Elsa is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Animation Studios' animated fantasy film Frozen (2013), and later media of the Frozen franchise, including its sequel Frozen II (2019). She is voiced mainly by Idina Menzel, with Eva Bella as a young child and Spencer Ganus as a teenager in Frozen. In Frozen II, young Elsa is voiced by Mattea Conforti (at the start of the film) and Eva Bella (archive audio).
Created by co-writers and directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, Elsa is loosely based on the title character of "The Snow Queen", a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. In the Disney film adaptation, she is introduced as a princess in the fictional Scandinavian Kingdom of Arendelle, heiress to the throne and the elder sister of Anna (Kristen Bell). Elsa has the magical ability to create and manipulate ice and snow. She inadvertently sends Arendelle into an eternal winter on the evening of her coronation. Throughout the film, she struggles first with controlling and concealing her abilities and then with liberating herself from her fears of unintentionally harming others, especially her younger sister.
The Snow Queen character, neutral but cold-hearted in the original fairytale and villain in numerous adaptations of the character, proved difficult to adapt to film due to her transparent depiction. Several film executives, including Walt Disney, attempted to build on the character, and a number of scheduled film adaptations were shelved when they could not work out the character. Buck and his co-director, Jennifer Lee, were ultimately able to solve the dilemma by depicting Elsa and Anna as sisters. As much as Anna's struggle is external, Elsa's is internal. This led to Elsa being gradually rewritten as a sympathetic, misunderstood character.
Elsa has received largely positive reception from reviewers, who praised her complex characterization and vulnerability. Menzel was also widely praised for her vocal performance of Elsa, especially that of her performance of the song "Let It Go".
Attempts were made as early as 1937 by Walt Disney to adapt Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, "The Snow Queen", into a film. The tale focuses on two children, one named Gerda, who served as the basis for Princess Anna, and the other named Kai, who is "cursed with negativity" after his eyes are pierced with shards of glass from an enchanted mirror and is later kidnapped by the Snow Queen.[9][10] However, Disney struggled with creating a believable, multi-dimensional adaption of the fairy tale's title character,[11] who was intended to be a villain.[12] In the story, she is described as "a woman, dressed in garments of white gauze, which looked like millions of starry snow-flakes linked together. She was fair and beautiful, but made of ice—shining and glittering ice. Still she was alive and her eyes sparkled like bright stars, but there was neither peace nor rest in their glance."[11] Disney was unable to find a way to make the Snow Queen more real and eventually abandoned film plans.[11]
Several film executives later made efforts towards the project, including Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, Dick Zondag, Glen Keane, and Dave Goetz. In 2011, director Chris Buck began work on another attempted adaption and also faced challenges with the Snow Queen character. Producer Peter Del Vecho explained that this was primarily because she was not relatable and too isolated, having no personal connections. As a result, they could not explain her motivations. After several changes were proposed, someone on the writing team suggested making the Snow Queen Anna's sister. "Once we realized that these characters could be siblings and have a relationship, everything changed," Del Vecho relayed.[11]
The Snow Queen, now given the name Elsa, continued to be cast as a villain,[13] and Disney released the following synopsis for Frozen in May 2013:
When Anna is cursed by her estranged sister, the cold-hearted Snow Queen, Anna's only hope of reversing the curse is to survive a perilous but thrilling journey across an icy and unforgiving landscape. Joined by a rugged, thrill-seeking outdoorsman, his one-antlered reindeer and a hapless snowman, Anna must race against time, conquer the elements and battle an army of menacing snowmen if she ever hopes to melt her frozen heart.[9]
Earlier manuscripts included more antagonistic actions by Elsa, such as intentionally cursing Arendelle with an eternal winter. Additionally, she is shown creating an army of snowmen similar to the original Snow Queen's army of snowflakes; the comedic character of Olaf was at the time written as a smaller snowman who was cast out by Elsa for being too unintimidating.[9][14] Within two months, however, scripts were altered to give emphasis to her lack of control over her powers.[15] Olaf was reduced to the only snowman created by Elsa, and he instead serves as a reminder of the sisters' childhood friendship.[16] In the final version, Elsa creates a single giant snow creature that Olaf nicknames "Marshmallow" to act as a guard after being branded as a monster for her powers.[15] According to director Jennifer Lee, the character ultimately became more of a composite of both Kai and the Snow Queen, enhancing her increasingly sympathetic portrayal.[10] Del Vecho added, "There are times when Elsa does villainous things but because you understand where it comes from, from this desire to defend herself, you can always relate to her."[17]
