Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez, center, attend a premiere of 'Frozen' with their daughters, Annie and Katie, in California last week. WireImage
For the new movie "Frozen," the songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez brought their daughters into the family business.
The Park Slope husband-and-wife team co-wrote the music and lyrics to the DisneyDIS -0.83% film, about Elsa ( Idina Menzel ), a queen whose magical icy powers accidentally trap her kingdom in eternal winter. Her younger sister, Princess Anna ( Kristen Bell ), sets off on a journey with Kristoff, a mountain man ( Jonathan Groff ) and Olaf, a snowman ( Josh Gad ), to find Elsa and bring back summer.
"When we first were approached by Disney, they showed us a piece of art that had projections of what the little girls would look like as kids in the castle playing together," said Mr. Lopez, who also co-wrote for the theater productions "The Book of Mormon" and "Avenue Q."
"That was what sold us on the whole movie," he added, "because they reminded us of our girls."
Their 8-year-old daughter, Katie, sang demos of a duet between the sisters, "Do You Want to Build a Snowman," and ended up being the voice of young Anna on the soundtrack. The Lopez's younger daughter, 4-year-old Annie, also contributed to a song sung by a family of trolls.
The Lopezes spoke with the Journal about "Frozen," which opens Wednesday, as well as writing for Disney and their next Broadway musical, "Up Here."
Edited excerpts follow.
This Disney princess feels very modern. Ms. Bell's Anna has lines like "Wait, what?" and "Totally." Ms. Menzel's Queen Elsa is strong and self-reliant. How did you find their voices?
Kristen: It was important to me—because I went through the '90s, I have two daughters—that we have a very empowering story for girls. When we came on, the first day that [co-director] Chris Buck pitched this, I kept saying "Wouldn't this be amazing if we had a funny Disney princess?" The sidekick characters don't have to be the only funny ones. She can make jokes and she can have a sense of humor, and she can be goofy. That would be a very subversive thing to do. I was thrilled when we got Kristen Bell, who sounds like your traditional ingénue. She's got this classic voice and yet has this modern sassiness.
Bobby: The song "Let It Go" really emerged from the palette that is Idina's voice. The low, vulnerable, fragile side of her low end, and then the power that's inherent in her belt range. We knew that we were writing a song that took the character from being very nervous and afraid, to letting her power out and shutting the door on her past.
The film also looks at "true love" in a unique way. A couple of the songs even poke fun at love and matchmaking.
Kristen: With [the song] "Love Is An Open Door," we knew we had a situation where a character we really had great affection for was making a bad choice because of this emptiness in her life. I had to think about myself in my 20s when I used to see people like this. You'd go on the best date ever, you'd play mini-golf and then you'd go to karaoke. At the end of the night, you decided to move in together. And then you spend the next four years trying to repair that mistake. We tried to make the most fun, karaoke-able kind of music, which at its core is a little bit shallow.
This cast is full of Broadway names: Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff, Santino Fontana.
Bobby: One of our first dates was to see this musical "Reefer Madness" in New York, off-Broadway. Kristen Bell was the lead, and after that she got snapped up by Hollywood. It's so ironic, like 10 years later, we get to work with her.
Are there plans of bringing "Frozen" to Broadway?
Kristen: I love that all these journalists keep asking us this. That it feels like an inevitability. It would be thrilling, but we're just thrilled to be at this point, one week before the movie opens. I guess we'll just see.
Is it harder to write for a Disney film than for Broadway?
Bobby: The trickiest part about it is it's Disney. Every song you write for them has the opportunity to be a classic, so they're very tough on you. There's no such thing as a throwaway song, like there is on Broadway. Secondly, there's a date when the movie is coming out. That date is not going to change. So you have your work cut out for you, whereas on Broadway you're lucky if you make it to that date. You just work and work and work until the musical seems ready. They can take years to develop, whereas we had a year and a half.
Can you describe "Up Here," the musical you're writing now?
Bobby: We're working with the director Alex Timbers, a very visual director ["Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" and the upcoming "Rocky"]. The piece is a high-concept musical where, on one level, it's a romantic comedy between a New York couple, and on the other side of it, the guy's very introverted but we see his consciousness reflected in a huge ensemble. We see all of his background thoughts, motivations, ideas and memory—
Kristen: Fears and neuroses—to see why he makes unlikable choices sometimes, because of this swirling, kaleidoscopic consciousness that's weighing in at all times.
Bobby: But she doesn't, that's the key. The girl doesn't see it. Sometimes there's an epic battle of good and evil going on the guy's brain while they're just talking on the phone, and the girl doesn't see it at all. It's all about consciousness and how we can't really know each other.
Write to Barbara Chai at barbara.chai@wsj.com
