The character "Anxiety" plays a starring role in the movie Disney/Pixar's Inside Out 2, which centers around protagonist Riley Anderson stepping into her angsty teen years. Like the fictitious Riley, the real-life Dave Holstein--a Jewish screenwriter and co-writer of
Inside Out 2
--is well-versed in anxiety, a feeling he carried into his first days on the film.
After all, it had long been Holstein's dream to write for Pixar, the pinnacle of animation studios. But timing had never worked out for Holstein, who has previously written for the TV series
Weeds
(Mary-Louise Parker) and
Kidding
(Jim Carrey), both dark comedies that aired on Showtime.
Then, the original Inside Out's Oscar-nominated screenwriter Meg LeFauve announced that she couldn't finish her screenplay for the sequel because she was busy with another project. It was then that Holstein, along with a couple other screenwriters, got the call to replace LeFauve, who he has called "brilliant and incomparable," and was thrilled--and simultaneously a bundle of nerves at the prospect.
"It's a great view at the top of Mount Everest, but it is a difficult climb," he said. "Anything that aims as high as
Inside Out 2
did was going to be both rewarding and painful at time in terms of how much work was going into it."
But it's not all nerves for the writer. He's well acquainted with the emotion of "Joy," too, another star of the
Inside Out
franchise. The screenwriter finds joy, he said, in spending time with his family-his wife and 7-year-old son. "It's cliché but true--I get a lot of joy out watching my son grow and change," he said.
As we age, Holstein believes that joy becomes more elusive, a sentiment he expressed in an essay published last summer in The Hollywood Reporter. "In the mess of life, it's hard to find Joy as an adult," he writes. "As a child, somehow, she's just there. In swimming pools and berry bowls. At the ends of ice cream cones and school years. But when you're a child you don't know what you don't know. You don't know how cruel the world can be…if the process of making this film has taught me anything it's that she begins with a choice. And as we get older, Joy becomes more valuable, not less, because of the effort it takes to make that choice."
Originally from Westchester, New York, Holstein grew up with a strong Reform Jewish upbringing, complete with synagogue, youth group, summer camp, and playing for the Jewish basketball league. In his spare time, he'd write plays, and, at 15, his first screenplay.
For college, he headed to Northwestern University--where he pursued screenwriting and served as artistic director of Northwestern's Jewish Theatre Ensemble for two years.
After a stint back in New York following graduation, he relocated to Los Angeles, where he has lived and worked in the biz for two decades.
These days, he's juggling a slew of projects, including a musical TV series with Chris Pine and Amy Adams, along with work in development for Apple TV+ and STARZ. Holstein is drawn to stories, he explained, with a "grounded, emotional center that are also funny around the edges."
When it comes to his Jewish identity, he was horrified by October 7 and its aftermath, but feels fortunate to be more insulated in Los Angeles, he said. "I get to live in Hollywood, sort of removed from the warzone, so it's tricky to feel any sense of victimhood," he said.
"There is always some derivative of 'scary' for Jews to exist," he added, "and that's why Jews gravitate toward comedy. "There's a very Jewish tradition of finding humor in the darkness."
Of course, that ebb and flow of comedy and drama is true of life. "Joy isn't a destination--a place you can live forever," he said. "It's a thing you find in fleeting moments."