Eva Bella and Spencer Ganus were cast to portray Elsa as a young child and as a teenager, respectively.[18][19] Actress and singer Megan Mullally was originally cast to voice an adult Elsa,[20] but was replaced by Idina Menzel. Menzel already knew Kristen Bell,[21] who voiced Anna, and had previously auditioned for a lead role in the 2010 Disney film Tangled.[22] She was not cast for the part, but the casting director recorded her singing and later showed the recording to Frozen's film executives.[22] Menzel was surprised when she was subsequently asked to audition,[22] and she received the role after reading the script out loud.[21] In interviews, she acknowledged similarities between Elsa, her then-current role, and Elphaba from Wicked, her previous role.[23] Namely, she said, they were both very powerful and very misunderstood individuals.[24]
Director Chris Buck believed that Menzel's vocals would help in the portrayal of the character, saying, "Idina has a sense of vulnerability in her voice. She plays a very strong character, but someone who lives in fear—so we needed someone who could portray both sides of the character, and Idina was just amazing."[25] Menzel was unaccustomed to working with animated films and being required to portray her character's feelings with her voice alone, though she did not find it particularly challenging.[24] While recording, she was able to "play" with her voice, trying various tones to establish the ranges in Elsa's emotions. For example, Menzel wanted there to be a difference between the ways she sounded when she was being bold and when she was angry.[21] She would also physically restrict her hands from moving as she recorded the film's early scenes in order to project how her character was "so afraid to move and feel anything that it would come out and hurt people".[26]
During production, Menzel and Jonathan Groff, who portrays Kristoff, went to the animation studio to explain to the animators how they were approaching their characters.[27] Animators asked Menzel questions about her singing, observed how she breathed as she sang live, and made videorecordings of her recording sessions; they then animated Elsa's breathing to match Menzel's breathing, for further realism.[26][28] Her voice supplied inspiration for Elsa's most prominent song, "Let It Go". According to composer Robert Lopez, Menzel's vocal range was able to clearly convey Elsa's "low, vulnerable, fragile side" as well as her power and self-realization.[29] Menzel commented that it was "an honor" to have the song and that she enjoyed recording it. "It's a collision of a bunch of forces that are all coming together in the right way," she explained. "The character, what she is singing and what she is experiencing; beautiful lyrics, beautiful melody and a little bit of me."[26] Buck and Lee were also surprised by how compatible Menzel and Kristen Bell's voices were. At one point during a table read, they sang a ballad (later revealed as "Wind Beneath My Wings"[30]) back and forth to one another with so much sentiment that it reportedly left everyone who was present with tears in their eyes.[31] Subsequently, Lee wanted Menzel and Bell to be in the same room when they were recording the important emotional scenes of the film.[32]
Following the casting of Idina Menzel, Elsa's characterization underwent several alterations. According to Menzel, she was originally scripted as a one-dimensional antagonist but was gradually revised as a more vulnerable, multifaceted figure.[33] Menzel further described her character as "extremely complicated and misunderstood".[25] Director Jennifer Lee stated that Elsa is largely driven by fear throughout the film,[34] while Menzel added that she was also struggling with her potential to be "a strong, powerful, extraordinary woman".[21] Executive producer and animator John Lasseter became very "protective of Elsa" and was adamant about portraying her in a more favorable, sympathetic light.[35] Writer and director Jennifer Lee stated on Twitter that Elsa's body language and mannerisms were "intentional to show anxiety and depression".[36] In July 2013, Disney released images of the film's main characters along with outlines of their roles in the story. Elsa received the following description:
