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Tony Hale is getting more comfortable with letting go as a dad
The Toy Story 5 star recently chatted with PEOPLE ahead of the upcoming release of the popular animated film about how he’s officially let go of his “helicopter” dad status
Hale shares his daughter with his wife, Martel Thompson
Tony Hale is getting more comfortable with letting go as a dad.
The Toy Story 5 star, 55, recently chatted with PEOPLE about the upcoming release of the popular animated Disney and Pixar film. During the conversation, Hale opened up about how he’s officially easing up on his “helicopter” dad status with his daughter Loy Ann, 20. The doting dad shared that on his recent trip to New York, where his daughter is doing a summer internship, he truly saw how much his daughter has grown into a young adult.
“It’s amazing when you just see that flourishing, and … it makes me leave New York and be like, ‘Okay, she’s going to be okay,’ ” he tells PEOPLE.
Tony Hale and his family
Credit: Rob Greenwald
Hale, who shares his daughter with his wife, Martel Thompson, also revealed that he used to have an app to track her location while she was in high school. However, he has since deleted the app from his phone since he “can trust that she’s going to make good choices.”
“I used to track her location in high school and just be like, ‘How fast is she going?’ It was just such a helicopter thing,” he admits. “Now I don’t. I can trust that she’s going to make good choices, and that she’s also going to learn from other not-so-great choices.”
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The actor, who returns as Forky in Toy Story 5, in theaters June 19, went on to share more insight into his reasoning for deleting the app.
“I took it off my phone. My wife still has it, and she’ll look, but she can look at it in a really healthy way,” he says. “When my daughter’s at school, she’s just curious where she is. If my daughter’s not in her dorm room, I’m like, ‘Oh, well, she’s being attacked.'”
“I’m the dad that at 3 in the morning when she was seven, I’m in the room checking her breathing. You know?” he continues.
Tony Hale
Credit: Liesa Cole
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The Arrested Development star also spoke to PEOPLE last month at the world premiere of Netflix’s Office Romance, where he discussed being an empty nester. During the conversation, Hale joked that he’s been taking on new roles to “stop crying” about his daughter being out of the house.
Speaking about the “new phase” he’s entered, he described it as a “little bit of an identity shift.”
“It is wild because we just moved, actually, to Birmingham, Alabama — my wife and I — to be closer to family. I don’t know how to say it. It’s a little bit of an identity shift,” he said. “I’m always a dad, but you’re very reminded you’re a dad when she’s around, and then when she does her own thing and she moves away, you’re like, ‘Okay, wow.'”
“Every time she’s leaving the house and not like, ‘Be careful, drive safely,’ I have to let her go,” he added. “It’s a new phase.”
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