It’s almost too good to be true that Frozen II is less than a month away from hitting cinemas worldwide. Disney’s original 2013 was an instant hit that managed to cement itself into pop culture almost immediately after its release. With its massive success, people can’t help but wonder why it took about six years before the sequel materialized. Now, Frozen II’s director and writer Jennifer Lee is speaking out about the movies’ lengthy process.

While a sequel was positively guaranteed by Frozen’s popularity, the team behind the sequel certainly took their time. While Lee was busy putting the film together, even one of its stars Kristen Bell took years journaling as her character Anna. Speaking to Collider, Lee offered an explanation as to why it took some time for the sequel to materialize saying:

“It did a couple of things. We had spent some time off from them. We had given it to the world, at that point, and I wanted to ground myself back with the characters we’d built from here. Without having any pressure of time, at that moment, I wanted to see what came out and how it flowed.”

Lee further shared that the long process of finding what the sequel will be based on led to a meaningful realization. She says that the best place to start with the storyline was Elsa’s journey to acceptance and self-discovery. While the queen had eventually learned to control her powers in the first film, she never really found out where her powers hailed from. That’s something that the sequel will further explore when it premieres next month.