Natalia is a character who was cut in the 2020 Disney/Pixar animated feature film Soul. She was originally going to be Joe Gardner's neighbor, but was cut from the final version of the film.
Background[]
Personality[]
Natalia is a Ukrainian woman who was to serve as Joe Gardner's neighbor in New York living with two dachshunds named "Brakko" and "Yakko", living on the fifth floor of Joe Gardner's Apartment. She is shown to be social in giving people tasks into helping fix the problems in her room such as fixing the pictures on her room in her apartment. However, she is shown to have a dislike for flaws that occur in her room, such as when Joe (controlled by 22) accidentally causes a hole to occur on the wall in her room.
Development[]
In the deleted scene "Home Lessons" included on the Blu-ray and digital releases of Soul, the scene where Natalia was supposed to appear was during the part where Joe and 22 (controlling the bodies of Mr. Mittens and the real Joe himself respectively) met Connie, one of Joe's students in music class. After Connie left, they encountered Joe's neighbor, Natalia and her two overfed dachshunds unable to climb the stairs. Natalia instead put her pet dogs on her shopping bags and hoisted them on her shoulders in order to communicate with Joe. In the scene, Natalia was used to help find a way to make 22 a bit more interested in life on Earth. In this sequence, Natalia handed Joe (controlled by 22) a hammer to do her a favor in helping fix the pictures in her room. However, Joe started hitting the nail that was supposed to hang the picture the wrong way, smashing a hole on the wall in Natasha's room, causing Natasha to leave in disappointment while Joe and 22 plan to find a way to patch up the hole in the wall they accidentally caused.
However, for the final version of the film, the character was cut, as the Soul production team found out that Connie was a better idea, giving Connie more screen time in the final version of the film. Despite being cut, a render for Natalia was made, hinting that she was going to appear in the finalized version of the film, despite the fact that it made the production team sad about Natalia being discarded.
Trivia[]
- Natalia's dialogues mostly consisted of Ukrainian language. The only line she spoke in English in the deleted scene was "Thank you, Joe", where she tells the latter to put the picture of her dogs in her room.
- Natalia was inspired by screenwriter Mike Jones' real-life neighbor in New York.
