Have you ever believed in something so strongly that you made it real?
William Joyce definitely has.
The artist and storyteller, who wrote the books Dinosaur Bob and George Shrinks and did character design for the movies Toy Story and Robots, wanted his daughter, Mary Katherine, and son, Jack, to have no shadow of doubt that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy were real. So he began planting evidence — like a bad cop, or maybe the world’s best dad.
Those efforts have led to a series of books and an upcoming 3-D film from DreamWorks Animation, Rise of the Guardians, in which tough-as-nails versions of childhood icons join forces to combat a Boogeyman named Pitch.
With a new trailer showing off the Nov. 21 movie, Joyce takes a deep dive with EW on the story behind his backstories.
