Mark Henn
Henn delivering his acceptance speech at the 2024Disney Legends Ceremony
Born	Mark Alan Henn (1958-04-06)April 6, 1958 (age 67) Dayton, Ohio, U.S.
Occupations	Animator, film director
Years active	1978–2023
Employer	Walt Disney Animation Studios (1980–2023)
Spouse	Deborah Lou Hall ​ (m. 1981)​
Children	2
Awards	Winsor McCay Award, 2013,Disney Legend, 2024

Mark Alan Henn (born April 6, 1958) is an American animator and film director. His work includes animated characters forWalt Disney Animation Studios films, most notably leading or titular characters and heroines. He served as the lead animator for Basil, Dr. David Q. Dawson, and Olivia inThe Great Mouse Detective (1986), Oliver, Jenny, and Dodger inOliver & Company (1988),Ariel inThe Little Mermaid (1989), Bernard and Bianca inThe Rescuers Down Under (1990),Belle inBeauty and the Beast (1991),Jasmine inAladdin (1992), YoungSimba inThe Lion King (1994),the title character inMulan (1998), Grace, Wesley, Rusty, and Pearl Gesner inHome on the Range (2004), Ronno inBambi (2006),Tiana inThe Princess and the Frog (2009), andWinnie the Pooh andChristopher Robin inWinnie the Pooh (2011). Since many of these characters areDisney Princesses, he came to be known as the "princess guy" around the studio.^[1] He directed theshort filmsJohn Henry (2000) andD.I.Y. Duck (2024). Henn spent a total of 43 years atWalt Disney Animation Studios, from 1980 until his retirement in 2023.

Henn grew up in Dayton, Ohio. At seven years old, Henn watched a reissue ofCinderella (1950) and decided to become an animator.^[2] He also viewedThe Reluctant Dragon remembering a scene of "Ward Kimball drawing a scene of Goofy. He picked up all that paper, started flipping and everything kind of came to life. From then on, the animation bug beats hard for me."^[3]

In 1976, Henn graduated fromTrotwood-Madison High School. He next attendedBowling Green State University and sent an animation portfolio to the Disney studios, but did not accept it though they recognized his potential. He then attendedSinclair Community College and sent a second portfolio, which was rejected. He sent a third portfolio a semester later, to which he received a rejection letter from Don Duckwall, the studio's production manager. Henn recalled, "[Duckwall] sent a nice rejection letter back and he wrote a sentence that was burned into my memory saying that it wasn't that I wasn't a good artist, but they just didn't think I had what it took to travel the narrow roads that their animators travel."^[4]

In 1978, he attended theCalifornia Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and was accepted into the Character Animation program.^[5] His professors there included former Disney animatorsJack Hannah,Elmer Plummer,Jack Kinney,T. Hee, Bob McCrea, and Ken O'Connor, while his fellow classmates includedJoe Ranft,Mark Dindal andJohn Lasseter.^[3]

In 1980, Henn was hired by Walt Disney Productions and entered the animation training program where he was mentored byEric Larson. He began work as an inbetweener forGlen Keane onThe Fox and the Hound (1981). According to Henn, Keane was finishing the climactic bear fight scene and Henn worked with him on that.^[3] He was promoted to animator less than a year later forMickey's Christmas Carol (1983), in which he animatedMickey Mouse. Henn looked to past Mickey Mouse shorts animated byFreddie Moore,Frank Thomas, andOllie Johnston for inspiration; overall, he remembered, "He [Mickey] was an easy character to get, for me at least. Putting him in the role ofBob Cratchit was a perfect match as far as casting goes."^[3]

OnThe Black Cauldron (1985), Henn was initially assigned the role of Creeper, the Horned King's assistant. He also animated scenes of Gurgi and Fflewddur Fflam.^[3] He next joinedThe Great Mouse Detective (1986), primarily animating Basil, Dawson and Olivia, as well as Ratigan in a few scenes where he confronts Basil. On the next animated filmOliver & Company (1988), Henn mainly animated Oliver and his human owner, Jenny.^[3] For the60th Academy Awards telecast, in April 1988, Henn, along withRob Minkoff and Nancy Beiman, animated Mickey Mouse as he presented theAcademy Award for Best Animated Short Film.^[6]

