I want to be intentional. Yes, yes, intentional is great.

Lisa Hopkins: 55:24

I'm not saying any of these things are bad, but almost as if it's a, it's a destination, right, and I feel like. I feel like there's it's again, there's such a diversity of self and it's about recognizing that we always have access, but sometimes it's blocked, and so we talk about getting rid of those blocks so that we can then choose where we want to show up energetically. And that's the shading that you talked about. That's the layers. That's why I pulled that out from what you said. She's interested in elev, know, elevating and and playing in that, in that area of different layers and exploring it's pretty exciting yeah, well, thank you.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 56:04

Yeah, I, um, I think, I think layers are important, especially if you did have a certain I mean, we're not famous in any way, shape or form but if, after a while, like you said, feeling frozen in a particular role or particular idea of yourself, even though you know you're changing a lot, that means that is that hard work of showing up, showing up true to yourself, but, you know, maybe not being quite as like jazz hands, clowny, as as you have shown up before.

Lisa Hopkins: 56:47

Unless you want to yeah Right, 100%. I mean, that's me. I love a jazz hands, me too, you know, but people always want that all the time and it's so funny because you heard my meditations that's a totally different shade of me absolute what do you? What are you most afraid of?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 57:06

what am I most afraid of? Um, disappointing people. Um, I I really hate disappointing people, but I'm also really afraid of how that can be used to control me if I don't put down boundaries really good about boundaries so that I I make sure people aren't expecting more than what I have the capacity to give.

Lisa Hopkins: 57:43

What do you know will stay true about you, no matter what happens.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 57:48

I think my imagination, I think I think my storyteller mind, my storyteller mind it, my storyteller mind, it's what has served me. And I think it's a big part of going back to the special needs brother, that very, very early on I was given directives to put yourself in their shoes, and so I think that, for better or for worse, I'm always going to be a nostril, for, like, where somebody is like just a big walking nostril and trying to understand their story and intuit their story, um, so I can uh be of help. So I I it's also I have to silence that storyteller. Sometimes I also have to go like I'm not right, that's a story.

Lisa Hopkins: 58:54

Oh yeah, how do you want to be remembered?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 59:08

I think I want to be remembered as a force for good. I want to be remembered that I made people feel seen. I made people feel seen.

Lisa Hopkins: 59:24

I want to be remembered for somebody who brought joy and wisdom to the world. It's beautiful, thank you. Yeah, so we kind of talked about this already. Most people think Kristen Anderson Lopez is, but the truth is Is there something else you'd want to share?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 59:39

there Um. I guess most people think Kristen Anderson is extroverted. Is I am an extroverted introvert or an introverted extrovert, I don't know An ambivert.

Lisa Hopkins: 59:56

An ambivert.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 59:57

Ambivert.

Lisa Hopkins: 59:58

An ambivert Ambivert.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:00:05

Totally, yeah, I love that, how do you how do you recharge? Walking in the woods um baths, honestly, podcasts like yours, um, but I find the the realms of spirituality outside of traditional religious structures very filling for me.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:00:26

Yeah. Yeah, it's higher consciousness, really, isn't it?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:00:30

I mean, that sounds highfalutin, but it really is about being more conscious, which simply means being more aware, right, absolutely more responsive than reactive yeah, and different lenses, I mean I, I think all of these things are a tool, the idea of chakras are a tool to, yes, into different, into truth beyond the like. You know, what am I doing today and what are we eating today? What am I wearing today?

Lisa Hopkins: 1:01:07

Totally.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:01:08

Just to help us go a little deeper into the truth.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:01:11

Totally Ten years from now. What are we celebrating?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:01:15

Ten years from now, I think we're celebrating my one-woman show, or my first movie, animated movie, as a director. One of those things.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:01:36

I'm not laughing at you, but if we were coaching together, I'd be all over you. You hear the well, because it's. It's first of all. You sound like a canadian up talking at the end, but but because you're it and it doesn't. This is not a judgment or a criticism, it's just an observation that you're, you're, you're only you're, so toe dipping, and it's still cold One moment, so directing. You know, I'm your magic genie here I'm going 10 years from now. What are we celebrating? You could have said anything. I'm on top of the Himalayas and, um, I don't know, I mean it could be anything. Start to explore that, because just cause you say I don't know, I mean it could be anything. Start to explore that, because just because you say it doesn't mean you have to do it Right. And sometimes folks feel like if they say it, then they're committed.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:02:27

That was the fear.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:02:28

That's what I was. That's what I was hearing.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:02:31

I was like I don't have time to do that right now.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:02:34

Commit to the dreaming, because you can do that now. And the dreaming is where stuff percolates and it's like having a date with your muse, right, I mean you just play and it doesn't mean anything, it's not result oriented. So when I ask you that kind of you know, you went future linear, like I don't want to say exactly because I don't know, maybe there's you know you don't want to like, if I do that, I can't do that. That's what I'm hearing, that's the pattern and I think if you can come to living in the moment, to bring it to what we're doing here today, that's where possibility lies, because you don't have to do anything that you dream about you dream about. You can just dream and explore and embody and and take a trip there without you know what I mean, and then and then and you'll have a much better idea of what that feels like all right.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:03:27

