Disclosure: This is part of a sponsored collaboration with Disney and the Walt Disney Animation Studios. I received an all-expense paid trip from Disney so that I could gather and share this information. However, all experiences and opinions are always 100% my own as this post is written by me in its entirety.

If you watched the Oscars on Sunday night you may have noticed that Big Hero 6 won Best Animated Film!!!! If you DVR’d it like me, then you may have heard about it but are still waiting to see it for yourself. Either way, now you know and you should totally be doing a celebratory Baymax dance like me.

Last week I told you all about my interview with Don and Chris, the directors of Big Hero 6. Learning about the behind the scenes of an amazing animation was incredible. And in light of Big Hero 6’s win, I want to keep that celebration going by giving you a look into the voices behind the movies real heroes, Tadashi and Hiro.

In case you haven’t seen Big Hero 6 yet, Tadashi is the older brother of Hiro. Tadashi is Hiro’s only male role model and attempts to encourage Hiro to grow up a bit and join him at school creating amazing robotics. When Tadashi suddenly dies, Hiro is left to care for his brothers creation, Baymax. This is really hard to write-up without giving away too much so I will stop here and tell you to go order it so you too can see it. I’ll wait right here while you go ahead and buy Big Hero 6. Take your time. Just make sure that you select the Blu-ray version so that you can see the bonus content, including the other Oscar winner FEAST, which won for best animated short film. Yup, make that two Oscars for Disney!

Okay, so now that I got totally sidetracked…Oh, that’s right, I wanted to tell you about the films heroes. So Tadashi and Hiro are totally awesome, but what makes them totally awesome are the people providing the voices, emotions, and essentially bringing the characters to life, Ryan Potter and Daniel Henney.

Getting to know Ryan…and Hiro!

Big Hero 6 is a very emotionally challenging for our young Hiro. Already having lost his parents, he now faces the loss of his elder brother, his knight in shining armor. Ryan explains that channeling the emotions was more like just hitting rewind button in his brain.

I’m Hiro, so I didn’t go into that room acting at all. I went into that room simply being myself and living in those circumstances. A lot of the emotional stuff, the creators of the film made a really comfortable environment, so I just revisited a lot of things that I felt before. It was very much like therapy. I walked out of there like I was able to kinda purge a lot of things and it was awesome. It was absolutely awesome.

Ryan, how excited were you to work on this film and did you geek out over all the science?

Yeah, it wasn’t necessarily a love for robotics and science. It was more for just a love of creating and within robotics there’s so much you can create. I had the Lego robot kit – Daniel had one too – Yeah, that thing [the Lego robot kit] is awesome and I had a lot of models and robot builds and all these different things that I just loved piecing it together. So it wasn’t necessarily a love for robotics and science but more just wanting to be able to kind of put the things that were almost trapped in my mind. To just bring them out and create, it’s very meditative for me to use my hands and to build things,  it was awesome. Like, being able to voice Hiro because that’s literally who I was four years ago, I was that kid. I think I still am.

Since you were a Marvel comic fan before the movie, how does it feel to actually be one of those characters now? Has it hit you?

To be quite honest, I’m just sitting here, none of it has hit me. The only thing that’s hit me is you’re this character and you did this role, and the movie’s out. After that, none of it is even registering. I think in ten years, I’ll go, oh wow, that’s right, that happened. I’m just so blown away by everything that has come from this whole kind of Disney experience, and especially with this film that, I keep saying it’s wish-fulfillment. It really is. I grew up on anime and manga. And when I moved to the United States, I started reading Marvel and DC comics and, I’ve always wanted to be a superhero, and now I don’t have to put on a cape and go fight crime at night. I got to be a superhero!

Do you feel like it kept you grounded then?

It really is just me. So I got to just revisit my childhood a little bit, but everything I did in the film, it came from a very real place. None of it was put on and I wouldn’t say it grounded me or humbled me; I would say that it was a part of my life that I got to kind of relive, re-experience in a very real way- in a very honest way.

Does this film celebrate science and robotics?

The characters are all geniuses and the film does celebrate science and robotics, and just being a smart person. But what it really celebrates is being yourself, and these kids just happen to be very smart.  A perfect example of it is Fred. Not as smart as some of these people, but in his own sense, he actually is. He brings just as much to the table as any of these other characters do because they’re trying to be superheroes, and he knows all about the superheroes. Every single one of these kids, they’re brutally honest in who they are, and they’re proud of it.

So they don’t shy away from who they are, so yes, it does celebrate robotics and science, but also it celebrates just being a nerd. It celebrates being an outstanding young man and having high morals, and being a strong independent woman, and it celebrates simply being yourself. And the science and robotics comes along with that. I’m happy that a film like this was made, so that the kids can see, like whatever you’re into, whatever obsession you have, carry it out.

