Meet your new favorite Disney character: Baymax

He's expressionless and emotionless, and the window to his electronic soul consists of two connected black dots on a blank, blobby face.
So how come moviegoers will feel compelled to smother the inflatable robot Baymax with warm hugs after witnessing his starring role in the Disney animated film Big Hero 6 (out Friday)?
Call it the healing power of love between a boy and his bot, say co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams.
Baymax (voiced by Scott Adsit), who looks as though he shares bloodlines with the Pillsbury Doughboy and Michelin Man, was built as a health care bot whose sole mission is to scan, heal and follow his "patient,'' Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter), a teenage robotics genius. The pair develop a tight bond and become part of the Big Hero 6 crime-fighting team.
The characters are based on their superhero counterparts in the Marvel Comics universe, but Baymax becomes a true original in the film. The bot's pliable body, giant belly and stubby legs that force him to adorably hobble to get from place to place were inspired by one robotic limb the filmmakers saw while on a research trip for the movie.
It was a "very crude robot arm made of vinyl" that caught the attention of Hall (Winnie the Pooh) during a visit to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with Williams (Bolt). "There was enough there for me to extrapolate that there was a character there. He would be animation-friendly, with a lot of squash or stretch," says Hall.
That robotic arm was being developed for use in health care, just like Baymax.
"All the stuff you see in the movie is all grounded in science," adds Williams. "That's really important, so people don't just think we're making stuff up."

When it came to Baymax's voice, however, the filmmakers could get creative. They cast Adsit (NBC's 30 Rock), who injects humor into the part by making Baymax sound like a navigation system that emphasizes the wrong syllables in street names.
Baymax might begin to speak a normal sentence, "and then he injects the word 'finger' or 'contusion' '' at random, says Adsit. The actor also tried not to move his body while recording the lines because the robot character doesn't actually breathe. "I couldn't use my breath to express what (Baymax) was feeling — if he is feeling,'' he says.
Adsit changed his technique a bit to portray a low-on-battery Baymax who deliriously pets a cat he calls a "hairy baby."
"Then it's me getting boneless and channeling the one time I've been drunk in my life," jokes Adsit.
The friendship between Hiro and Baymax, who becomes Hiro's surrogate parent and big brother, is at the emotional center of Big Hero 6. Warning: The pair may make you cry.
"It's great to hear people laughing, that's very satisfying," says Williams. "But when you hear people sniffle and start to tear up, and you hear those involuntary sounds, you feel like the audience in engaged emotionally. And then I really feel like we've done our jobs."