Glen Keane

Pocahontas, the sylph-like Native American princess whose romance with Captain John Smith was the film hit of the summer of ’95, is the child of Glen Keane, supervising animator for Disney films. Keane drew Pocahontas as well as other beloved Disney characters like Aladdin, the beast in Beauty and the Beast, Ariel of The Little Mermaid and the golden eagle Marahute in The Rescuers Down Under. All this success has not gone to Keane’s head, however. He remains a humble family man, hard-working artist, and Christian.

Keane, son of “Family Circus” cartoonist Bill Keane, has been at Disney for over 20 years. It was shortly after entering the Disney training program that he began to examine his faith. “I remember walking around the department feeling incredibly honored that I was there, and challenged as an artist. But at the same time this heaviness was coming over me, and I was sensing an emptiness inside. I knew that if I had to stand before God, I could not say I was pure in His eyes.”

One day at work, the animators were matched in pairs, and Keane was partnered with Ron Husband. Keane noticed that at lunch Husband ate alone, reading the Bible. “I had never seen anybody read the Bible. I was raised Catholic, it was just not something anybody close to me ever did. And I had never really read it so I went to him and asked him what the Bible had to say about this emptiness I was feeling, about having my sins forgiven, and how I could know I was right before God.” Husband showed the verse John 3:16 to Keane. “Suddenly, for the first time, I had the faith inside to believe that. It was as if I could reach down in my heart, and there was something I could put toward that verse. I knew there was nothing I could do to earn my way, that He had paid everything for me. All it took was for me to believe that He was God’s son.”

Keane’s newfound faith helped him approach his art with fresh confidence. “I felt like I could pursue my animation with reckless abandon. With a joy and freedom that I did not have before.” When Keane animates a character, it often reflects his Christianity. “Every film I make is an expression of my faith, although that is not the main intention of the film. It seems that there is always a parable mixed in there for me.” In The Rescuers Down Under, the little boy flies on the eagle’s back, learning to trust. At the end of the film, the eagle lets the boy jump off a waterfall and soar by himself for a while before the eagle catches him. “To me that is a parable of faith. God is always there to lift us up on eagle’s wings and carry us, if we trust him.” In Beauty and the Beast, the beast is transformed from the inside out. “To me, it is a great illustration of 2 Corinthians, 5:17: ‘If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.’

“Even in Pocahantas, though there are a lot of New Age messages in it, that did not stop me from being able to equate the movement of the wind to the movement of the Holy Spirit, guiding and giving direction in my life just the way the wind does for Pocahantas.” For Keane, it is easier to animate a character that he has conviction about and who is real to him. An animator does more than simply draw a figure, he gives the character its spirit. “An animator is really an actor with a pencil.”

When Keane first became a Christian, he thought he wanted to get out of animation to become a minister. He told his pastor about wanting to do something “serious,” and his pastor told him to stay put. “You are there because that is where God wants you to be. You can have a big impact sharing your light at Disney,” he told me. Keane does not look at people as potential converts. “If somebody asks me about the hope I have, then I tell them what drives my life from the inside out, but I don’t start evangelizing in the hallways.”

“On my desk I have a verse that says, ‘whatever you do, work with your heart as working for the Lord.’” Keane keeps this verse in mind when decisions are made that he does not agree with. “I approach that as if it was the Lord saying, ‘I want you do to the best you can. Even though it is not your idea or the way you would choose to do it, do it for me.’ ” Sometimes other employees will ask how Keane can be so calm about having two months of work simply thrown out. “If you are honest you say that it really hurts and sometimes there are tears involved. But in the end I tell them I don’t look at it like I am just working for Disney. I am working for the Lord first, and then for them.”

While Keane is deeply committed to his work, he decided early on that he needed to make time for his wife, and later his two children. Leaving work is not always easy. “I may have spent the whole day going over somebody else’s work and going to meetings. And finally I sit down and start my scene. I am going to animate Pocahantas diving off the cliff, say, and I can just picture the wind blowing in her hair and how she feels. But it’s six o’clock—I’ve got to get home. You have to decide where your priorities are. Home is real, my wife and kids. This is animation; I can focus on my scene tomorrow.”

While Disney is undergoing some cosmic changes, Keane feels comfortable leading the animation department. “There is a genuineness and sincerity in animators that is very unusual in Hollywood. There are a lot of family people in this line of work.” Once a week Keane meets with some other Disney employees for Bible study. Although other branches of Disney may release controversial films, the animation department stands apart. “If it was feature animation that was doing a film like Priest, I would really struggle with that. Actually, I don’t think I would struggle for long—I don’t think I would be there. But I see feature animation as separate, as a group of artists producing our own work. I feel very comfortable there. All I can do is focus on the one area that God has given me some say in, and that is in my own work as an animator.” link

Much of their work and life was rooted in their faith. And it shows. My hope is that eventually I can use my faith in this way. That despite quotas, schedules, or even subject matter…I can find a way to take something from my faith and make it a part of everything I do in my work.