Do it. I loved baseball and martial arts, and anime and manga, and like it still to this day, I will binge watch anime at home. I still play the video game version of Yugioh, Because that’s who I am, and I’m more than happy to tell people that. I feel like for the longest time people were letting other people down simply because of their interests. And this film celebrates freely expressing your interests.

Getting to know Daniel…..and Tadashi!

You’ve been in a Wolverine movie already, and now you’re in Big Hero 6. Were you a big comic book fan as a kid?

Yeah, not huge, but I was definitely into them. I was into Spiderman, Incredible Hulk, stuff like that. It’s still very surreal, though. I don’t get, like, oh, this is my normal Tuesday fighting Wolverine and dying in a helicopter. That’s not normal for me. It’s still very surreal. This movie was very, very special.You could feel the Marvel influence, but it was just a whole other beautiful experience. It was just bigger than anything I’d done before. So I think back and I thought, after I finished Big Hero 6, I was like, oh yeah, I did Wolverine, too, so there is a connection there, but I didn’t think about it until afterwards.

Even though your character is a small part of the film, you made a huge impact. So how is Tadashi different from your character- your real personality?

Yeah, the way he dresses. I dress just like Tadashi. I always have. I don’t usually wear suits, so there will be days when I walk out of my house and I’ll take a look in the mirror and I look just like Tadashi. I wear a cardigan and a baseball hat. He’s [Tadashi] made me a better person. He really has. We all are living in this world, we get caught up in things and sometimes it’s hard to appreciate every moment like everyone preaches.

And it’s hard. It was a beautiful opportunity for me to go and play this guy who is such a role model for a man to be at such a young age – so smart, beautiful, intelligent, caring, genuine, the ultimate big brother, and he’s very selfless. And so every day using your voice- lending your voice to that, I would walk out of that room feeling like I just sat through a therapy session. I wanted to tackle the world. I’d be at the grocery store afterwards, just smiling and ran into people – probably creeping them out. It was great, he’s really helped me a lot.

How do you feel about the young fan base? Whenever you see the younger kids, and as your character, and they see you on shelves, what is that like for you?

It’s just the funniest thing. I think people think, when you do movies they just throw a bunch of figurines, like action figures your way. Like, the coolest thing- let’s be honest, when you do movies like this is to get your action figure. It took me a long time to find my Wolverine action figure because I wasn’t a huge part, but I found it. This one, Tadashi’s not a huge part of it, but he did get a figure. I think I was at an airport in Korea, I was in the lounge, and these two kids were playing with Big Hero’s, and it was like, they had Tadashi.

They were like six years old, and I got to walk up as the weird older dude, and I said “hey, where did you get that, kid?” It’s so surreal to have that moment. It’s very satisfying and fun.

Getting to know Daniel and Ryan together….

Daniel and Ryan hadn’t met until the first screening. But they instantly felt a brotherly bond. They have similar experiences and backgrounds. In fact they hadn’t yet met any of the cast but we’re most excited to be meeting each other.

Daniel: The minute he walked in the room, I had to gravitate towards him. I felt we needed to connect, and we did. It was a big hug and it just felt very organic.

It was a huge honor for Ryan to be a part of the first multi-cultural, multi-ethnic Disney characters, ever. They would have paid Disney just to be cast in the film!

Ryan: Being in a Disney film is a wish-fulfillment. It’s every kid’s dream come true to be able to be a part of a film like this and this one is really special because of how diverse it is, and it breaks the mold.

Diversity is what makes it stand out and I didn’t even realize that we were the first multi-ethnic Disney characters until the film had come out and somebody came up to me and said “well, how does it feel?” I was like, Pocahontas no, Mulan, no. Oh my god, we are the [first multi-ethnic] so, it’s absolutely awesome.

Daniel: It’s a very special movie and not only that, but the characters are strong. They’re not just characters. They’re strong young women; they’re strong young men.

So what does the future hold for these two young humble actors?

Daniel cannot disclose much but he has a TV show he may be doing in the States and it may be coming out in the Fall. He did say that it’s not a role traditionally cast by an Asian-American man, and so “I’m proud to bust those doors open a little further. So this will be a big one, and I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully, everything goes well.”

Ryan is headed to art school! Coming from a family of educators the pressure to complete a traditional four-year degree was on him. Fortunately he has the support of his mama in pursing his dreams and desires. Ryan wants to study photography and film saying, “I wanna create, and I wanna bring the things in my head to life.”

Grab a copy of BIG HERO 6 available NOW on Blu-ray DVD and enjoy a fun-filled family movie night! Don’t miss the really adorable short available on the Blu-ray called Feast! It’s available with your purchase of BIG HERO 6 on Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere in addition to the Blu-Ray.

Get social online with the official movie hashtag #BigHero6 to learn more and interact with other fans on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Check out my journey to LA and all the fun I had learning about Big Hero 6 with the hashtag #BigHero6Bloggers on Twitter.