Summary

D’Arcy Carden and Tony Hale star in Sketch, which explores the power of imagination and processing emotions through sketching.

Carden and Hale were blown away by the detailed monster designs in Sketch.

Director Seth Worley’s confidence and kindness made filming Sketch an enjoyable team effort.

As technology becomes increasingly part of our lives, and we end up looking at screens more than we look at our loved ones, countless pastimes are being traded in for scrolling. One of those underrated escapes? Sketching. With Sketch, writer, director, and editor Seth Worley gently crafted a bold story that highlights the power of imagination and the importance of understanding and processing your feelings. The fun, heartfelt film follows Amber (Bianca Belle), a young girl who uses sketching as a way to express her violent feelings in a safer way. When her treasured sketchbook falls into a magical pond, all of her monster drawings come to life and take over the town, leaving it to her, her brother Jack (Kue Lawrence), and their mischievous friend Bowman (Kalon Cox) to save the day. Also at their side — and learning about themselves in the process — are Amber and Jack’s father, Taylor (Tony Hale), and their aunt, Liz (D’Arcy Carden). During this conversation with Collider, D’Arcy Carden and Tony Hale talk about what they were like as kids, what they learned about themselves during the movie, and when they first met. Plus, they explain how impressed they were with what Worley was able to accomplish on a shoestring budget and how incredible the animation is.
D’Arcy Carden and Tony Hale Were Wildly Impressed With ‘Sketch’s Animation

“It went beyond my expectations.”

D’ARCY CARDEN: Is that a Rockford Peaches hat behind you? COLLIDER: Yep, I was going to say [A League of Their Own] is one of my favorite shows in recent years. I wanted to give it a shout-out. CARDEN: Oh, I love it. TONY HALE: Nice. It’s so cool to talk to you guys. I love this movie. It was so sweet. It took me back to my childhood a little bit. It was just really lovely. I want to know what you guys were like as kids. D’Arcy, what were you like as a little kid? HALE: Is this the time we cry? CARDEN: I know. I know. I was very hyperactive and social, and my family’s nickname for me was Tigger because I was always bouncing off the walls. So really bouncy, loud, sort of middle child, “look at me, look at me, look at me.” Tap dance. But then I would need to go into my room by myself and draw or play alone. My mom would say that I would even be playing with other kids at a play date or whatever, and just sort of be like, “I’m done now.” [Laughs] [Hale pretends to power down] CARDEN: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Power down, time to draw. HALE: I was a fun kid, but I would say I was very needy. I really relate to needing as much attention as I could get. CARDEN: Middle [child]? HALE: Youngest. It’s that kind of thing of like, I will be whatever you want me to be, just laugh, laugh, laugh. CARDEN: Totally. Laugh, laugh, laugh. A move I would do a lot at dinnertime was, if my mom was in a bad mood at all, I would get a mouthful of milk secretly and then hold it in there as long as I could. And then at some point just look over at her and smile and let it all drip into my plate. It would work every time. Into my teenage years, I could do it right now if she was in a bad mood and it would work. HALE: That’s amazing. I’m going to note that down. It’s a good idea, actually. This is a very colorful movie, just in messaging and, obviously, literally. When you were reading this script, was it totally different when you saw the final product? What did you imagine on the page? CARDEN: Great question. HALE: Yeah. This has kind of taken eight years to get made. CARDEN: Kind of, sort of taken eight years. HALE: Kind of, sort of. Having been a part of the development, I had seen drawings and I knew where they were headed because each monster is from the medium that she does, whether it be crayon, or chalk, or Sharpie or whatever. So I knew what it looked like, but man, seeing it come to life on screen for the first time and seeing Dave pop up out of the cornfield and the textures, there was nothing like it. It went beyond my expectations. CARDEN: Like what I hoped it would look like and what I really felt like it was going to look like with the way Seth described it and the pictures we would see. It looks like a big gigantic movie, but it’s a small indie movie. You kind of can’t believe what they did. HALE: And he has a history in special effects. So that had a lot to do with it. CARDEN: But I just thought there’s no way it’s going to be as clear as he’s describing it, and it was above and beyond. That’s my favorite part of it is the detail of each monster and how different they all are, depending on how Amber drew them. It’s a beautiful movie. The whole time, I was thinking this must have been so hard to pull off in post-production. The messaging is really lovely. I like the “outbox, inbox,” that really stuck with me. Is there anything that you learned about yourself when you were making this movie? HALE: Yeah. I think we both have talked about how we both like to compartmentalize. CARDEN: That might be one of my biggest, I was going to say, “qualities,” but what is it? HALE: Which is healthy to an extent. It’s having opportunities to process feelings. When I grew up, there was no processing of feelings. Maybe I was just like “attention, attention, attention.” But when it came to sadness or other stuff, you didn’t really know how to deal with it. Seeing Amber and how she was drawing, what a healthy outbox for her to have. CARDEN: And then that was kind of the only way for this family to heal is to feel. Ooh! HALE: Did you just make up a motto? CARDEN: That line! HALE: Thank you. HALE: Forget ChatGPT! CARDEN: My goodness.
D’Arcy Carden and Tony Hale Were Covered in Colors for ‘Sketch’

