‘I visited Mattel’s real-life headquarters in Los Angeles – it’s nothing just like the Barbie film’

Reporter Averee Nelson takes an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the Mattel HQ in Los Angeles to mark the release of their new Toy Story 5 range

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We’ve all seen that scene in the Barbie movie, where Margot Robbie’s character escapes from a fictional Mattel headquarters. It’s a soulless place full of men in grey suits, who want nothing more than to enslave our plastic heroine.

The real Mattel offices, in El Segundo, California, are nothing like that. Just ask reporter Averee Nelson, who paid them a visit for an exclusive peek at their new Toy Story 5 collection…

“You’re my favorite deputy!” says Woody, after I tug on his pull string. The old cowboy’s nostalgic catchphrases are music to my ears at my playdate with the team behind the upcoming Toy Story 5 range.

Walking up to the Mattel Handler Team Center, where visionaries and designers bring iconic toys – like Barbie, Hot Wheels, and American Girl – to life, it feels like my first day in Barbie Land. Clearly, I am ‘Journalist Barbie.’

I’m here for an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at how Mattel have taken the film’s iconic characters from the big screen and into the playroom.

Barbie and Hot Wheels-themed vans pass me by, shuttling employees from the Team Center – named after company founders Ruth and Elliot Handler – to the HQ itself. A giant pink arrow, signalling “Barbie Land This Way”, is emblazoned on the side of the building. Instinctively, I let out a “Hi Barbie!” at the security desk.

I pass through the gates and stop dead in my tracks, not knowing where to look. To my left, I can see a giant Hot Wheels track, complete with a loop-de-loop, next to a super-sized Barbie Dream House with an elevator for photo ops.

Looking up, I spot a hot air balloon hanging from the ceiling, with Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie and Bullseye in its basket.

A tour guide from Mattel directs me through a labyrinth of cubicles – and toys are literally everywhere. Previous Toy Story ranges are scattered on shelves, along with troves of Jurassic Park dinosaurs, Hot Wheels, Polly Pockets and more.

I gasp as I spot a Lots-o-Huggin’ Bear like the one I took home from a family trip to Disneyland in the early 2010s.

The newest film in the Toy Story franchise addresses the tension between traditional toys and modern technology, and how screentime is reshaping childhoods. It’s an issue that comes up a lot around here.

Product designer Baxter Crane – part of the team behind the new range – tells me: “You have to combine the new tech advances with something that’s still fun to play physically.”

Together with Mattel design manager Kristen Sanzari, she shows me the sketches drawn for the new range. The firm collaborates with Disney and Pixar to make sure the colours and specs of the toys are authentic.

The designers start the process by reading the script – that’s right, they don’t watch the film before starting on the toys. Instead, they work from the text and a few “movie moments.”

Our tour takes a turn into a room where the new range is laid out in all its glory. I’m face-to-face with Woody and Buzz Lightyear toys that are actually talking to each other, all on their own.

The top end of the line includes Ultimate Action toys, which are movie-accurate in size, clothing and animatronic facial movements, featuring over 70 sounds and phrases.

“That’s the high-end version of when a toy comes to life,” says Nick Karamanos, senior vice president of action figures and entertainment partnerships at Mattel.

“If you want to express that conversation that occurs in the kids’ bedroom and the toys are alive, that’s the ultimate expression of that.”

The mid-range toys are what the designers call the “Interactables” – characters that talk to each other. There’s also a bargain-basement range of miniatures, each with their own sounds or functions, that fit in the palm of your hand.

“We should also be able to provide toys that don’t have lights and sounds that have basic articulation that allow you to then use more of your imagination into ways of playing out your story,” Karamanos adds.

It took the team two years to develop the new Toy Story range, which comes out in shops on Sunday, April 26. The highly-anticipated film itself will follow, hitting cinemas on June 19.

“We have a whole research centre in the other building, where we bring kids in and see how they play with toys,” Sanzari says. They also hosted a panel for adults to discuss what they would want in the toy line for the many avid collectors.

The designers are already thinking ahead, making toys that could interact with as-yet-unconfirmed, future Toy Story releases.

“You need patience to create a toy,” says Karamanos. “It’s such a joyful process to see ideas from a designer, their brain on paper, and then to see that come to life into a product, and then to have that product being appreciated by a kid, an adult — that journey is a joyful journey.”

He recalls his own children’s excitement when they first heard a Buzz Lightyear toy speak. “That joy is what drives us,” he adds.