In 1988, Henn was selected by directorsJohn Musker andRon Clements as one of the two supervising animators for the characterAriel inThe Little Mermaid (1989), alongside Glen Keane.^[7] The animation workload was divided by Keane, who mostly animated Ariel during the underwater scenes, whereas Henn animated her in the film's opening scene and when she was a human.^[3] A year later, Henn moved toOrlando, Florida to work at the newly-opened Feature Animation Florida studio at theDisney-MGM Studios. His first assignment there wasThe Rescuers Down Under (1990) animating the lead characters Bernard and Miss Bianca, as well as the villain Percival C. McLeach.^[8] For the mice characters, Henn studied the mannerisms ofBob Newhart andEva Gabor during voice recording sessions, and looked toGeorge C. Scott's performance inDr. Strangelove (1964) for inspiration while animating McLeach.^[8]

ForBeauty and the Beast (1991), Henn was next assigned as a supervising animator forBelle, sharing the role withJames Baxter.^[9][10] For character reference, Henn decorated his studio with photographs of famous women, specifically Hollywood actressesNatalie Wood,Elizabeth Taylor,Grace Kelly, andAudrey Hepburn.^[11][12] However, Henn hardly met the character's voice actressPaige O'Hara apart from rare occasions when he would travel to California for production meetings. Regardless, he incorporated O'Hara's mannerisms during the recording sessions into the animation, including her pushing a lock of hair off her forehead.^[12] Meanwhile, Glen Keane was the supervising animator for the Beast at the studio's California division. To coordinate the staging of the characters, Keane and Henn agreed the characters who were most dominant in their scenes would be animated first. For scenes in which the Beast was most dominant, Keane animated first and placed scribbles for Belle. The animation was then exchanged through the 3000–mile distance via an overnight courier.^[13]

Having animated two previous Disney heroines—Ariel fromThe Little Mermaid and Belle fromBeauty and the Beast, respectively—Henn was afraid he had been typecast when he was assigned his third heroine,Jasmine.^[14] By this point, he had been dubbed as the "Julia Roberts of Disney animation".^[12] In search for new inspiration, Henn stated, "I just reached into my pocket, and I still had my sister's high-school graduation picture. I looked at it, and at the time her hair was a roundish haircut shape that surrounded her face, and we were playing with things like that, so I essentially modeled Jasmine on my younger sister Beth."^[15]Linda Larkin was hired to provide Jasmine's speaking voice and discussed the role with Henn during a dinner meeting at the Disney-MGM studios. Robina Ritchie, a model, was hired to provide live-action reference for the animation, pantomiming actions to the recording of Larkin's voice-overs so, in Henn's words, "the animator gets the feeling of what the real human movement would be."^[14]

In 1993, Henn starred as himself inFull House for "The House Meets the Mouse" episode. Henn rememberedMax Howard, then the head of the Feature Animation Florida studio, called him into his office and asked if he was willing to appear in the episode. Henn agreed and was handed his dialogue pages.^[16]

When he became involved withThe Lion King (1994), Henn initially expressed interest in animating the film's villain,Scar, because he wanted to do "something different."^[9] However, producer Don Hahn felt that he was better suited for animatingSimba. Before animating the character, Henn and his animators visited theMiami Metrozoo to observe African lions.^[12] His colleagueRuben Aquino handled the animation for adult Simba at the studio's California division. To ensure a smooth transition between the cub and adult versions, Henn animated adult Simba at the end of the "Hakuna Matata" sequence.^[9] Before the film's release, during the summer of 1994, Henn was slated to work onMulan (1998), in which he accompaniedPam Coats,Barry Cook, Ric Sluiter, andRobert Walker on a research trip toChina.^[17]

However,Mulan (1998) was pushed back into development due to unresolved story problems. Henn then joinedPocahontas (1995), which was already in production, and animated several scenes of the title character.^[9] WhenMulan was ready for production, Henn animated Fa Mulan and her father Fa Zhao.^[18] During production, Henn stated: "I was asked to not only animate Mulan, but I was also asked by the directors to animate her father as well, Fa Zhou because it was that relationship which was the heart and soul of that picture. That was the tension."^[19]

