Princess Tiana
Talk about paying attention to detail! In “The Princess and the Frog,” animators wanted actress Anika Noni Rose and Princess Tiana to look as identical as possible. Rose was worried that they would make Tiana into a cookie-cutter princess, but when she saw her for the first time, she realized how much the two looked alike.
The actress served as a form of visual reference for the supervising animator, Mark Henn. Henn videotaped her as she recorder her lines, including some of her distinct characteristics, like her left-handedness and dimples, into Tiana’s character.
Malory Archer
The late Jessica Walter may look exactly like the "Archer" character, Malory Archer, but believe it or not, she was not actually the inspiration for the character's design.
Producers admitted that Walter is "something akin to acting royalty" and didn't want to waste her time with the necessary photoshoots and screenings needed to create the character. As an alternative, they hired a Jessica Walter lookalike to sit for the design reference images.
Sergeant Calhoun
From her bright blue eyes to her signature cropped blonde hair, these two may as well be twins. Jane Lynch, the voice of Sergeant Calhoun, says that all the "Wreck-It Ralph" characters started looking more and more like their actors because they were videotaped while recording their lines.
The animators used every detail, no matter its size, to make Calhoun resemble Lynch. Calhoun even moves her mouth in a certain way, which is exactly how Lynch talks!
Carl Fredricksen
Carl Fredricksen's creators depict him as a "grouchy old man," while Ed Asner always has a smile on his face. The two older men look like they could be related, that is, if one of them wasn't actually a drawing.
"Up" animators physically modeled Carl's character, at least partially, on the actor Ed Asner, who provides the voice of the grumpy old man. To get a well-rounded grandfather figure, producers also used Spencer Tracy and Walter Matthau as inspiration for Carl's character.
Peter Pan
Though it isn't unusual to have voice actors pose as models for the characters they are playing in animated features, the "Peter Pan" team went above and beyond. The filmmakers shot a live-action reference of Bobby Driscoll in the film to help make sure they got every single detail right.
If you watch the film now, you'll notice the fine attention to detail. Perhaps that's what makes this animated film so timeless; the fact that under the animation lies a real boy!