Meet the Voice Cast of “Inside Out 2”! All About the Actors Behind Every New and Returning Emotion

From their previous roles to their personal lives, here’s everything to know about the cast of 'Inside Out 2'

It’s time to explore the world of emotions again in Inside Out 2, with some new additions.

Pixar’s 2015 emotional comedy Inside Out was a breakout success both critically and commercially with audiences of all ages. The film showed the trials, tribulations and ultimately the value of five emotions inside 11-year-old Riley’s head as she adjusted to and struggled with a move.

The five emotions, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust, were voiced by Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Bill Hader, Lewis Black and Mindy Kaling respectively.

Inside Out 2 sees Riley become a teenager and go through puberty as five new emotions enter her brain: Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, Ennui and Nostalgia voiced by Maya Hawke, Ayo Edebiri, Paul Walter Hauser, Adèle Exarchopoulos and June Squibb respectively.

Related: Everything to Know About the Pixar Sequel Inside Out 2

Poehler spoke with PEOPLE in 2024 about her excitement for Inside Out 2, and specifically her character Joy’s new sidekick, Anxiety, voiced by Hawke.

“The stuff they did in this next film is so good,” Poehler said of director Kelsey Mann, writer Meg LeFauve and the rest of the filmmakers. “The movie’s growing with all of us ... I love the research and the depth that they did where anxiety is a motivator. So at first, Joy is like, ‘I like you! Anxiety’s fun!’ ”

While Anxiety may seem exciting at the start, Joy and the rest of the emotions eventually get bottled up and locked away as suppressed emotions. In the sequel, out June 14, 2024, Anxiety takes over as the leader while Joy and the rest of the emotions try to find their way back to the headquarters in Riley’s brain.

Here is everything to know about the cast of Inside Out 2.

Amy Poehler as Joy

Amy Poehler will reprise her starring role from Inside Out as Riley’s happiest and bubbliest emotion, Joy, in Inside Out 2.

In 2024, Poehler told PEOPLE about how much the role means to her.

“When I get to work on it, it’s so deep,” the Parks and Recreation alum said. “Because it’s like talking to your inner child, talking to you as a parent, talking to you as yourself, talking to the future version of you.”

Related: Amy Poehler and Will Arnett's Relationship Timeline

Poehler grew up in Burlington, Mass., where she landed her first acting role when she was 10 years old in her school’s rendition of The Wizard of Oz. After joining an improv club while studying media and communications at Boston College, Poehler continued studying improv and co-founded the improvisational comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade.

She was a Saturday Night Live cast member from 2001 to 2009, where she was known for co-hosting the popular news parody sketch Weekend Update with Tina Fey and Seth Meyers. The Emmy winner appeared in Mean Girls — written by Fey — and also co-hosted the Golden Globe Awards with Fey in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2021.

Poehler is perhaps best known for her role as eternal optimist Leslie Knope — the Deputy Director of the outdoorsy government department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Ind. — on Parks and Recreation from 2009 to 2015. Three years after the series finale, Poehler produced an Emmy-nominated crafting show called Making It, starring herself and her Parks and Recreation costar Nick Offerman.

Related: ‘Parks and Recreation’ Cast: Where Are They Now?

Considering the optimistic nature of many of her characters, PEOPLE asked Poehler whether she feels her personality overlaps with her character Joy. Specifically, she was asked whether she feels her character is aspirational or relatable.

“It’s both,” she said. “I would say I probably am more tired than Joy is. [But] I still love how intrepid Joy is and how she is the engine that tries to keep everything moving. That’s really fun to play.”

In Poehler’s personal life, she has two sons, Archie and Abel, with her ex-husband, Arrested Development actor Will Arnett.

Maya Hawke as Anxiety

Maya Hawke joins the Inside Out 2 cast in a starring role as one of Riley’s new teenage emotions, Anxiety.