From the outside, Elsa looks poised, regal and reserved, but in reality, she lives in fear as she wrestles with a mighty secret—she was born with the power to create ice and snow. It's a beautiful ability, but also extremely dangerous. Haunted by the moment her magic nearly killed her younger sister Anna, Elsa has isolated herself, spending every waking minute trying to suppress her growing powers. Her mounting emotions trigger the magic, accidentally setting off an eternal winter that she can't stop. She fears she's becoming a monster and that no one, not even her sister, can help her. This results in her ultimate fear being herself. Elsa’s uncontrollable powers leads her to fear herself as she is scared of hurting others and causing danger. [37]
Elsa's supervising animator was Wayne Unten, who asked for that role because he was fascinated by her complexity.[38] Unten carefully developed Elsa's facial expressions in order to bring out her fear as contrasted against Anna's fearlessness.[38] For their work on designing and animating Elsa, Unten and three other Disney Animation employees later won an award for Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture at the 2013 Visual Effects Society Awards: Joy Johnson, character technical director (rigging); Alexander Alvarado, look development artist (Disney's job title for texture artists); and Chad Stubblefield, modeling supervisor.[39] FX technical director Yoo Jae-hyun worked for a year and a half on creating Elsa's ice-based special effects, including effects associated with her dress.[40][41]
Producers identified the scene in which Elsa sings "Let It Go" as a pivotal point in the character's development. The scene depicts her choice to "let go" of her fear of using her powers. Character design supervisor Bill Schwab said, "Before 'Let It Go', Elsa is really buttoned up, her hair is up—everything is perfect. During the song, she gives herself permission to be who she is and everything changes—her hair is more wild, her gown is magical. She's finally free—even if she is all alone."[25] Animators designed Elsa's appearance to reflect her metamorphosis; in the beginning, she is shown primarily in restrictive and confining outfits.[42] In a January 2014 interview with John August and Aline Brosh McKenna, Lee disclosed that Lasseter personally helped with conceptualizing Elsa's physical transformation: "[M]y favorite thing about it ... is the actual model for doing it was John Lasseter .... he was a huge help in talking through how we translate that emotional journey ... with the animation ... [H]e got up and he's like, .... 'her hair goes, and she transforms, and she struts,' and he's doing it. He's acting it out."[43]
The scene was also a pivotal point in the development of Elsa's character and was initially planned to depict her becoming evil. Robert Lopez, who composed the song with his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, explained, "Elsa was going to go from being this perfect princess that had tried to keep her personality down her whole life to saying, 'Screw it. I'm gonna be me.'"[44] They had wanted to use the song as a way to gain a better understanding of the character and what she would be like if she was no longer living in fear, which ultimately resulted in her becoming much more complex.[31] The final lyrics and Menzel's "ability to be so fragile and vulnerable and then break into this powerhouse voice" turned the plot around and led to Elsa being revised as a "good" character.[44] She initially attempts to suppress her powers in order to avoid hurting others, particularly Anna, and when she is no longer able to do so, she banishes herself from the kingdom to protect those around her.[25][45] Lead writer Paul Briggs said that Anna's support is what Elsa needs most when her secret is exposed. "The strength of the family bond is what makes this story so powerful," he explained, "because it's her sibling who's willing to look beyond her powers and stand between her and the world if that's what it takes."[25]
Elsa's appearance had to be redesigned following her transition from antagonist to protagonist. She was originally drawn in a style similar to other Disney villains, with blue skin and spiky black hair.[35] A few months after the film's release, visual development artist Claire Keane (the daughter of Disney Legend Glen Keane) published early concept art of Elsa that was modeled after the singer Amy Winehouse.[46] At the time, she was imagined as having blue "bouffant" hair as well as "a deep, soulful voice and dramatic mood swings".[46] Lasseter reportedly influenced the creation of the character's much softer final appearance, particularly in regards to her very thick platinum blonde hair, which animators found difficult to design. Art director Michael Giaimo said that while a number of strategies were proposed for Elsa's hair, Lasseter would push the animation team to continue making improvements, saying, "It's not aspirational enough. We want people to feel like this hair is a beautiful statement."[47] During a research trip, producers found that "there are lots of braids" worn by women in Norway; they then hired a stylist from New York named "Danilo" who helped to create a style that would reflect that while still being "a little different".[48][49][50] A new animation program called Tonic was invented to assist with the task, and the character's hair ultimately required 420,000 CGI threads.[42][51] By contrast, Anna was given roughly 140,000 hairs[48][52] while Rapunzel from Tangled had only required 27,000 CGI threads for her hair.[51]