In 1999, Henn made his directorial debut with the animated shortJohn Henry (2000).^[20] Afraid it would offend Black American audiences, the film's release was suppressed by Disney. It premiered at theHeartland International Film Festival, where Henn was awarded the Crystal Heart Award. Afterwards, it was screened for three days as a double feature with a re-release ofThe Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) at theEl Capitan Theatre.^[21]

During early development onLilo & Stitch (2002), Henn was initially meant to animate Stitch, but after ten years in Florida, he decided to relocate to Burbank, California. Despite this, Henn was asked to animate female hula dancers during the opening scene, in which he returned to Orlando.^[18] Back in California, Henn animated onHome on the Range (2004) animating several characters such as the cow Grace, the dog Rusty, Wesley, and the farm owner Pearl Gesner (shared withBruce W. Smith).^[22]

Henn began his first CG animation role onMeet the Robinsons (2007), animating Lewis and the family members. However, he struggled with the transition to computer animation and found the assignment very difficult.^[23] Shortly after, Henn, along withAndreas Deja and other 2D animators, were loaned out to James Baxter Animation to animate Giselle for the live-action/animated filmEnchanted (2007).^[20]

In 2006,John Lasseter andEd Catmull became the new management heads of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Lasseter and Catmull reopened a new shorts program to experiment with the new animation techniques. Henn returned to Disney to animate Goofy on the 2007 animated shortHow to Hook Up Your Home Theater. The short implemented a paperless technique by using Harmony andWacomCintiq pressure-sensitive tablets, but Henn found the approach too difficult and resumed using pencil and paper.^[24]

In 2007, he was assigned his next heroineTiana forThe Princess and the Frog (2009). In an interview, Henn stated he animated her human form "fairly naturalistically" while he went more broad when animating her as a frog.^[23] Following this, he was the supervising animator ofWinnie the Pooh andChristopher Robin in the 2011 filmWinnie the Pooh.^[23] In December 2011, the long-gestatingSnow Queen project, initially planned to be a 2D animated film, was rechristened into a CG animated film titledFrozen (2013). Henn remained on the project as an animation consultant, providing 2D character tests for the CG animation team to improve the performance and timing.^[25][26] During the same time, he animatedPete on theshort filmGet a Horse! (2013), which was attached withFrozen.^[15] He again served as an animation consultant onBig Hero 6 (2014) andRalph Breaks the Internet (2018).

OnMoana (2016), Henn animated Maui's tattoos, as well the prologue and the stylized visuals on thetapa cloth for several sequences. In 2022, Henn, along withEric Goldberg,Jin Kim, and others, were featured in theDisney+ documentary seriesSketchbook.^[27]

In December 2023, Henn retired from Disney Animation Studios, having worked there for 43 years. His last project for the studio wasD.I.Y Duck, a short film starringDonald Duck, which he directed.^[28][29]

Throughout his career, Henn has been nominated for anAnnie Award four times: three times for Character Animation forThe Lion King,Mulan, andWinnie the Pooh, and once for Short Animated Film Direction forJohn Henry.

In 2013, Henn was the recipient of theWinsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement in animation.^[30][31]

On August 11, 2024, Henn was honored by the Walt Disney Company as aDisney Legend at theHonda Center inAnaheim, California at the conclusion of that year'sD23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event. The actresses who played the five Disney Princesses for whom he had served as the supervising animator―Jodi Benson,Paige O'Hara,Anika Noni Rose,Linda Larkin, andMing-Na Wen―appeared together on stage to express their gratitude to Henn for creating such memorable animated characters.^[32]

In 1981, Henn married Deborah Lou Hall and has two children.^[33] In 1998, he started a hobby insculpting to celebrate American history.^[33] He is aChristian.^[34]

• Mark Henn atIMDb
• Personal website

• 1958 births
• Living people
• American Christians
• American sculptors
• Animators from Ohio
• Film directors from Ohio
• California Institute of the Arts alumni
• Sculptors from Ohio
• Walt Disney Animation Studios people

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