The animated sci-fi anthology series Love, Death + Robots set a new standard for what to expect from adult animation when it was first released in 2019. Combining philosophical explorations of the genre and medium with no-holds-barred action and violence, the series provided viewers with glimpses of what the medium was capable of. Volume 3 pushes even further, inviting new creative teams to tackle compelling sci-fi stories in bold and stunning ways.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Creator, Director, and Writer Tim Miller and Director and Supervising Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson spoke about Love, Death + Robots Volume 3. The pair dove into the joy and freedom of the adult anthology series and why projects like Love, Death + Robots are so important and so rare. Yuh Nelson and Miller also detailed how they balanced humor and violence and what they're most excited for viewers to see.

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Love Death Robots Volume 3 Kill Team Kill Cat

CBR: First off, let me just say congrats on the third volume -- the episodes I saw were stunning.

Tim Miller: Thank you.

Jennifer Yuh Nelson: Thank you so much.

Miller: So you look surprised, "Stunning -- who would figure!" [laughs]

This continues a track record, I think, of stunning animation.

Miller: That hasn't always been the result, but I feel like this season deserves stunning. Last season, maybe extraordinary. Season One, maybe spectacular, but this [is stunning].

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I love it. I'd love to start by just asking about how you both wore so many different hats for this season, from director to supervising director to executive producer. What was it like to take on these different roles for the project?

Yuh Nelson: It's different mindsets, really. As a director, you're really sort of locked into one story, making sure that you're hyper-focused on that. As a supervising director, it's not the same as directing your own episode. You're trying to get other directors to be able to do what they do best. It's not what I would do, it's what that director, that studio would do. That's why you have an anthology of all these different styles and tones because they're a reflection of those directors.

Miller: It's a real mix of all-powerful, no power, all-powerful, no power.

Yuh Nelson: Has all-powerful ever happened?

Miller: No, no, no. "Everybody kneels" is one of my favorite expressions. I like that. Jennifer has to wear the most hats, though, because she is really on the frontline of helping all these directors achieve that vision. She is quite the Swiss Army knife of skills, which is what her job is, really. In addition to having to have that hyperfocus to do her own, she has to sort of stop and go, "Okay, what does this person need?" or "How can I help that other production there?" It's quite a skill set that normally directors don't have. They're normally egocentric assholes, but Jen is very different.

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Love, Death + Robots

Well, Jennifer, I'd love to ask -- maybe part of that ability to deal with so many different aspects of this comes from the fact that you've worked in so many different sides of animation, from the more family-friendly to Love, Death + Robots, which can get a little less family-friendly.

Miller: What do you mean by that? [laughs]

Yuh Nelson: A lot less! [laughs]

I've seen a little blood so far. What sort of creative freedom does Love, Death + Robots give you that other projects or other genres may not offer?

Yuh Nelson: I think it's a massive amount of freedom because not only can you explore any different story that could traumatize children and have moms complain, normally, you can do whatever you want. You can have stories that are extremely challenging and very, very thought-provoking or disturbing or all those things that live-action can do and everyone expects it to do, but animation hasn't been allowed. For something like this, you're able to do all those stories but also keep things at an amazing, high level of quality. So you are given the keys to an amazing production to do whatever you want, with whatever story that is percolating around. That level of freedom is unprecedented. I mean, I'm not kidding you. It's unprecedented.

Miller: Netflix has never said, "No, you can't do that." Netflix has never said, "Hey, that's fucked up. We can't, no, uh-uh." They're down if we want to try something, which is... That, coming from other industries and film and games, is such an amazing thing to have. We try as much as we can to pass that along, [to] pay it forward, if we can, to give these directors and artists some freedom to do the kind of things that normal people say, "Hold on second, can't do that."

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Tim, can you talk a little bit about the process, then, for how you choose which stories you develop for Love, Death + Robots?

