The Hollywood Reporter and the Animation Is Film Festival are joining forces to stage a live animation roundtable, with Bill Hader and Travis Knight among the participants announced for the event. The partnership pairs one of the entertainment industry's most established trade publications with a festival dedicated entirely to the art form, bringing together a group of creative voices for an onstage conversation rather than the pre-recorded video panels that have become common in awards-season coverage.
Word of the collaboration gives the Animation Is Film Festival an additional marquee moment on its calendar and hands The Hollywood Reporter a live, in-person extension of the roundtable format it has long used across film and television. Details about the timing of the session, the full roster of panelists and how the public can attend have not been fully laid out, but the pairing itself signals an intent to treat animation as a subject worthy of the same serious, craft-focused discussion that live-action filmmakers routinely receive.
A Live Format Sets This Roundtable Apart
Roundtables are a staple of trade-press coverage, typically filmed in a studio and released in edited installments over several weeks. Staging one live, in front of an audience and in association with a festival, changes the dynamic. There is no second take. The exchanges happen in real time, and the people in the room hear the answers as they land rather than after a cutting process.
For the Animation Is Film Festival, which has built its identity around celebrating animated features from around the world, hosting a conversation of this kind fits its broader mission. The festival has positioned itself as a showcase for the range of contemporary animation, and a roundtable featuring working filmmakers extends that programming into the realm of craft discussion and industry dialogue.
Bill Hader Brings an Unusual Perspective
Hader occupies a distinctive place in this lineup. He is best known as a performer and writer, with a long run on Saturday Night Live and the acclaimed series Barry, which he co-created and starred in. His involvement with animation, though, is more than incidental. Hader has lent his voice to a wide range of animated productions over the years, moving between comedic and dramatic registers with ease, and he has spoken in interviews about the specific demands of acting without a camera, where the performance exists entirely in the voice and the timing.
That background makes him an intriguing addition to a panel otherwise rooted in the directing side of animation. Voice work is often the least understood part of the process among general audiences, who tend to assume actors simply read lines into a microphone. In practice, animated performances are built through repeated sessions, directorial feedback and an evolving understanding of a character that is being drawn in parallel. A performer of Hader's experience can speak to that process from the inside.
Travis Knight and the Director's Chair
Knight arrives at the roundtable from the animation directing world, with a body of stop-motion work behind him. Stop-motion remains one of the most labor-intensive forms of filmmaking, with each frame constructed physically and captured one at a time. Directors working in that tradition tend to be deeply involved in every stage of production, from design and fabrication to photography and performance.
His presence alongside Hader suggests the conversation is likely to cover the full span of the craft, from the actor's contribution to the years-long technical and creative work that happens in between. The pairing also reflects a broader truth about animation: it is not a genre but a medium, and its practitioners come from wildly different backgrounds and disciplines.
Why This Partnership Matters for the Awards Conversation
The timing of the announcement places it squarely within the annual stretch when animation draws heightened attention from voters, critics and industry observers. Studios and filmmakers spend these months making the case for their work, and forums that allow for sustained, thoughtful discussion can carry weight with the people who ultimately cast ballots.
A live event also generates something a packaged video cannot: immediacy. Whoever is in the audience becomes part of the conversation, and the exchanges that occur onstage tend to circulate quickly through the industry afterward. For The Hollywood Reporter, the roundtable reinforces its role as a gathering place for creative talent. For the Animation Is Film Festival, it deepens a relationship with a publication that reaches the decision-makers the festival wants to attract.
What Comes Next
As of now, the confirmed names attached to the roundtable are limited. Hader and Knight are the two figures explicitly cited, and the remaining participants are expected to be revealed closer to the event. The same applies to the date, venue and ticketing information, none of which has been formally detailed.
What is clear is the direction of travel. Animation coverage has expanded considerably in recent years, moving from a niche beat to a regular fixture in mainstream awards reporting. Partnerships like this one suggest that trend will continue, with festivals and trade outlets working together to give animated filmmaking the kind of live, in-depth platform that its practitioners have long argued it deserves. For audiences who follow the craft closely, the roundtable represents a rare chance to hear that discussion unfold as it happens.
Source: Hollywood Reporter