Celia Mae: The Full Story of Mike Wazowski's Girlfriend

Celia Mae gets only a few minutes of screen time in Monsters, Inc. In that time she is stood up on her own birthday, has her date destroyed by a government agency, and slaps her boyfriend in front of the entire company.

Yet she is no background receptionist with a nice design.

She is the person the plot happens to while Mike and Sulley are busy causing it, and the film is quietly careful about how it treats her. This is the full Celia Mae file: who she is, what kind of monster she is, and what happened to her after the movie ended.

Character File

Role: Mike Wazowski’s girlfriend, receptionist at Monsters, Inc., and later Laugh Floor Supervisor in Monsters at Work.
The build: roughly seven feet tall, purple skin, one aquamarine eye, five snakes for hair, and seven tentacles, with two serving as arms and five as legs.
Voiced by: Jennifer Tilly in the 2001 film and season one of Monsters at Work, with Roxana Ortega taking over for season two.
Best known for: calling Mike “Googley Bear,” and for the slap he absolutely had coming.

Who Is Celia Mae?

Celia Mae is Mike Wazowski’s girlfriend, and she works the front desk of a company that powers an entire city by frightening children. Somebody has to answer the phones.

She is the receptionist at Monsters, Inc., in the city of Monstropolis, fielding calls and keeping the lobby running.
Mike Wazowski is her boyfriend, and the film never treats him as merely a friend.
Sulley is a friend of the pair, and she has a nickname for him too.
The film itself is Pixar’s 2001 classic, directed by Pete Docter.

Worth noticing: Celia is one of the few characters in the film whose job has nothing to do with scaring. She sees the company as a workplace rather than a mission, which is why she is the only one behaving normally when everything falls apart.

Her Birthday, and the Worst Date in Monstropolis

Here is the part most write-ups get wrong. Celia is not investigating a conspiracy, and she does not save the city. She is having a birthday.

Mike books Harryhausen’s, an exclusive sushi restaurant, for her birthday dinner.
He then smuggles Boo along, hidden, without telling her.
Boo surfaces, and the CDA quarantines the entire restaurant.
Celia ends the evening humiliated, furious, and covered in the aftermath.

The moment people remember: Mike tries to defuse it by kissing her. She slaps him. It is a small scene, and it is the only time in the film that someone treats Mike’s behaviour as straightforwardly selfish, which it is.

She does get one real moment in the caper, though. When Mike finally blurts out the whole truth mid-chase, Celia grabs the PA and announces that Randall has just broken the all-time scare record, which buries him in congratulating co-workers and buys the boys the head start they need.

One lie ruined her birthday. One well-placed lie of her own helps fix it.

What Type of Monster Is Celia Mae?

Her design borrows from several myths at once, and the details are more specific than they look.

Her skin is purple, and the green dress carries a scale-print pattern.
She has one large aquamarine eye, matching Mike’s in colour.
Each of her five snakes has two eyes, giving her eleven in total.
She has seven tentacles, two serving as arms and five as legs.

The number nobody expects: eleven eyes makes Celia one of the most eye-heavy monsters in the film. It is also a neat visual joke, since she and Mike are the couple who each appear to have exactly one.

The design almost went somewhere stranger. Early concept art experimented with giving Celia a conjoined twin head before Pixar settled on the final look, a leftover the wikis still argue about.

What Are the Names of Celia’s Snakes?

The snakes are not decoration. They function as a second, louder version of whatever Celia is feeling.

The official Essential Guide names them Amelia, Bobelia, Ophelia, Cordelia and Madge, per the character’s Pixar Wiki entry.
They chirp when she is happy and rattle or hiss when she is angry.
They never speak, communicating entirely through sound.
They visibly panic whenever Celia mentions getting a haircut.

The best gag involving them: when Celia floats the idea of cutting her hair, the snakes react with alarm, and Mike objects on their behalf. Five characters get a personality beat without a single line of dialogue between them.

Googley Bear and Schmoopsie-poo

The nickname exchange is the fastest characterisation in the film. It establishes the whole relationship in seconds.