In early 2018, discussions from within Disney Studios were publicized which centered on Elsa's possible development as lesbian in Frozen II.[53][54][55] However, this was later debunked when the Anderson-Lopezes confirmed that Elsa would have no love interest in the movie.[56] Lee later explained to Maureen Dowd that they had put the characters through Myers-Briggs tests, and "[i]t really came out that Elsa is not ready for a relationship."[57]
Since Elsa is introduced as a young child at the beginning of the film, animators wanted the first glimpse of her powers to reflect her innocent and fanciful state of mind at the time. This included giving her first snowflakes a simple design. Her snow and ice patterns later become more intricate and complex when she is an adult. Co-effects supervisor Marlon West elaborated, "When Elsa finally lets go and really starts owning her cryokinetic abilities, we wanted the ice and snow that she make to get across the idea that Elsa has now grown up and become this beautiful, elegant, confident and powerful young woman."[58]
Her ice castle, which she creates while singing "Let It Go", was designed to illustrate the maturing of her powers as well as to be "a manifestation of her feelings to the world".[58][59] The palace is initially beautiful; however, after she is made aware of the destruction she has inadvertently caused, and as she is increasingly vilified and hunted by others, it becomes darker and more distorted, with jagged icicles forming on the walls. The film's design team was uncertain about how it should look and drew out designs for various ice castles filled with snow. Lasseter suggested basing the structure and patterns on snowflakes. For example, an enormous snowflake would serve as the foundation, and the palace would be hexagon-shaped. Lasseter also wanted snowflake patterns to influence the manner in which Elsa creates the palace. "Snowflakes are these tiny little ice crystals that form in mid-air. And when there are changes in temperature and humidity, these snowflakes start growing in a pattern that's known as branching and plating," said co-effects supervisor Dale Mayeda. "[Lasseter] said 'You know, when Elsa builds her ice palace, it would be so amazing if—every step of the way as this castle forms out of thin air—it's just branching and plating, branching and plating all along the way."[58]
Fifty animators worked on the scene in which the castle is built, and one frame required 30 hours to render.[58] They later extended similar techniques to Elsa's clothing. While the traditional Norwegian rosemaling was the inspiration for her costuming early in the film, her ice gown was designed similarly to her palace, with snowflakes heavily influencing the style. Her cape itself is a large snowflake.[32]
The Sami language version was announced as a special dubbing chosen for the inspiration the second movie took from the Sami culture.[60][61]
A major challenge was to find sopranos capable of matching Menzel's warm vocal tone and vocal range in their native languages.[62][63] Rick Dempsey, senior executive at Disney Character Voices International regarded the process as "exceptionally challenging", explaining, "It's a difficult juggling act to get the right intent of the lyrics and also have it match rhythmically to the music. And then you have to go back and adjust for lip sync! [It]... requires a lot of patience and precision."[64] Just like Idina Menzel, four of Elsa's dubbers also played the role of Elphaba in Wicked, that is: Maria Lucia Rosenberg (Danish),[65] Willemijn Verkaik (Dutch and German),[66][67] Mona Mor (Hebrew) and Hyena Park (Korean).[citation needed] Serena Autieri, along with the whole Italian version of Frozen, was awarded best foreign dubbing worldwide.[68]
Dutch singer and actress Willemijn Verkaik dubbed Elsa in Dutch (both speaking and singing) and German (singing only), Spanish singer Gisela sang both for the European Spanish and Catalan versions and French singers Anaïs Delva's and Charlotte Hervieux's singing lines from Frozen and Frozen II respectively were also used in the Canadian French version, while Canadian actor Aurélie Morgane voiced Elsa's spoken parts in both movies in the Canadian French version. Both Anaïs Delva (French) and Jelena Gavrilović (Serbian) had originally auditioned for Anna's role, but were eventually called back to dub Elsa instead. Priyanka Chopra and her cousin Parineeti Chopra voiced Elsa and Anna respectively in the spoken parts in Frozen 2 in Hindi.[69]
Given the success raised by the song "Let It Go" not only in Menzel's version, but also in its 41 versions originally issued worldwide, on April 15, 2014, Walt Disney Records released a compilation album titled Let It Go: The Complete Set, with all 42 foreign-language film versions of "Let It Go" and nine end credit versions.[70] On the wake of the s