Miller: Well, I read a lot, and so I pull stories constantly that I feel like have the right vibe for Love, Death + Robots, which is genre material for sure, but a certain amount of scope. I like emotional stories. I like action. I love a good last stand, those kinds of things -- things that make you think. Then I put them all in a box, and Jennifer reads them. Then together, we kind of go, "What about this one? I like this one," or "I really think this one is a good mix," or "No, we can't do that one because we've got one like it."

Yuh Nelson: It's a matchmaking process of the stories and the director and the style and the studio that does it. So the final choice comes down to what is that teamwork? What is that mix? Will that story make it? Because stories alone aren't enough, [it] has to be how it's done.

Miller: Yeah, and the final stage involves rusty nails in baseball bats and Jennifer and I in the parking lot out back.

Yuh Nelson: A fight to the death! [laughs]

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So one of the things I think that Love, Death + Robots does exceptionally well is that it caters both to the incredibly deep, philosophical, genre side but also to the silly and joyful and ultra-violent. So how do you find that balance between these different types of stories?

Yuh Nelson: You need a mix in an anthology like this in order to appreciate each different one. If everything is the same, none of it stands out. You have to have contrast to understand what each unique thing has got going for it. So if something gets too dark and serious, we try to find one that's a little bit lighter and sort of mix it in. It's all about the mix.

Miller: If you look at Jennifer's two...

Yuh Nelson: Talk about whiplash!

Miller: Yeah! They're the ends of the spectrum that you just mentioned. One is stupid, violent. The other is thought-provoking social commentary.

And both are necessary.

Miller: Both are necessary. Maybe the stupid fun now. Maybe we should have swapped those two. We need the stupid fun in the depths of the pandemic, but it's too late now.

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Love Death Robots Volume 3 Kill Team Kill Blood

Can you talk a little bit more about how important a project like Love, Death + Robots is for the animation community as a whole?

Yuh Nelson: I think it's very important because, for so many years, everyone I know in animation has wanted to do a show like this, but we've been told that the audience wasn't there. So finally being able to have a show that allows the art to be at the level of these stories and to be able to do stories that are beautiful and challenging and complex but not have to fit into a certain age range, which is what it's been like in the US -- not so much in Asia, but you don't necessarily get the budgets for it elsewhere.

So here, to be able to have that combination of really intense stories with beautiful art together, and put it together with all these international studios that may not have been able to juggle an entire feature but can do intense, beautiful 15 minutes of joy, that's the thing that makes something like this unique. Seeing it work means it can happen elsewhere.

Miller: I'm just glad people like it. They seem to like it. It's the kind of thing that I wanted to do that didn't really exist, so we tried to make it.

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I think audiences are glad that you did.

Miller: I hope so. We could use more. We want to go outside the tent and bring some more people in. I hope that these stories and that kind of animation bring a new crowd to animation that maybe hadn't gone there before. Because they're drawn in by these stories and more adult stories, they'll become fans of animation just like we are.

Do you think that you've got enough of an audience for a fourth volume?

Yuh Nelson: We can always hope. It's really up to the audience. We just make it. [laughs]

Miller: They have to watch. They do. You know, at the end of the day, it's an entertainment medium, and we have to entertain people. We are certainly entertained with making it, that's for sure. So I hope people feel that love on the screen, and they keep showing up.

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So one final question for you both: what are you most excited for viewers to see in this volume?

Yuh Nelson: Most excited...

Miller: Oh, man. There's different ones for different reasons. I'm really glad David [Fincher] is doing one because he's loved animation since we started talking about it 15, 20 years ago. For him to do one now, I feel happy for him. I love the short. I love "Night of the Mini Dead" because it makes me laugh every time.

Yuh Nelson: "In Vaulted Halls Entombed" is really cool because he uses Unreal. "The Very Pulse of the Machine..."

Miller: Very emotional.

Yuh Nelson: An amazing female director, amazing emotional story. So all of them are different. So, you know, enjoy them all.

Miller: Jennifer had a very cathartic experience doing "Kill Team Kill."

Yuh Nelson: A lot of veins. A lot of blood.

Catch Volume 3 of Love, Death + Robots streaming now on Netflix.