“I am a storyteller. That is the one thing that runs through everything I do. I love drawing, and I have always loved drawing. As I get older and I have my own kids, I look at younger people coming up and realise that the ones who draw are the ones who need to draw in order to understand the world around them. Now, I find myself being in love with the process of making films. I love directing actors and voice performances. It’s been a long time since I considered myself a good animator. To be one, you need 40 hours a week to get lost in the work, to concentrate, and to make mistakes. I no longer have that luxury.”
Irish Upbringing
“I grew up on a farm. The seventies in Ireland were tough years. There was no extra money to spend. You wouldn’t waste money on art materials. I didn’t actually have blank paper when I was a kid in the seventies. I have a letter to Santa Claus that I wrote on behalf of myself and my sister. For her, I was asking Santa for a doll. For myself, I was asking for a tin of paints.”
“I had a few much-loved books like the ‘Lady Bird Read It Yourself’ series. I would read over them, look at the pictures, look into the background and try to see all the details. Eventually, I would start writing between the lines and drawing in any blank spaces.”
“Irish culture played a big part in my upbringing and life. I did not pick up the Irish language because the part of Cork I grew up in was purely English-speaking. Later, I associated it with school and everything I wanted to reject."
“A lot of Irish songs have a huge amount of story in them. There’s a lovely Irish song that I remember singing in school about a young girl who really wanted to go to the fair with her father because she was in love with a shoemaker. You can just picture all of that so vibrantly.”
“What’s interesting about Irish culture now is that people don’t trap it in amber anymore. I think it was only when I got older that I had an appreciation for Irish culture. It was something I took for granted as a child.”
Cultural Influence on Nora Twomey's International Art
“I met Tomm Moore, Paul Young and a lot of the people that we still work with today when in college. We were all in and around the same year at Ballyfermot College in Dublin. The first idea about making something about Irish culture developed when we were students. Our first conversations and ideas weren’t verbal. We communicated through sketches and drawings. They were drawing conversations. We were very influenced by Disney when we were designing our film ‘The Secret of Kells’. It was only when we set up our animation studio "Cartoon Saloon" that we began exploring our own design sensibility.”
“ A French producer, Didier Brunner, who already had 20 years of experience in European animation, said, ‘Stop looking towards Disney, and instead go back to the Book of Kells and the Irish landscape, to make sure that it is the primary influence on your work’. Oftentimes, you’ll find that the most interesting things happen when a foreigner interprets the Irish landscape. The people who can identify those details are the people who take it for granted the least.”
“It's really incredible to be nominated for the Oscar Award. Coming as somebody who doesn’t have an education system diploma, now I have a certificate saying that I’m a member of the Academy. Even more than ‘The Breadwinner’ or ‘The Secret of Kells’ Oscar nomination, being a member of the Academy is valuable to me. My opinion mattering to a massive, global organisation is significant."
“I don’t feel famous at all. I can totally walk anywhere I want to, and nobody will look at me strangely. Now and again it differs. I went to the Shanghai International Film Festival. They showed ‘The Breadwinner’, which I directed. I had to leave because I got mobbed. I was completely taken aback and surprised by it.”
“I love it when our films connect with people. Seeing them take off and have lives outside of Cartoon Saloon… is something that I’m really happy with.”