“We just had to go for it.”

Image via Angel Studios 

There’s also a lot of wonderful practical effects in this movie. I’m sure it was a lot of fun, but I’m sure it was also exhausting to be covered in colors. How long did that take? There’s a couple of sequences where you were just head-to-toe colors. CARDEN: I know this looks like a big, gigantic studio movie. It is a teeny tiny shoe… what is that, shoe– HALE: Shoe string budget. CARDEN: So this was like a labor of absolute love and people’s time and talent. So yeah, being covered in the sparkles and the chalk and everything was not time intensive. It was like, okay, close your eyes and puff! HALE: And we were losing light. We had to really make the time. But what’s nice is we trusted each other. We’ve known each other. We respect each other, and so we knew we could get it. We just had to go for it. When did you two meet? Do you remember your first impressions? HALE: I remember the night we met. [Laughs] CARDEN & HALE: [Singing] I remember the night we met. HALE: Is that a song? It is now. HALE: Thank you. We met at that InStyle Awards thing. This sounds like such a Hollywood thing, but Julia was getting honored. Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I looked like an ice cream man because I had a light blue pinstripe… I questioned it all night. CARDEN: No, it was great. And you gave a speech about Julia and it was so funny. Yeah. HALE: And Jason was there. CARDEN: Jason was there. Jason just remembered that he met you that night too. For some reason, I thought we had met one time before that, but that was the first time. I just had met you on my television screen. And you were so nice and kind and lovely from the moment we met you. And then, yeah, at a few things like that over the years.

HALE: And you do hope, because that was a big thing of this, you can sense someone’s cool and obviously you respect their work and you’re like, oh, it’d be so fun to work together. So when this came along, it was like, yeah, we can make this happen. CARDEN: That’s how I felt the second Tony brought it up, it was like, well, I’ve been dying to work with you. So this sounds like a dream. HALE: Yeah. It was fun. Sometimes you just assume people have worked together just because they’re in the same kind of world. CARDEN: Right. It was great to see you two play brother and sister. CARDEN: We look like brother and sister, right? HALE: We look alike. Yes. Yes.
Tony Hale and D’Arcy Carden Were Blown Away by ‘Sketch’ Director Seth Worley’s Leadership

“It felt like a big team effort.”

Image via Angel Studios

Seth [Worley] is a first-time — this is his first feature, right? CARDEN: Yeah. Isn’t that insane? It’s crazy. CARDEN: Writer, director, editor. What did you learn from him? I’m sure he was very nervous. CARDEN: Nothing. [Laughs] HALE: What did he learn from us? CARDEN: [Laughs] Both of us immediately. You guys worked together so closely for so long, so I don’t want to talk too much, but I mean, his confidence and I don’t mean overly confident at all. Just like competently confident. HALE: With kindness. CARDEN: Yes. He knew what he wanted and was so collaborative and supportive of any ideas that we had. And it was such a loving experience. It was all people he had worked with over the years and— HALE: Who were all “for” him. CARDEN: Yeah, exactly. HALE: Who were all excited for him. CARDEN: It felt like a big team effort. HALE: Yeah. He, we’ve all had experiences where sometimes you’re on jobs and you’re like, is anybody captaining the ship? Because we don’t really know what’s going on. And the whole time, even though this was his first feature, we always knew his vision. We always knew he was captaining the ship. He did it with such kindness, humility. That’s the equation that everybody, every actor, artist should have. And it was a gift. CARDEN: And to be like that on your first big thing is so rare. It’s actually insane. The future is so very bright for that man. Sketch is playing in theaters now.

Sketch

Release Date

August 6, 2025

Runtime

92 Minutes

Director

Seth Worley

Writers

Seth Worley

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