The actress has been around the industry her entire life as her parents are prolific Academy Award-nominated actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. Growing up in New York, Hawke took part in summer studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York.

Related: Maya Hawke's Parents: All About Her Relationship With Dad Ethan and Mom Uma

While studying towards a bachelor's degree in acting at the Juilliard School in New York, Hawke dropped out after being offered a starring role in the BBC’s Little Women. Her breakout performance came in 2019, during the third season of Netflix's supernatural coming-of-age drama Stranger Things, in which she plays the erratic, comedic and innovative Robin Buckley.

The same year, she also appeared in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood and has continued acting with roles in films such as Asteroid City and the Academy Award-nominated movie Maestro. In 2024, she starred as American author Flannery O’Connor in Wildcat, directed by her father Ethan.

Ahead of Inside Out 2’s release, Hawke revealed that the story resonated so deeply with her that she cried during the audition.

“There’s something about this story and these characters that I think really brings fundamental truths about our experience to the surface,” Hawke told Empire in 2024. “It’s so relatable, so emotional, so pure, that whether you want to or not, you use what you have and what you’ve been through.”

In addition to her acting career, Hawke has released three albums as a musician and performed on The Today Show and on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Phyllis Smith as Sadness

Phyllis Smith reprises her role as Riley’s Sadness in Inside Out 2.

Smith began her career in Hollywood as a casting associate and took a few minor acting roles, including as an extra in Caddyshack in 1980. Twenty-five years later, Smith was working as a casting associate on The Office, when she did such a good job reading lines to help with auditions that they wanted her on the show.

Related: 'The Office' Cast: Where Are They Now?

Her deadpan delivery as Phyllis on The Office — as well as her role in 2011’s Bad Teacher — helped her land the role of Sadness in Inside Out. Smith's acting in the animated movie was critically acclaimed as she helped Poehler’s overzealous character Joy learn the importance of slowing down, listening and letting people express their feelings as a way of helping others.

“Feeling down? Things just not going your way? You’ll feel better about things after a solid sad session,” Smith said in a Disney-Pixar promotional video for Inside Out. “Sadness doesn’t judge. She’s right there with you ... If there’s one thing these emotions have in common, it’s that they’re all about taking care of you.”

Lewis Black as Anger

Lewis Black reprises his role as Riley’s explosive emotion, Anger, in Inside Out 2.

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1948, Black began his career as a playwright doing stand-up comedy on the side before his first official special on Comedy Central Presents in 1998. Black has acted in films such as 2006’s Accepted and guest-starred on TV shows including Law & Order and The Big Bang Theory, but he is best known for his stand-up comedy.

Black was even ranked amongst the top 100 stand-up comics of all time by Comedy Central. Specifically, he is known for launching into angry, comedic rants about topics varying from politics to everyday life.

This style of comedy is part of what landed him the role of Anger. In 2015, Den Of Geek interviewed Black about how the movie helped him learn that his anger is motivated by wanting fairness and justice.

“A lot of my anger comes from the fact of people being stupid and, by being stupid, hurting other people. So I’ve always responded when I’ve seen stuff that I don’t think is right with anger,” Black said. “I think [anger’s] an important [emotion]. I think a lot of people sit on it. I don’t, and I think it’s why my blood pressure is so good."

Tony Hale as Fear

Tony Hale replaces Bill Hader as Riley’s emotion meant to keep her safe: Fear.

Hale was interested in acting from a young age while growing up in Tallahassee, Fla., attending the Young Actors Theatre and regularly acting in plays and musicals. After some minor roles in shows like Sex and the City, The Sopranos and Dawson’s Creek, Hale landed his breakout role as Buster Bluth — who is fittingly afraid of almost everything — on Arrested Development in 2003.

The Emmy winner also played Gary Walsh in Veep, alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Selina Meyer. Hale is no stranger to voice acting, either — he had a starring role as Forky in Pixar’s 2019 animated sequel to its iconic franchise, Toy Story 4.

