Glen Keane - Beast

Glen Keane was the supervising animator of Beast. In the early concept art, Beast was mandrill-inspired, later developing to incorporate elements of the bear and wolf, but with most of the inspiration drawn from the buffalo. Only his horns were, as Keane says, '..just something we gave him ourselves.' Determined to go to considerable lengths to find inspiration for his character, Keane asked to be allowed into a zoo cage with a temperamental gorilla, in order to get a feeling for what is was like to be so close to the huge beast. Fortunately, he was denied the opportunity... Of all the characters in the film, I think that of Beast was the most challenging and difficult to portray. The feelings, frustrations and history had to be got across without resorting to the usual device of having the character explain how they felt in long declamations. After all, Beast was sullen, angry, and someone of few words. In the end, it was all done with pure expressive animation, and it was so much better because of it.