Robot Dreams was published back in 2007; it came out as a movie in 2023. What’s that like?

It’s not surreal any more, since I saw the final cut about a year ago, but when the director approached me in 2018, I was surprised because I hadn’t thought about the book in ages! Now that the movie is out, though, it has had a really wide appeal worldwide, and I’m really amazed. I get messages from people all over the world. It’s hard to believe that my little story about a dog and a robot could mean so much to so many people.

What was the original motivation or creative impetus for creating Robot Dreams?

I wanted to make a story about a robot because a friend was doing an anthology of short stories about robots. I had never drawn a robot character before and it seemed like a fun challenge.

At the time, all my stories had happy endings, so I also wanted to try writing a less-than-happy ending. At the time I wrote it, I'd recently put my dog Violet to sleep, so I think subconsciously that probably had some influence on the plot. I decided to make a story about a friend who betrays another friend, and the result was the first chapter of the book.

Animated movies often take a while. Did it take a long time to see this project come to life and what was your response when you were first approached to adapt the book into a film?

When a book gets optioned, it’s not a given that it will actually get made into a movie, so I wasn’t expecting anything. About a year or so after I signed the option, the director came to me with a one-minute promo that they would use to get funding for a feature.

The promo was so far beyond anything I could’ve imagined and so good! It featured the Earth, Wind & Fire Song “September,” so I knew then that it was actually going to be [made] into a movie and that I would really like it.

Were you involved in the filmmaking process at all?

I did some concept art in the beginning, but that was it. The director, [Pablo Berger,] however, was so kind to me throughout the process and sent me updates. In return, I sent him my books as they came out, and other little handmade items through the mail. He also invited me to visit the studio in Madrid during production and that was really, really cool—to see all these people working on this project that had become so much more than the book. That was the most surreal moment for me!

Robot Dreams is a wordless story and one of the ways the movie stays true to the spirit of the book is that it also has no dialogue, which seems like a bold move in 2024. Were you ever worried that they might make it a more traditional animated movie?

I wasn’t too worried, because when I first met Pablo, we talked about what he wanted to make. He explained his vision for the story, and I liked his animation influences and ideas. He also said that he would make it 2D, which, for me, were the magic words. Pablo also sent me the movie script near the very beginning, so I knew that he wasn’t planning to make any huge changes, like give it a happy ending or add tons of dialogue or something.

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