At a mere 12 years old, cute and effervescent Daveigh Chase is becoming quite the veteran of voice over animation. First we got to hear her as Lilo in the unexpected box office hit Lilo and Stitch, and now she voices the female lead in the Americanised version of the hit Japanese feature Spirited Away. Arriving to talk to journalists at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, flanked by her mother [her parents are divorced] and on-set tutor, Daveigh might be small in stature but she is as smart as can be, the young actress is unphased at the flurry of questions thrust at her. She is nonplussed when asked to comment on the differences between working on Disney's adaptation of the Miyazaki film Spirited Away, and Lilo and Stitch, which remains one of Disney's bigger animated hits of the year. "With Spirited Away the animation was already done", she explains, referring to the usual process of feature animation in Hollywood, during which actors voice their characters prior to the animation. "So when I was working Chihiro, my lips would maybe open for a couple of seconds, but then I'd have this very, very long line to say, which was very tough at times." A Japanese anime film from the creator of "Princess Mononoke," Spirited Away is the story of a girl named Chihiro who travels into the world of gods to find a way to turn her parents into human form after they were turned into... pigs. It's a kind of Japanese take on the likes of Alice in Wonderland, a surreal fable. It's a character that the youngster says she can identify with, "because, like me, she believes in herself as do I," Chase says. Unlike most animated films, Spirited Away is 2 hours long. Perhaps the running time might have been an initial concern by Disney execs, but young Daveigh is unconcerned, because "it really doesn't seem like 2 hours. And with all those spirits, I'm sure kids will get into it, I know I did. In the movie, Chihiro really believes in herself and so I hope that'll follow through with the audience."

This desire to be swept away into a sometimes-allegorical world of spirits and fantastic creatures is the brainchild of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. A man with absolutely no pretensions, the 62-year old veteran filmmaker, admits to have seen the Americanized version of his hit film, only very recently.

Miyazaki is very vague when asked to discuss influences on his work, in particular Spirited Away. Though he admits to having been an admirer of Alice in Wonderland, he insists it "wasn't a direct influence on this film, but rather a subconscious influence." Despite a visual style that sets Miyazaki apart from conventional Hollywood animation, even his use of specific styles of drawings, he says, is culled from too many sources for him to discuss specifically. "In a way my work is inspired by so many gifts from so many other artists, that it's really difficult for me to limited it to one or two names. So in a way, is my movie original? No, it's a culmination of everything I've ever seen and be inspired by throughout my life", Miyazaki explains. "Am I interviewed by Michelangelo? I hope so. I mean, I'm influenced by so much and the final runner in a relay race. If I didn't make a movie, then the baton would just fall to the ground, but somehow the baton that I received has passed through MY body and will be carried on to the next generation."

Miyazaki's films have been a huge success in his native Japan, but none more than Spirited Away, his country's most successful film. Yet in discussing the film's broad appeal, Miyazaki admits that he didn't think it would be remotely successful in Japan. "When I was making it, I was specifically targeting it at some 10-year old girls that I know, daughters of friends. But another friend of mine who's an 18-year old juvenile delinquent, came to me and cried during a pivotal moment in the film, so everybody will see something different in this film." Which is why Miyazaki doesn't concern himself with analyzing the film's themes. "I don't make movies in order to communicate themes," he says. But when pressed to come up with a dominant theme in Spirited Away, the director sees his film as being one of optimism for the 10-year old girls to which the film is dedicated. "The strong message to those girls is 'You'll be OK'. A lot of kids watch a lot of movies and typically, they'll just sneer and say: "Yeah, it all worked out because it's just a movie but not in my life'. I wanted to make a movie that would really persuade them that even though it's inside of a movie, they could deeply identify with Chihiro's travails and they will survive, just like SHE does."

Spirited Away opens in limited release this Friday, September 20.