- “I'm Anxiety. I'm one of Riley's new emotions, and we are just super jazzed to be here! Where can I put my stuff?”
- ―Anxiety introducing herself[src]
Anxiety is the main antagonist turned anti-heroine of Disney•Pixar's 2024 animated feature film Inside Out 2. She is one of the new emotions and the sixth inside Riley Andersen's mind.
Quick Answers
What is the role of the character Anxiety in Inside Out 2?
How does Anxiety feel about meeting the preexisting emotions in Inside Out 2?
What does Anxiety carry when she first meets the other emotions in Inside Out 2?
What is the gender of Anxiety in Inside Out 2?
How does the character Anxiety contribute to the plot of Inside Out 2?
Background
Official Description
A bundle of frazzled energy, Anxiety enthusiastically ensures Riley's prepared for every possible negative outcome. Protecting the new teen from the dangers she can't see, Anxiety is determined to make sure Riley fits in with her high school peers at all costs. Armed with meticulously organized lists and plans to make sure Riley never makes a mistake, Anxiety thinks ten steps ahead and isn't shy about sharing worst case scenarios. Anxiety knows she's a lot to deal with, but feels pushing Riley toward perfection means being that much closer to achieving her goals.
Personality
Anxiety, like her namesake, is the literal embodiment of any and all feelings of nervousness, tension, stress and the like. She's extremely nervous and anxious about many things, such as meeting preexisting emotions like Joy, especially because she wants to make a good first impression. Her main job is to protect Riley from things she "can't see" and plans for the future. As such, she is an intense planner, predicting everything that can go wrong so that she can find a way to avoid it and desperately tries to fix it if it does happen. Everything must go exactly as she had planned, with every mistake being seen as something that may "haunt" her later.
During her first appearance she is described to be highly energetic, zealous, and a typical geek filled with excitement towards working with the original five emotions. Similar to Fear, Anxiety is prone to overthinking things, though to a larger extent. While Fear's overthinking is a reaction to a perceived threat that soon disappears once that threat is out of sight, Anxiety projects those fears, leading her to try to think of any scenario that can go wrong, even if they are not a reality. This is showed with her overplanning regarding Riley's future on high school, leading her to pressure the girl to do everything she could to get a spot on the hockey team of her future high school and blend in with the older girls. However, none of this is out of malice as her intent was to protect Riley from being alone in high school.
Despite being self-aware and extremely analytical, Anxiety is not without her limits. Her extreme overthinking and insecurities can blind her judgment, causing her to go past her limits and forget what was truly important. Her hardworking and ambitious nature is overshadowed by her restlessness and self-destructive mindset, shown through Riley's feelings of inadequacy through Anxiety's driving. The more Anxiety kept adding to Riley's Sense of Self about trying to become good enough to make the team, the more Riley felt that she really was not good enough, until it became a reality to her, leading to both Riley and Anxiety to have an anxiety attack.
Similar to Joy in the first movie, Anxiety is also a control-freak, wanting nothing but to be in control of everything in Riley's life, hating when she is placed on the backseat of the controls, especially if that strays away from her plans. However, she is willing to get rid of everything she sees as unnecessary and/or dangerous to what she perceives as being the right thing for Riley, being extremely pragmatic about it, even if she has to "bottle up" the old emotions or reinvent Riley's entire sense of self. The more Anxiety tried to change things into what she believed to be Riley's best self, she would take even more control over everything, even if was too much for her to handle, until the point she got stuck into her own feelings of anxiety.
After Joy was able to convince her to let go of her control over Riley, Anxiety was able to see how her desire to shape Riley into what she perceived to be her best version by any means necessary was hurting her. Not only that, but, with a little help from Joy's positivity, she also learned to let go of the worries Riley didn't have control on, focusing only on the ones she did.
Physical appearance
Anxiety appears as an orange emotion with a frog-like face, a volcanic eruption like updo of a darker shade of the same color and jade green eyes, orange and white-striped long-wool sweater, brown pants attached by a black belt with a gold button-shaped buckle, and brown shoes.
In the book, Go to Sleep, Anxiety!, she's seen wearing a long sleeved, orange and white striped nightgown that matches her ordinary attire and brown slippers.
Appearances
Inside Out 2
Anxiety enters headquarters after Riley Andersen turns 13 years old. As she appears in Headquarters, the other Emotions are scared of her. Soon after she appears, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui also appear alongside her in the headquarters. Nostalgia also shows up, but she is quick to send her back to the basement of Headquarters.
With the same goal as the other emotions, Anxiety only wanted the best for Riley. Her main goal was to help Riley plan for the future. Anxiety would do anything to help Riley get better, but she saw that her original Belief System and the original five Emotions were preventing Riley from getting better. Anxiety threw Riley's Sense of Self to the back of her mind and sent the five original emotions to the Vault with the help of Embarrassment.
Throughout the film, Anxiety fueled Riley's beliefs with her own memories, slowly changing Riley's beliefs. One of her most cherished beliefs included: "If I'm a Firehawk, then I won't be alone."
Anxiety continued to feed on Riley's beliefs by using her own imagination against her and creating scenarios that would make her overthink. Anxiety, thinking that she was helping Riley, thought that this was crucial so that Riley would be able to see potential mistakes and act upon it.
On the final day of the camp, Anxiety finally finished Riley's new Sense of Self where Riley tells herself that she's not good enough. Much to Anxiety's dismay, she told the other emotions that it would be fine as long as they completed the final test of the camp.
