Kirk Wise


Kirk Wise is an American film director, animator and screenwriter best known for his work at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Wise has directed Disney animated films such as Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and . He also directed the English-language translation of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away.

Career

Wise graduated from Palo Alto High School and went on to study character animation at California Institute of the Arts. Early in his career, Wise worked as an animator on Disney's Sport Goofy in Soccermania, The Great Mouse Detective and The Brave Little Toaster, as well as Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories episode "Family Dog".
Returning to Walt Disney Feature Animation, he began work on The Great Mouse Detective as an assistant animator, but eventually joined the story department, where he was reunited with former CalArts classmate, Gary Trousdale.
After working as storyboard artists on The Rescuers Down Under and The Prince and the Pauper, Wise and Trousdale were responsible for helming the celebrated Beauty and the Beast, the first animated feature to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Filmography

Collaborations

and Kirk Wise have cast certain actors in more than one of their films.
Beauty and
the Beast		The Hunchback
of Notre Dame
Jack Angel
Mary Kay Bergman
Corey Burton
Jim Cummings
Bill Farmer
Tony Jay
Patrick Pinney
Phil Proctor
Kath Soucie
David Ogden Stiers
Frank Welker