Lauren Montgomery

**Lauren Montgomery** is an executive producer, director, and storyboard artist for *Voltron: Legendary Defender*. She has done previous work as a storyboard artist and a director for animated series such as *Avatar: The Last Airbender* and *The Legend of Korra*.

## Official Bio

*Montgomery was a producer on Legend of Korra, a storyboard artist on Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as a director for DC Animated movies, like Green Lantern.*

## Series Role

* Executive Staff

Lauren Montgomery heads the show direction and writing along with Joaquim Dos Santos. When DreamWorks purchased rights to the *Voltron* franchise in the classic media library and started looking for people to work on a new *Voltron* show, Montgomery and Dos Santos were finishing work on *The Legend of Korra*, but immediately desired to join the new project and be interviewed by DreamWorks, pushing how they were the right people for the job on a qualified skill and fan history level.

Both Montgomery and Dos Santos are fans of the original *Voltron* show and wanted to make the new series similar to how fans nostalgically remember *Defender of the Universe*, rather than a strictly faithful update or a complete reinvention. *Legendary Defender* is a means to reel in both a new generation and old fans. To get a more coherent grasp on the older series, staff watched both *Defender of the Universe* and *Beast King GoLion*, paying homage and honor to both. They avoided going the darker route of a story, preferring to keep campy humor and fun amongst a serious storyline.

Montgomery wanted Allura as a Paladin since the beginning of series production, and wanted the Paladins to adhere to the mis-match of suit colors and Lion colors found in *Defender of the Universe*. Seeing different incarnations of the characters where their outfits matched their Lions is something that always bothered her because she grew up as a fan of the original *Voltron* show, so she chose for *Legendary Defender* to allow the mis-match to be portrayed as a natural progression. She has also pushed for more female characters, often asking if a new character introduced to the story can be a girl or group of characters can all be girls. She believes in the positive effect that realistic, respectful representation of female characters can have on viewers.

She enjoys working in animation for the fact that there is more creative freedom than working on feature films, but is not against an offer of working on film.

## Gallery

Art drawn for New York Comic Con 2017, colored by Anthony Go Wu.
## Trivia

* Montgomery's list of "must haves" for the series included that Pidge must be a girl and that there must be an episode with mermaids. The movie *The Little Mermaid* was one of her biggest inspirations as a child to becoming an artist.

* Montgomery personally announced the birthday date for Lance.

* Montgomery describes meeting "Weird Al" Yankovic when he was cast to voice Blumfump as one of the best days of her life, as he is one of her childhood heroes and she had been asking for him to be cast in many things previously.

* Montogomery's favorite things about Season Three are the introduction of Allura in pink Paladin armor and the introduction of Lotor's generals.

* Series staff does not use reference footage specifically recorded for animating fight scenes, unlike with *The Legend of Korra*, which many staff members worked on. This proves particularly challenging for Montgomery, who thinks her strengths lie in scenes of humor and drama; she often gets angry trying to create fight scenes and complains the whole time.

## External Links

* deviantART

* Instagram

* Twitter

* Tumblr

* Lauren Montgomery on IMDb

* Lauren Montgomery on Wikipedia

## References

1. ↑ Voltron: Legendary Defender Official Website
Rotoscopers with Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery, August 2017
3. ↑ Den of Geek with Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos May 2016
4. ↑ Nerdist with Lauren Montgomery, Joaquim Dos Santos, and Christine Bian March 2016
5. ↑ Collider with Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Dantos, August 2017
6. ↑ When Nerds Attack: "Interviews with the Cast and Crew of Netflix’s Voltron: Legendary Defender!", January 2017
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 New York Comic Con 2016
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Let's Voltron 100th Podcast
9. ↑ Den of Geek with Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery, August 2017