‘Tangled’ Director Returns With Star-Studded Body Swap Netflix Movie This Week [Exclusive]

It’s been more than a decade since Tangled became one of Disney’s most beloved modern animated movies, and the film has only grown in stature since then. For a whole generation of fans, Rapunzel’s story remains one of those comfort watches that still hits, whether it’s the music, the lantern scene, or the movie’s surprisingly sharp emotional core. Now, director Nathan Greno is stepping back into animation with something very different. His new Netflix movie, Swapped, is a body-swap comedy, but Greno says the film has something much bigger going on underneath all the fun.

Speaking with Collider ahead of the movie’s release this week, Greno opened up about why Swapped was never designed to be just a silly premise. Instead, the director said the story began with a simple emotional idea: empathy. “The idea from the beginning was to tell a story about empathy, and to tell a story that deeply resonates with an audience, and especially for where we’re at right now, in our current climate,” Greno explained. “You know, I think people are quick to see differences in one another. So, while we didn’t want to make a message movie, per se, the idea was to make a big, fun, entertaining roller coaster of a film that has you walk away and kind of think about things on a deeper level, maybe within your own life.”

That balance seems to be the key to Swapped. Greno doesn’t want the movie to feel like homework, but he also isn’t pretending it’s just chaos for chaos’ sake. The film takes the classic body-swap idea and pushes it through an animal-led story, something Greno said came from wanting to avoid the usual “human becomes an animal and learns a lesson” setup. He explained:

“We’re like, let’s tell a story about empathy. What does that mean? We did a lot of research on empathy, walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Well, that sounds like transformation. Well, the thing that we kept going to is, like, we’ve seen those. We’ve seen the human that becomes the animal, and the human learns the lesson: I was wrong. And so we go, well, how do we do it differently? Because, again, I think it’s not a bad thing to put out into the world, and everything’s been done, so how do you do it in a way that’s, like, unique and different, and something that surprises audiences?”

Greno added that going “all animal” opened the movie up in a major way, especially because the story plays with the relationship between the smallest and largest creatures in the valley. “For me, it was the animal aspect, going all-animal, was one way to get there. That was really exciting. On top of it, we had scale that we were going to work with, because how does the smallest creature in the valley relate to the largest one? And then, how do you do scale? And scale in animation is not the easiest thing to do.” The movie was also inspired in part by nature documentaries, which helped the team think more deeply about how audiences understand size, movement, and physical space in animation.

“Those nature documentaries were us really examining why in the world, when you look at even a photo of a small creature, and we could go, I know how big that is. Like, just looking at a photo with no background, I could tell how big a dog is, you know, we know these things and to capture that, that was a real challenge, but I really believe the team got there.”

‘Swapped’ Has a Stacked Voice Cast

Swapped also has a major cast behind it, led by Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Black Panther) and Juno Temple (Ted Lasso, Fargo), with Tracy Morgan (30 Rock, The Last O.G.) also part of the ensemble. Greno said both Jordan and Temple brought so much to the film that they changed what he thought certain scenes could be. Temple, in particular, unlocked emotional layers Greno didn’t initially realize were there.

“I kind of approach everything this way, just as a director, I’m open to ideas. We’re going in a direction, but I’ve worked with directors that are so-called perfectionists, and I guess it’s perfection to their own liking, but I think if you’re open, and you’re going in a direction, and you let people do their jobs. From the beginning, I’ll say with Juno, when she came on, there were scenes that I didn’t realize were as emotional. I was getting choked up as she was doing them, I was going, well, I didn’t… I thought this was sort of, like, kind of a sad… I didn’t know this was this sad. It was like, she brought so much to it, she had to take a break, and I was going, ‘Oh, that just changed everything.’”

Speaking separately with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Temple said Swapped is a milestone for her in a way audiences might not expect. After years of live-action work in projects like Ted Lasso, Fargo, and Venom: The Last Dance, this is not only her first lead role in an animated feature, but her first real animated film altogether. She had briefly done voice work for a cartoon series before, but Swapped was the first time she had to fully live inside an animated character across an entire movie.

