*“In Your Dreams,” the animated adventure comedy directed by Alex Woo and co-directed by Erik Benson, blends surreal fantasy with an emotional family story. Produced by Netflix Animation and Kuku Studios, the film stars Craig Robinson, Simu Liu, Cristin Milioti, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Elias Janssen, Gia Carides, Omid Djalili, and SungWon Cho. After a limited theatrical release on November 7, the film arrives on Netflix on November 14.
At its core is the journey of Stevie and her brother Elliot, who plunge into the bizarre expanse of their own dreams—guided by a snarky stuffed giraffe, tormented by zombie breakfast foods, and facing the queen of nightmares—as the Sandman promises them the perfect family if they can survive the chaos.
Woo says the film stems from deeply personal memories of his own childhood. “It’s a very personal film for me. A lot of it was inspired by my own experience as a kid in my own family,” he explains. When his parents nearly separated, he and his brother bore the emotional weight. “Life is not perfect, parents are not perfect, people are not perfect, but that’s okay,” he says, adding that finding meaning in imperfection is what the story ultimately celebrates.
He also wanted to reframe how children think about dreams and expectations. “There’s so much pressure on people, especially kids, to be perfect, to achieve their dreams,” Woo notes. While ambition can be healthy, he says it can become harmful when it consumes a person or makes them feel defeated if they fall short. “I really wanted to change the conversation around dreams.”
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Much of the film’s humor and heart come from its ensemble cast, particularly Craig Robinson as Bologna Tony. “Craig is just a treasure. So funny,” Woo says. The character evolved through improvisation and shared creative play during recording sessions. “He would come up with ideas. We’d improvise. I would chime in and we’d sort of build the character together.”
Beneath the comedy, Bologna Tony holds thematic weight: “ He represents thematically kind of what the film’s about. He’s this disgusting, gross stuffed animal. But Elliot embraces it because it’s his. And that’s the thing that Stevie needs to learn. She needs to sort of embrace the messiness of Bologna Tony, which is, he’s sort of the metaphor for the messiness of life.”
Designing the dream world offered limitless creative potential, but some sequences pushed the team to its limits—especially the queen of nightmares.
“The most challenging was definitely Nightmara,” Woo says. As a fully effects-driven character, her scenes required an unusually long production pipeline. “From when we approved animation to when we were able to run it through the entire effects and simulation pipeline… it took 11 weeks.” Revising any detail meant repeating that eleven-week cycle. Even with the challenge, Woo says the payoff was worth it: “She just looks spectacular.”
“In Your Dreams” embraces the wild possibilities of animation while grounding its fantasy in something intimate and universal—a family’s fight to stay connected. Just as Stevie and Elliot navigate their swirling subconscious in search of the perfect family, Woo anchors the spectacle with a message about love, imperfection, and what it truly means to hold a family together.
“In Your Dreams” is now streaming on Netflix.
Watch our conversation with Alex Woo below.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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