Back to her roots: Atlanta voice actress lands Mrs. Potato Head in "Toy Story 5"

She helped paint the walls. Thirty years later, she came back as a Disney and Pixar star.

Anna Vocino, a voice actress originally hailing from Atlanta and co-founder of Whole World Improv Theatre in Midtown, is the new voice of Mrs. Potato Head in "Toy Story 5" - now the biggest animated opening of 2026. 

"You don't really know until you're an old broad like me that you can look back and put all these pieces together," Vocino said, surveying the walls of the theater she once performed on five nights a week.

Vocino, who has spent more than two decades as a professional voice actress, said landing a Pixar role had been on her annual goal list for years.

"I think every voice actor, no matter what, wants to be in a Pixar movie, and I'm no different," she said. "I was like, that's not going to happen. That doesn't happen to regular people."

It did. Vocino auditioned for the role of Mrs. Potato Head, a character originated by the late Estelle Harris, who voiced the beloved toy through all four previous "Toy Story" films before she died in 2022. 

"When you auditioned to replace a legend in Estelle Harris, an icon; it's not like she was putting on a voice," Vocino said. "That was her voice. Her personality. Everything."

Vocino said Pixar's decision to cast a human actress, rather than digitally recreate Harris's archived recordings, was deliberate and meaningful.

"Pixar very easily could have done that. And they didn't," she said. "We always need humans to tell stories. Can A.I. voices nail comedy? Not yet. We still got comedy."

Vocino's path to Pixar traces directly to Atlanta. A graduate of Emory University, she was part of Rathskellar, one of the oldest collegiate improv troupes in the country, before co-founding Whole World Improv Theatre in 1994. She performed there for seven years, juggling motherhood alongside stage time.

"I had my daughter. I would hand my baby over to friends, to Emily. I would be like, 'Here, take Lucy,'" she said. "I would jump on stage, do a scene, and jump back off."

She said those years were her real training ground.

"I got my 10,000 hours," she said. "We rehearsed two to three times a week, did shows five times a week."

It was also in those seats that her voice-over career was born. Her first agent, Richard Hutchison, discovered her from the Whole World audience.

"He sat in the audience and said, 'Hey, I want to represent you,'" Vocino recalled. "That was the first time I was booking jobs, right here in Atlanta."

Returning to those same walls more than three decades later, she said the place still hits differently.

"It feels like home. It really does," she said. "This was my coming-of-age story, right here."

When asked what had changed about the theater, she did not hesitate.

"It took me leaving for it to become legit," she joked with a laugh. "Emily and Chip now run this place. It's fantastic. It's an institution now."

Vocino's resume extends beyond voice acting. She is also the founder and CEO of Eat Happy Kitchen, a clean-ingredient food brand, which includes pasta sauces, spices, and snacks. She is also the author of a cookbook tied to the brand.

"Toy Story 5" has grossed more than $760 million worldwide since its June 19 release.