“I was like, ‘Wow! How exciting.’ I was just more like, ‘How cool. I haven’t explored that.’ I’ve had people in my life tell me that I would do a fun voice for kids’ films or for a cartoon,” explained Temple. “I was also thrilled by the script. I loved the script. And it’s actually my first animation film at all. I’ve done a voice in a cartoon for a series briefly, but I wasn’t in it that much. I only had to do two sessions for it. So, this was my first time actually really being a part of an animated film at all.”

For Temple, the pull of Swapped went beyond the novelty of trying a new medium, so when Weintraub pointed out that the movie’s message is largely about empathy and friendship, Temple concurred with his sentiment, but noted that there was another element to it, “And our environment, too! It’s about saving the planet.” Now it’s only a small quote, but it says a lot about how Temple sees the movie. Swapped may be built around a body-swap, Freaky Friday-style premise, but it’s a story with a bigger set of ideas underneath: how people treat each other, how they treat the world around them, and how much of life depends on learning to look beyond yourself.

Asked what she hopes little kids take away from the film, Temple pointed first to friendship, then to accountability, then to the planet itself. “I hope that they feel the absolute importance and need for friendship we’ll have throughout life. It doesn’t matter how old you are, where you come from, what you do, your friends are always going to be integral to making your life better, bigger, and more beautiful,” said Temple. “It’s just the truth. And I think also accountability is really key, and learning things when you’ve done things wrong and right are important to pay attention to both.” She continued:

“Also, it’s about not judging books by their cover. You don’t know what it’s like to be somebody until you’ve really listened to them, or you’ve really understood who they are. I know this takes it to a degree where we won’t necessarily ever experience being able to step inside of another person’s body — maybe we will in our lifetime, I don’t know, but I think that it’s a really beautiful metaphor for really being unjudgmental with other people who are different from you, because we shouldn’t do that. It’s useless. I also really hope it makes them excited about the big world out there and the greenness of the world that we should keep protecting, and all the animals that may not be around, if we don’t take care of them, when they’re grown up. As a storyline in itself, the idea of being able to get through difficult scenarios with your friends and then hopefully save the planet, pretty good messages.”

That answer neatly brings together the two sides of Swapped, which is the emotional body-swap metaphor and the adventure that’s built around Mother Nature. Between them, Greno approached the movie as a story about empathy, while Temple describes it as a story about friendship, listening, accountability, and environmental care. Put together, the film starts to sound less like a standard animated comedy and more like a big, accessible metaphor for the things kids — and adults, frankly — are constantly having to learn in real time.

Juno Temple Had To Get Used To Hearing Her Own Voice

Apple TV+

Of course, believing in the movie’s message was only part of the experience, because Temple also had to adjust to a form of acting that put all the pressure on the one part of her performance she wasn’t entirely comfortable with — her voice. For an actor known for physically expressive live-action work, the recording booth was both freeing and slightly confronting. Temple told Collider:

“I think the most difficult thing was, initially, I really don’t love my voice. I find my voice quite annoying. I’m not great at listening to even my voicemails. So, I was a bit overwhelmed with that aspect of it. [Laughs] Then weirdly, at the opposite end of the spectrum, when I finished the job, I was like, ‘Actually, maybe my voice isn’t as horrific as I think it is. It’s also a tool.’ So that was kind of a weird sort of juxtaposition that went on with just that experience alone, which I’m very grateful for. But I think also, I haven’t mastered the art of being still yet. I’m quite a twitchy, moving-about person, which isn’t super awesome for voice recording. So, trying to master the art of being still with each session was really interesting.”

That is, weirdly, a very Swapped kind of realization. Temple went into the process feeling uneasy about something familiar, only to come out of it seeing that same thing differently. Her voice, the thing she found annoying, became a tool. The booth, which limited some of her physical instincts, became a place where she had to trust her imagination instead. That shift also changed how she understood animation as a collaborative art form. In live action, Temple said, she often comes in with physical beats mapped out in her head. She knows when a character should be still, when they should move, and when they should explode into something more chaotic. In animation, she had to release some of that control and let her performance become one part of a larger creative chain.

