Talking to Knight, plus members of the team including animator Jason Stalman, head of production Arianne Sutner and more, Empire walks around Laika’s 40,000-square-foot warehouse, getting world-exclusive access to every inch of the puppet-filled studios. We stop by the sets, hear about the technical advances Laika is making, soak in the immense scale and time-consuming artistry that goes into making these kinds of movies, and get the lowdown on some of their upcoming titles – all documented in the new issue through extensive, exclusive new photography.

If one thing is clear from our visit, it’s that Laika HQ is a place of wonder, but also of incredibly hard work – and as the team focus on their biggest project yet, upcoming feature Wildwood (keep an eye on empireonline.com for more details about that soon), Knight seems to be feeling that dichotomy more than ever. “You know, these things are like little vampires,” Knight tells Empire, regarding the puppets that fill his warehouse. “They suck the life out of the people that touch them. At times, it’s really frustrating — they won’t do what you want them to do. But when I see a puppet that’s been imbued with life, because an animator on a stage has had an emotional connection with an inanimate thing, an assemblage of silicon and steel… Well, it’s the closest thing to magic I’ve ever witnessed.” We can’t wait to be spellbound once again.