- “Ugh. I wish I was as tall as all of you. I'm Envy! Oh... look at your hair...”
- ―Envy introducing herself
Envy is a major character in Disney•Pixar's 2024 animated feature film Inside Out 2. She is one of the new emotions and the seventh inside of Riley Andersen's mind.
Background
Official Description
- Envy may be small, but she sure knows what she wants. She's perpetually jealous of everything everyone else has, and she's not afraid to pine over it. Envy's wishful thinking and fascination with the newest, coolest thing pulls her attention in all directions and longs for what Riley doesn't have. Naturally, she wishes she were taller and less childlike.
Personality
Envy, as her name states, is the literal embodiment of any and all feelings of wishing for, longing for, and ambitious drive and desire for more things in one's life. She is perpetually fascinated by anything she finds beautiful, pretty, or desirable she feels she's lacking in, like Disgust's hairstyle, some cool girls Riley ends up meeting, and the height and appearance of the other emotions. She's always wishing for more, whether that be traits, ideas, abilities etc. and can be extremely enthusiastic about what she desires and will speak loudly for what she wishes for and wants to covet. She also has zero sense of personal space, always wanting to get close and reach out to whatever captivates her in an attempt to grasp it. Her main job is to let Riley know what she wants. This can sometimes clash with Disgust's own role in Riley's mind, whose impeccable taste serves as a filter to anything Riley doesn't need or is perceived as a threat to her, both physically and socially.
Envy is somewhat dramatic and easily captivated by things- demonstrating a passionate and curious side to her. Despite being envious she is in no way resentful, but she does have a tendency to get pouty or sad when not able to get to do or attain something (like when refused to plant a memory or touch the new Sense of Self and Riley's best friends getting in the way of her fitting in) when she's criticized by Ennui for caring too much and can get possessive at times such as not wanting to share Val with Riley's best friends. This tendency to admire everything and everyone and undermine herself can sometimes cause her to become somewhat of a people pleaser, both to the other emotions (especially Anxiety) and the people Riley interacts with. This can lead to her to try pretending to be something she is not or that she thinks the same way as them, displaying her insecurities.
Envy also serves as Anxiety’s second-in-command as of all the new emotions and is the most obedient and complicit with Anxiety’s machinations, and often brings her own input and ideas to fuel into Anxiety's plans for Riley's future. However, she can see when Anxiety is going too far. After Riley accidentally hurts one of her friends while trying to outdo Val's goal count when she made it to the team and Anxiety starts to spiral down, Envy was able to see that she was putting too much pressure on Riley and tried to calm her down, to no avail. After that, Envy and the other present emotions tried to remove the new Sense of Self Anxiety created for Riley.
Soon after both the old and new emotions managed to find common ground and understanding, Envy was able to come up with ideas to help Riley to the point she herself ended up getting envious of herself.
Physical appearance
Envy is a fairly small emotion compared to the rest of the Emotions, both the new ones and the old ones. She has aquamarine skin, a tiny body, and a head larger than her body. She has neck-length teal wavy/curly hair with some unruly strands tied up in two magenta hair clips. She has big, round aquamarine eyes that always fill with brilliance when she desires what others have. She also has freckles in the middle of her eyes and wears pink blush on her cheeks. Her wardrobe consists of a lilac long-sleeved dress with a magenta collar and white polka dots, brilliant purple leggings, and teal boots.
In the book, Go to Sleep, Anxiety!, Envy is shown wearing a pink nightgown with puffed sleeves and purple hair rollers.
Gallery
Trivia
- Concept art of the first film almost shows Envy as a slick greedy man whose skin and suit are both in green, albeit in different shades, but this was later scrapped. In the sequel, Envy was redesigned as an excited little girl, shorter than her concept design, and her signature color is aquamarine instead of pale green (though, they are still correlated, nonetheless).
- The concept book of The Art of Inside Out 2 reveals that among the discarded ideas of Envy's design was that her hair be tied up in two pigtails that evoke the ears of a sad, wet puppy.
- Another scrapped idea shows that Envy would originally have the ability to replicate the looks and personalities of the core Emotions.
- According to Keiko Murayama (character art director), the reason Envy has big eyes is because the word "envy" is related to the Latin word invidia, which means "to look within"; which is why they decided to emphasize her eyes.
- Envy replaces Anger as the shortest and smallest of the emotions inside Riley's mind. She is so small that she needs to sit on the console in order to operate it and can be carried by the other emotions as if she is a toddler.
- She is, in addition, the youngest of the Emotions, appearance-wise.
- Her size plays into the idea of feeling tiny compared to others based off of one’s status and possessions they don’t have.
- This is Ayo Edebiri's second animated role in a Disney property, following her role in Kiff as Professor Totsy, and her third animated role in film overall following Sony Pictures Animation's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as Glory Grant and Nickelodeon/Point Grey's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem as April O'Neil.
- Envy's eyes when being amazed by something she likes are similar to Mei Lee's eyes from Turning Red when she tries to resist a box full of kittens during a test.
- Envy is the only one of the nine emotions that has four fingers.
- This references the fact that envy is the feeling that something is missing, since the other emotions have five fingers.
- The emotion of envy is typically portrayed as bitter and jaded, but Envy herself is instead depicted as an admiring character to reflect Riley's kind demeanor. This subversion of the emotion is actually tied to real psychological studies of the emotion, revealing that envy has a more positive and adaptive side called "Benign Envy" as opposed to "Malicious Envy" the envy the public is most familiar with
- This is rather ironic since in the biblical sense, the opposite of envy is kindness, which is classified as one of the seven heavenly virtues.
- Despite not appearing in the first film, she was indirectly mentioned by Disgust.
- Envy, along with Embarrassment and Nostalgia, are the only emotions whose colors are not any of the rainbow.