When he was cast as Fear in Inside Out 2, Hale announced the news and shared his excitement.

“Inside Out is not only one of my favorite animated movies of all time, it is one of my favorite movies of all time. The genius way it communicates the complicated and powerful world of our emotional life is on another level. I feel so honored to be a part of this one,” Hale wrote on Instagram.

In his personal life, the actor has a daughter, Loy, with his wife, Emmy Award-winning makeup artist Martel Thompson.

Liza Lapira as Disgust

Liza Lapira replaces Mindy Kaling as Riley’s attitude-filled emotion: Disgust.

The actress' first role was as a waitress in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 1999. She continued taking minor roles in shows like Sex and the City, The Sopranos, Grey’s Anatomy and Dexter throughout the 2000s.

In 2008, Lapira had roles in successful films like 21 and Cloverfield before perhaps her best-known film role as Hannah’s (Emma Stone) best friend, Liz, in Crazy, Stupid, Love. In 2021, Lapira took on one of the leading roles in the CBS show The Equalizer alongside Queen Latifah.

According to Inside Out 2's producer, Mark Nielsen, and director, Mann, Lapira's signature attitude made her the perfect fit for Disgust.

“We wanted somebody to just be who they are and fit the character,” Mann told GMA News Online. “That’s how we cast it for Disgust, and how we found Liza. Liza’s fantastic because she just inherently can embody the attitude of the character.”

Ayo Edebiri as Envy

Ayo Edebiri joins the Inside Out 2 cast as Riley’s tiny, wide-eyed and jealous emotion, Envy.

The actress was born and raised in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. While earning her bachelor's degree in dramatic writing at New York University, Edebiri decided to pursue comedy, which included interning at the Upright Citizens Brigade — where Poehler got her start — and even performing a stand-up set on Comedy Central’s Up Next in 2019.

Edebiri’s breakout role came three years later with an Emmy Award-winning performance in The Bear as Carmy’s (Jeremy Allen White) sous-chef and eventual second-in-command. Her first voice acting role arrived in 2020 on the fourth season of Big Mouth.

Related: Everything to Know About The Bear Season 3

Three years later, her voice acting expanded into film with a role as April O’Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and a part in the opening scene of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. She also had a starring role as Josie in the 2023 comedy Bottoms.

Inside Out 2’s producer Nielsen had his eye on Edebiri as soon as The Bear came out and was thrilled to be able to work with her.

“Ayo Edebiri is just the greatest thing in the world. It’s been so fun to watch her blow up this year,” Nielsen told Geeks of Color. “But The Bear was already out so we already knew how great she was when we met her.”

Beyond Inside Out 2, Edebiri will reprise her role as Sydney in the third season of The Bear on June 27, 2024.

Adèle Exarchopoulos as Ennui

Adèle Exarchopoulos joins the Inside Out 2 cast as Riley’s constantly bored emotion, Ennui.

The French actress is best known for her breakout role in the 2013 romantic drama Blue Is the Warmest Colour. At the Cannes Film Festival that year, then-19-year-old Exarchopoulos was given the Palme d’Or for her role, becoming the youngest person to ever win the award.

Three years later, she starred alongside Javier Bardem and Charlize Theron in The Last Face, directed by Sean Penn. In 2023, she had her first voice-acting role when she played Ember in the French dub of the Pixar film Elemental.

Off the screen, Exarchopolous has one son, Ismaël, with her former partner, French rapper Mamadou Coulibaly, better known as Doums.

Paul Walter Hauser as Embarrassment

Paul Walter Hauser joins the Inside Out 2 cast as Riley’s big and bashful emotion: Embarrassment.

Born in Grand Rapids, Mich., Hauser’s first role was in Virginia in 2010, but he started getting bigger roles after playing Tonya Harding’s bodyguard Shawn Eckhardt in I, Tonya. This led to his breakout role in 2019 as heroic security guard Richard Jewell in Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell.