“I found it liberating that you don’t have to know what you have prepared for the day and hope it goes the way you sort of mapped it out. You can just go in and be a part of an imagination with somebody,” said Temple. “So playing like that and then seeing the animation come to life with your voice kind of navigating how your character is going to be able to walk into a space or fly into a space, or how fast they’re flapping is going to be when they fly, and things like that, is quite an amazing experience to witness, because you’re like, ‘Whoa! Whoa! That really matches that. That’s insane.’” She continued, saying:

“When you’re going to do your live-action performances, you’ve so mapped out in your head, ‘I want to be still at that moment. This is the moment she’s allowed to be absolutely crazy and dance around.’ Obviously, you have to let it all go, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and you have to change it. You always have to be open to changing things. But I think that the walking into the space with a bunch of people, a bunch of creatives, just filled with imagination and bringing the imagination to life like that, is something really special.”

That idea of performance as shared imagination is also why Greno’s comments about the cast hit harder. He didn’t just hire actors to read lines into a microphone. He watched them reshape the film’s emotional center. Temple brought sadness and vulnerability to scenes he thought he already understood, while Jordan’s process changed the way Greno thinks about directing voice performances at all. He told Collider, “And then Mike… it’s Mike. I mean, Michael B. Jordan is, I mean… the way he records, I’ve never experienced anything like that, and it’s kind of changed the way I even direct now, when I’m going forward. It’s, like, his way of working and his way of, like, finding the truth within the lines. Both of them change the course of the movie 100%.”

Because Swapped is an animal body-swap movie, Weintraub had to ask Temple the obvious question: which animal would she want to switch places with for a few days? Her answer was immediate, then immediately rethought. “Leopard. No-brainer. But I know that I’m not a leopard. I know I’m not there yet. I think, truthfully, my dream would be a leopard. I think I’m actually a fruit bat.”

‘Tangled’ Director Reveals Deep Personal Connection With the Story of His New Netflix Movie

Image via Netflix

Temple’s self-assessment kind of sums up the way the movie is working with big animated comedy energy, but for Greno, the film is grounded in something personal. He said the film draws from his own experience growing up in a small factory town in Wisconsin, where his father — whom he loved and who has since passed away — encouraged him to stay close to home and follow the same path as everyone else. Leaving that world, Greno said, taught him that he didn’t have “the full picture” at all.

“There’s so much of this movie just is me telling my own story of, like, starting in a small town in Wisconsin. My father, I love my father, he’s passed away, but he was always being protective and saying, you know, basically, you can’t leave this island. It was a factory town, and it’s like, get a job at the factory like we all do in this town. And so, going out in the world and realizing, wait a second, I don’t have the full picture here at all.”

That personal connection is also what links Swapped back to Tangled, even though the two movies look very different on the surface. Greno said both films follow characters trapped inside a bubble who don’t yet understand what they don’t know, which mirrors his own experience of leaving home and discovering the wider world. “As different as… and I appreciate this, that you’re like, well, these movies are completely different,” he said. “They still are a character within a bubble that doesn’t know what they don’t know. And that is my story, is, like, me growing up in that small town and just kind of going out into the world and trying to figure it out. And I think you can put enough sort of elements, enough frosting on that cake, that it’s gonna feel different. But it’s an emotional story that I know very deeply. If you think about it in kind of the broadest of strokes, Tangled and Swapped have a lot in common, actually, with the protagonists.”

By the end of the conversation, Greno doubled down on the idea of empathy, which seems to be the film’s real north star. The animal world, the body-swap romp, the nature-doc inspiration, and the voice cast are all part of the packaging, but the core idea is much simpler, and that’s that people don’t know as much as they think they do, and perspective can change everything. “It’s definitely empathy. It’s this idea of we don’t know what we don’t know. Be open-minded to others, and just realize, we really do want the same things, and it’s a thing that I need to remind myself about, too. You don’t have everything figured out as you go through life. You gain more perspective and hopefully become a better person because of it.”

Swapped is now streaming on Netflix.

Release Date

May 1, 2026

Runtime

102 minutes

Director

Nathan Greno