By Jocelyn Buhlman
Building LEGO sets is a creatively thrilling hobby—especially building LEGO sets featuring our favorite Disney characters and films! But what if your job was to build LEGO sets? For many, it’s a dream job—but for Marcos Bessa, it’s a dream made reality! Bessa is the mastermind behind the all-new LEGO Disney Villain Icons for the Disney 100th Anniversary set, available now and featuring some of our favorite Disney baddies hidden within familiar icons and items. We chatted with Bessa about this set, cleverly designed with secret compartments and hidden drawers to hold four LEGO minifigures, and what it’s like having one of the coolest jobs around.
D23: What is the coolest part of your job? What is the most surprising part?
Marcos Bessa: The coolest part of my job has to be the fact that I get to be surrounded by LEGO bricks all day, every day, and that they are my main work tool. I get to “work” with LEGO bricks! Can’t beat that! The most surprising part might be the fact that we don’t use computers as much as some people out there think we do to create our designs—it all comes directly from our creative minds, straight into our fingertips!
D23: When did you first realize you had a talent for designing LEGO sets?
MB: Before I got hired as a Designer to work for the LEGO Group, I was building my own LEGO creations—the adult fans called these “MOCs,” as in “My Own Creations”—and whenever I posted them online in specialized forums or competitions, they would often get very positive feedback from the fan community. That contributed to my confidence in my building skills, which led me to apply for the job. Now, designing a LEGO set is very different that building something for myself… But I’ve been doing it for many years already, and every time I read the positive feedback from consumers online—of all ages!—I get this wonderful feeling of mission accomplished!
D23: How did you decide which characters and films were featured? Why focus on villains specifically?
MB: The selection of characters and films that we reference in this LEGO set came down to a joint decision between our LEGO team and the Disney team we collaborate with for the development of our products. As the model designer of this product, I started off with a proposal of what I felt was a good mix of references—based on my personal favorites—and then we took it from there, trying to ensure we had a product in the end that could appeal to as many different LEGO Disney fans out there as possible. The focus on villains came from the interest in offering something different than what we had done so far within the LEGO Disney products. The Disney Villains are a key element of any good movie—there’s no story without them!—and we felt it was about time we recognized the importance of these complex and multilayered characters that we love to hate.
D23: The design is heavily inspired by ’90s nostalgia. Were any elements of the design pulled from your own experiences?
MB: Certainly! As a ’90s child, growing up with my own collection of VHS tapes of all of these incredible movies—which I played over and over in my VCR—working on this LEGO set was an absolute dream for my inner child!
D23: What kind of testing did you do to ensure your designs for LEGO sets are both fun to build and result in the desired end product?
MB: We have a rigorous process that we take all our new designs through, to ensure they fit our highest quality standards when it comes to delivering an adequate building experience to the age mark we target, but also that the play features—when present—are satisfying and deliver the fun they promise! So, among other things, we get to build and rebuild several iterations of our models, with help from specialized colleagues that evaluate the model from different perspectives.
D23: Which Disney movies or characters do you find the most artistically inspiring?
MB: Growing up, Hercules, Aladdin, and The Lion King were my favorite movies, because of their soundtracks. Now, as a grownup, they still hold a very special place in my heart, but I’ve been going through an Encanto crush lately!
D23: Do you have a favorite memory from your time working at LEGO? A favorite Disney set you’ve designed?
MB: Every day I work on a LEGO Disney product is a new favorite memory—as cheesy as it may sound, it’s really the truth! I get to enjoy two of my most beloved things in the whole world together! But having designed the original 71040 Disney Castle that got us a TOTY award in 2017 has certainly been a highlight in my LEGO career.