Related: Everything to Know About Marvel's The Fantastic Four

The actor has also had roles in a variety of TV shows from Cobra Kai to his Emmy-winning turn as serial killer Larry Hall in Black Bird. Hauser recently starred as a voice actor in DreamWorks’ animated film Orion and the Dark and has an unspecified role in The Fantastic Four on the horizon.

In his personal life, Hauser has been married to Amy Elizabeth Boland since July 23, 2020. The couple have two sons together: Harris Boland and Jonah Maverick.

June Squibb as Nostalgia

June Squibb joins the Inside Out 2 cast as Riley’s comforting, grandmother-like emotion, Nostalgia.

The Illinois-born actress' first film role came at age 60 when she appeared in Alice, directed by Woody Allen. She continued in various supporting roles before earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role in Nebraska in 2013.

Since 2018, she has been a voice actress in a number of Disney and Pixar films including Ralph Breaks the Internet, Toy Story 4 and Soul. Squibb has her first leading role as the 93-year-old action hero Thelma Post in 2024's Thelma.

In 2024, Squibb told PEOPLE about where her drive comes from to keep acting into her 90s.

“I never questioned myself when I was younger and I was very independent as a child ... I think I probably wouldn’t still be here today working like I am if it weren’t for some of that,” Squibb said. “I ignore [critics]. I really do. I don’t really listen to it or don’t really care what they're saying."

In her personal life, Squibb has been married twice and has a son, Harry, with her ex-husband, acting teacher Charles Kakatsakis. The actress is next set to star in Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut Eleanor the Great, about an unlikely friendship between a 90-year-old and a 19-year-old.

Kensington Tallman as Riley Andersen

Kensington Tallman replaces Kaitlyn Dias as Riley Andersen, whose brain houses the film’s emotions as she grows from a preteen to a teenager in Inside Out 2.

The actress was born in Denver and raised between New York and Los Angeles. Tallman is best known for her role as the female lead, Bianca Magic, on Nickelodeon’s 2021 comedy mockumentary, Drama Club.

She also has experience voice acting in Disney Junior’s Firebuds, Nick Junior’s Bossy Bear and The Spongebob Movie: Sponge on the Run. She is currently starring as Lucy in the lead role on Max’s Home Sweet Rome!.

Tallman told KTLA that she couldn’t believe how moved she was by Inside Out 2.

“Yesterday I got to see the first 35 minutes and it was the most beautiful film I have ever seen in my entire life,” she said. “The way the animators and our directors and our whole creative team have put this together is so eloquent and I think it’s really going to change people’s lives.”

Diane Lane as Mrs. Andersen, Riley’s Mother

Diane Lane will reprise her role as Riley’s caring and protective mother, Mrs. Andersen, in Inside Out 2.

The Oscar nominee got her start in 1979 but has accumulated many roles and accolades along the way. In 2002, Lane received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her starring role in the thriller Unfaithful opposite Richard Gere.

In the latter part of her career, she has starred opposite Kevin Costner in the 2020 western thriller Let Him Go and played Slim Keith in Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. the Swans. Lane also played the mother of one of the most famous figures in pop culture in a recurring role in the DCEU as Clark Kent’s/Superman’s mother Martha Kent, beginning with 2013’s Man of Steel.

Related: All About Diane Lane's Daughter, Eleanor Lambert

Three years later, Lane told Collider why she has enjoyed playing Riley’s mother and other maternal roles, like Martha.

“To me I just feel like I am ridiculously blessed and I pinch myself a lot because not only did I fall uphill and get asked to the party in a Pixar film, it was that Pixar film,” she said. “One of my favorite parts of myself is my motherhood aspect, it just turned out to be the best thing about my life, the most rewarding and deepening, so I have a delight in portraying mothers.”

In her personal life, Lane was married to Christopher Lambert for six years and Josh Brolin for nine years. She has a daughter, Eleanor Lambert, from her first marriage.

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