Celia calls Mike “Googley Bear” and sometimes “Googley Woogley”.
Mike calls her “Schmoopsie-poo”.
Sulley, roped in, calls her “Celia-Weelia”.
She returns the favour by calling him “Sulley-Wulley”.

Why it works: the pet names are deliberately excruciating, and Sulley’s obvious discomfort at being dragged into them does more for the trio’s dynamic than a page of exposition would.

Where the Name Celia Mae Comes From

Pixar rarely names a monster at random, and Celia’s is doing several jobs at once.

Celia reads as a play on Cecaelia, a term for a half-woman, half-octopus figure.
That matches her tentacles rather than her hair.
Fans and the film’s wikis also point to Scylla, the tentacled monster of Greek myth.
The snake hair itself is a straightforward nod to Medusa.

The inversion: Medusa turns people to stone and is punished for her appearance. Celia has the same hair, works a customer-facing job, and is easily the most emotionally reasonable adult in the building. The reference exists to be reversed.

Is Celia Mae in Monsters University?

No.

The prequel is set before she and Mike ever meet, so she never appears on screen. A photograph of her does turn up in Mike’s locker in that film, a small nod for anyone looking closely.

Her boyfriend’s college years went very differently, and I traced them in my article on the real moral of Monsters University.

What Happens to Celia in Monsters at Work?

Her later story is bigger than most summaries suggest. The last time the first film shows her, she is on the new laugh floor, handing Mike the magazine cover he almost made.

She returns properly in the Disney+ series Monsters at Work.
Once the company switches from screams to laughter, she takes a promotion to Laugh Floor Supervisor.
Jennifer Tilly, the Oscar-nominated star of Bullets Over Broadway, voiced her in the film and in season one of the series.
Roxana Ortega took over the role for season two.

Beyond the screen: Celia has featured in the Monsters, Inc. theme park attractions too, including Tokyo Disneyland’s Ride & Go Seek, where her receptionist voice runs the queue announcements.

Celia Mae Costumes and Fan Art

Celia has a durable fan following, and it shows up in two places: sketchbooks and Halloween.

Redesigns restyle her outfit while keeping the snakes recognisable.
Human versions usually keep the single eye as a design challenge.
Some pieces treat the snakes as five separate characters.
Couples costumes pair her with Mike, and major retailers sell an official adult Celia costume built around the green scale-print dress and a snake headpiece.

Why artists keep returning to her: the snakes are a gift. Five independent faces attached to one character let an artist show several reactions at once, which is exactly why Pixar animated them the way they did.

The Most Normal Monster in the Building

Celia works because Pixar gave a supporting character a real grievance and let her keep it. She is not there to be decorative, and she is not the girlfriend who forgives instantly.

There is also something fitting about the pairing itself. The two monsters at Monsters, Inc. with no interest in scaring anyone found each other at the front desk.

So where does she rank for you among Pixar’s supporting cast? Let me know in the comments.

Read next: my story on how turning down Buzz Lightyear created Mike Wazowski, or my case for Mike as the real moral of Monsters University.

Celia Mae FAQ

Who voices Celia Mae?

Jennifer Tilly in Monsters, Inc. and in the first season of Monsters at Work. Roxana Ortega took over for the second season.

Is Celia Mae in Monsters University?

No. Only a photograph of her appears, in Mike’s locker. The film is set before the two of them meet.

What type of monster is Celia Mae?

She combines several mythological references: a single eye like a cyclops, snakes for hair like Medusa, and tentacles closer to a cecaelia or Scylla.

Does Celia Mae have any powers?

No. Unlike Medusa, whose look she borrows, Celia has no abilities at all. She is an ordinary monster with an office job.

What does Celia call Mike?

“Googley Bear”, and sometimes “Googley Woogley”. Mike calls her “Schmoopsie-poo”, and Sulley calls her “Celia-Weelia”.

What are the names of Celia’s snakes?

The official Essential Guide names them Amelia, Bobelia, Ophelia, Cordelia and Madge.

Why does Celia slap Mike?

He ruins her birthday dinner at Harryhausen’s by secretly bringing Boo along, which gets the restaurant quarantined, then tries to smooth it over with a kiss.