Well, 10 years from now, we are celebrating my one woman show, which has turned into an HBO special, and um, a live tour with musicians, dancers, um, and I'm 10 pounds thinner.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:03:45

Amazing. And are we in New Zealand hanging out and drinking Cause? That's where the show's top.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:03:50

Maybe we have to be in New Zealand uh and climbing the taking the uh Lord of the Rings tour.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:03:57

Hell yeah, I'm there, I'm there with you. That was great. So you probably felt that a lot, a lot further down here.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:04:04

I did. It was. It was weird. It's strange that it has to be on HBO. Hbo may not exist. I would you read my mind. You read my mind. That's right. The streaming wars. Who knows? That's right, the streaming wars.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:04:18

That's right. And again, if we were to continue to work together, I keep saying why, why, why, and you get really, you distill it down to the feeling that you want, and then we talk about well, where else can you find that feeling? I mean, you could totally have that, but it's not the only thing.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:04:32

Absolutely.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:04:32

No, which is super cool.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:04:34

I think the HBO feeling was like oh, the one woman show went well, well, exactly Well it went well, go on.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:04:44

You killed it Well, and you know, and that's important to you, probably for because dot, dot, dot, right, because you tell me why, why would that be?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:04:56

important that it does well, because nothing is sadder than a one-woman show that doesn't go well.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:05:02

Oh, that's not true. There's so much, so much sadder. You're so funny. There's a limiting belief right there.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:05:08

I also want to point out that my one-woman show involves dancers and musicians, so I guess it's not a one-woman show.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:05:17

So you could blame it on them.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:05:18

Yeah, it's fucking actors.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:05:24

Oh my God. Okay, we're going to do the rapid fire. Are you ready?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:05:29

Sure yeah.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:05:29

What makes you hungry?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:05:33

Breakfast, lunch, dinner anxiety Anxiety oh yeah, Discovered that anxiety makes me very hungry. Breakfast, lunch, dinner anxiety Anxiety yeah, Discovered that anxiety makes me very hungry.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:05:42

That's super interesting. What makes you sad?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:05:45

Anybody who's powerless getting picked on by a bully, any bullies in the world.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:05:57

What inspires you?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:06:00

Great music, my husband's melodies.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:06:05

What frustrates you?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:06:07

Technology apps and passwords.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:06:12

Damn passwords, I can never remember them.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:06:15

Passwords, like everything's a portal and I, just the minute somebody says the word portal, my shoulders just go right up Like, oh, I'm not going to do that. There's a portal.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:06:27

Hey, what makes you laugh?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:06:31

Oh, threes Things that come in threes. And the third is um is ridiculous. Uh, my older daughter's writing she's like an amazing comedy writer and and I don't know. There's so many things that make me laugh. My husband makes me laugh like all day long.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:07:00

That's so nice. Is laughter important to you?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:07:02

Oh, laughter is huge. Laughter is sexy too, like laughter is. When somebody can make me laugh, I instantly have great admiration for them.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:07:19

What makes you angry?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:07:21

What makes me angry is ignorance, tribalism and authoritarian personality disorder.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:07:35

Finally, what makes you grateful?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:07:40

oh, um, lately the sunsets, like I'm getting more and more obsessed with sunsets, being near water, hearing the wind, like nature being out in in nature really excites a like an Anne of Green Gables level of poetry and attitude. Love that I like to live in that space.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:08:10

That's beautiful. What are the top three things that have happened so far today?

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:08:15

Well, my husband made me an egg, as he does many breakfasts, like he's one of his acts of service and love to me. It's like he's Mr Breakfast and he makes me delicious coffee and I love that. Because I'm not a great morning person. It takes me a minute to rev up. Um, I walked by the water in dumbo today oh beautiful um.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:08:47

And then I saw coming up on the elevator. I saw the man with the letter the Let it Grow t-shirt and perhaps because I am an obsessed egotist, I was like, what does that have to do with my song?

Lisa Hopkins: 1:09:08

That's so funny, and what's something that you're looking forward to today and then something you're looking forward to in the future.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:09:15

Well, tonight we're going to go see John Proctor is the villain, and I hear Sadie sink is amazing in it, and so I'm excited to go see that. And then in the future, I'm really looking forward to the summer. I'm really looking forward to being. We have a place in the woods in Connecticut. I'm really excited to be there for a longer period of time.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:09:46

I don't want to let you go, but I I'm not even gonna say the S word. I'm going to let you go, Kristen. It's been such a pleasure.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez: 1:09:56

I can't thank you enough oh, thank you, this is really really fun truly.

Lisa Hopkins: 1:10:02

I've been speaking today to Kristen Anderson Lopez. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Lisa Hopkins. Stay safe and healthy, everyone, and remember to live in the moment. In music, stop time is that beautiful moment where the band is suspended in rhythmic unison, supporting the soloist to express their individuality in the moment. I encourage you to take that time and create your own rhythm. Until next time. I'm lisa hopkins. Thanks for listening.