Alex Hirsch

Professions :

Animator

Born :

June 18, 1985

I've always just loved drawing and loved cartoons. Growing up, I loved Disney films, I loved The Simpsons, and I was a big fan of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes and the way that they would have weird fantasy and then down-to-earth funny character comedy.

growing-up drawing character

I built a leprechaun trap that was made to look like a tiny hotel. There was a ramp where the leprechaun could walk into the hotel, see a Lego pot of gold on the other side, try to reach it, fall through a trap door, go through a tube, wind up in a biscuit tin, and be trapped. My mom, encouraging my madness, told me that the leprechaun might escape and that I needed a shot glass of whiskey down there to keep him occupied while he was in there.

glasses mom fall

There is a very specific, unique brand of rivalry that exists between twins. You're always wondering who the Alpha twin is.

twins unique wonder

Some people could say, "I'd like something that's super dramatic and miserable and made me cry and made me sad forever" but that's not my taste.

taste forever people

I believe that one of the reasons Gravity Falls is such an unusual place, maybe part of the reason that the stoplights switch on and off at random times and cell phones don't get proper reception and compasses spin wildly - is because of the strange kinetic influence of the UFO buried just underneath everyone's feet.

phones believe fall

I've always loved The Simpsons, just because it was really, really funny. As a kid, you love the characters. You know that the dad is dumb and frustrated, and you know that the boy is smarter than everyone else around him and is constantly getting into mischief.

dad character kids

I absolutely love television. What's so great about TV is that I can tell 20 stories in a year. If I was working at a feature studio, I'd tell 1% of someone else's story, over the course of four years.

stories television years

The most relevant misadventure that I had, as a kid, is when I remember being pretty convinced that leprechauns were real and that I was going to catch one.

real remember kids

I thought that was the coolest thing in the world, the idea of somebody trying to solve mysteries. I would see conspiracies in everything. I think I believed in leprechauns longer than any of my fellow classmates because I tried to catch them.

trying ideas thinking

I think twins can sometimes be shoved into the same mold and they can start to feel like they're not being given a chance to develop their own identities.

mold identity thinking

Andreas Deja

Andrew Park

Bill Plympton

Don Hertzfeldt

Dave Filoni

Hank Smith

All Authors