Anxiety continued to pressure Riley into scoring three goals. This went as far as ignoring her own teammates and injuring her friend Grace in the ice rink. Due to this, Riley was sent to the penalty box, where she started to break down from the pressure she and Anxiety have put on herself. Anxiety finally realizes her fatal mistake and desperately tries to fix it, forming a Storm of Emotion around her and prompting Riley to have an anxiety attack.
It wasn't until Joy's intervention that Anxiety realized the gravity of the situation, shedding a tear of regret. Anxiety learned to let go of Riley, learning that she couldn't choose who Riley was.
When Riley was in high school. Anxiety was still in headquarters, overthinking whether Riley got accepted into Firehawks or not. Joy told Anxiety to relax and to focus that energy on things Riley had more control over, like studying for her Spanish test. In the end, Anxiety and the other new emotions peacefully coexisted with the older emotions.
Trivia
- Anxiety is the very first emotion to be formed in Riley's mind ever since her toddler years, being also the very first emotion to be introduced at the beginning of Riley's adolescence.
- She is also the fourth female emotion to inhabit Riley's mind.
- Her sudden appearance on HQ and before the other new emotions may be a reference to her eagerness to start her new job and meet her new colleagues, which is a characteristic of the emotion she embodies.
- She is the only one of the new emotions, and first emotion since Joy, whose eye color doesn't match the color of her theme.
- Her eyebrows are black instead of orange, just like Fear, which could be symbolistic that Anxiety is a more complex or different form of fear.
- Additionally, Anxiety's character design, while being similar to Fear, is meant to parallel horizontal lines, while Fear is much more vertical in his movement and body.
- Kelsey Mann, the director of Inside Out 2, revealed that Anxiety's first design was originally going to be more like that of a Godzilla-style kaiju, which increases or decreases in size depending on how anxious Riley is. Ultimately, this design was scrapped.
- Another idea contemplated for Anxiety is that she would be a bureaucrat called TIA (which stands for "Transitional Integration Advisor"), who, upon allowing herself to be dominated by anxiety, would transform into a monster, revealing her true form. But it was discarded because it was not convincing to portray an emotion as a monster since no emotion is really bad as such.
- The way the other emotions met Anxiety is similar to how Joy met Sadness, since they only noticed her when the console turned orange, Anxiety's color. The same thing happened when Joy met Sadness, where the former only noticed the latter when she made Riley cry when she turned the console blue.
- Anxiety is showed to be a heavy packer, since she possess a lot of baggage to unpack now that she had settled on HQ. This can be seen as a reference to her own emotion, since people who possess a lot of negative experiences and disappointments that affect their own behavior and/or interactions with other people are said to "have a lot of baggage".
- This can also represent Anxiety's very need to be always prepared for anything and try to control any problem that may arise before they are even a reality, which contrasts with the core emotions who normally react to the problems and deal with them as they come.
- Anxiety is highly energetic, being unable to stand still on one place and constantly thinking and talking fast. Not just that, but it would appear she has a hard time going to sleep. That is a common trait for people with anxiety, as their constant worrying causes their brain to overwork and prevent it from shutting down for sleep.
- After Anxiety is overwhelmed by her own anxiety, she works so fast and frantically that she creates a huge orange whirlwind around the console, all while vibrating so much and being frozen stiff in one place as if she is a hologram that no one could feel.
- She's sort of the odd-name-out with the new emotion characters because she's one of them whose name doesn't start with an 'E', alongside Nostalgia.
- Based on how she said 'we' (referring to the other new emotions that appear in the sequel) after meeting with the old emotions, it's likely that she (and by extension the other new emotions) already existed within Riley's mind since the first movie.
- Anxiety taking control of the HQ and "bottling up" the old emotions is similar to what Joy did in the first movie when she suppressed Sadness.
- However, unlike Joy, where her absence allowed her to see the importance of Sadness, it was Anxiety's overworking that allowed her to see how harmful she was being to Riley.
- Like Joy, Sadness, and Fear (sequel only), Anxiety also has the ability to cry, as evident when she shed a tear during her and Riley's anxiety attack near the end of the film.
- Anxiety also cried a bit in "Go to Sleep, Anxiety!" due to being concerned that her paper doll could get ruined the next day.
- Anxiety is the only of the four new emotions, who is seen in the minds of Riley's parents, proving that she and the other emotions will remain inside of Riley even when she reaches adulthood, appearing whenever they are necessary.
- Anxiety is shown drinking coffee as well as energy drinks which both often contain caffeine. Appropriately, caffeine can trigger anxiety in some people.
- Anxiety is a second female antagonist in a Pixar film to reform at the end after Gabby Gabby in Toy Story 4.
- Despite being an antagonist, she wasn't truly evil and only wanted to help the other Emotions, even though what she viewed as "doing what's best for Riley" ultimately harmed Riley.
- Anxiety shares several things in common with the original five Emotions: Joy's leadership, Fear's cartoonish appearance and nervous personality, Anger's action of hitting the console and pulling the levers at the same time (as well as his disdain for the TripleDent Gum jingle), Disgust's eye color and social role, and the wearing of a sweater and her relevance as the second most important Emotion just like Sadness.
Gallery
Promotional
Concept art
Screenshots
Inside Out 2
.png "Inside Out 2 Teaser (32).png (4.23 MB)")
.png "Inside Out 2 Teaser (28).png (4.58 MB)")
.png "Inside Out 2 Teaser (33).png (4.31 MB)")
Renders
Other
.png "FunkoPOP-1447-Axiety-InsideOut2-(2024).png (1.55 MB)")
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