On July 17, 1955, Walt Disney officially opened the gates to Disneyland, turning what had been 160 acres of orange groves and farmland in Anaheim, California into a fully immersive theme park and resort, unlike anything that had existed before.

The Disneyland Resort has changed a lot since then. Rides and attractions have been added and torn down. New lands have been built, an entirely new theme park was constructed next door in the form of Disney’s California Adventure, but the core of what Walt Disney created remains the same: Taking the characters and stories people love, and letting visitors experience it for themselves.

And beginning Thursday, on Disneyland’s 70th anniversary, Walt Disney himself will join the park. Or at least an audio-animatronic version of Walt, which will be the centerpiece of a new show at the Main Street Opera House (narrated by Disney CEO Bob Iger!) called Walt Disney — A Magical Life.

Earlier this week The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Josh D’Amaro, the chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, to talk about the anniversary, how Disney has used many of its recent acquisitions (Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars) to expand Disneyland, and that groundbreaking Walt Disney animatronic.

: 70 years old, but we’re not really that old. If you think about walking inside of Disneyland today, those connections that Walt probably experienced when he was in the park in 1955, those connections are still playing out today as you walk down Main Street, they are truly timeless.

So I think that Walt and then we have done an amazing job of keeping that spirit of Disneyland alive and well right up until today. It’s interesting when Walt was pushing on the idea of Disneyland, he knew that great stories combined with — at the time, for him — cutting edge technology, and then this idea of an immersive, immersive physical experience, that would set the Walt Disney Company apart. And I think that’s where we sit today, I don’t think there’s any other company in the world that is like the Walt Disney Company.

Yes, I love the fact that Walt started Disneyland that way, and 70 years later, we’re thinking about that in exactly the same way. It’s a fine balance, Alex, between celebrating and respecting tradition and legacy and still pushing forward.

You still want to be able to celebrate the memories that you had as a child with your family as you walk down Main Street, but you want to know that there’s something new all the time, every visit that you have at Disneyland. And we do both things at once, we’re going to make sure that Disneyland still feels traditional in certain ways, and at the same time, we’re going to be pushing on brand new parts of the world. Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge was a great example of that. Building out a whole new section inside of the most treasured theme park in the world. Disney California Adventure is an extension of that, where we’ll continue to add Pandora and Coco and brand new intellectual properties that we have here. So it’s a fine balance of that nostalgia that everyone wants to feel, and that newness, which we owe to our fans.

Well, first of all, we wanted to make sure that all generations new and older had a chance to get to know Walt, to understand him, to celebrate him, his life and his legacy. Walt had always talked about innovating and pushing the envelope of technology, and that’s continued up until today with our Imagineers. And the Imagineers and I believed that we were at the point where we could bring Walt to life for fans, again, both older and new, to tell his story, that the technology had matched the moment.

And so the Imagineers really pushed hard and have created a state of the art animatronic which will put Walt on full display for our fans. This was a passion project. It’s something that the Imagineers took very, very seriously. I had a chance to see it again yesterday, and I think it’s going to be a great tribute to Walt, a great tribute to the Walt Disney family, and quite frankly, a great tribute to our guests, both young and old.

Well, I’ll start with the fact that Walt was way ahead of his time, so he was thinking not about just the moment, but what the future could look like. And I would go back to something you said just a moment ago: Disneyland will never be completed as long as there’s imagination left in the world. And I think that continues to be true today. Many of the core attributes of the Disneyland experience are the same today. It’s about connection. It’s about immersing yourself in these incredibly special stories. It’s about being surprised and being put in a state of wonder, because our Imagineers can suspend disbelief and take you away from the world that’s around you.

We’ve just continued that today with better technology, with more compelling stories and intellectual property, and now, as you know, we’ve done that around the world. So I would say at its core, the idea is the same. The experience continues to get better, the stories continue to become broader and more immersive, and that’s why we’re turbocharging this business, and doing it in our existing theme parks, doing it at sea and doing it online as well.

I wanted to ask about that because, I know we talked a couple months ago when you announced the Abu Dhabi project, but Disney has brought this template to the world in both theme park form in China, Japan and and France and soon Abu Dhabi, and also at sea, as you noted with the cruise ships. So how have you tried to approach taking those learnings from Walt and the idea of Disney experiences, and bringing it around the world, making sure that you have something that is relevant to each market, but also true to what you know a Disney Experience is?

I think this is the benefit that we have of 70 years of experience and understanding at its core what a Disney Experience needs to be. And we make sure that anywhere we go, whether that’s within the Disneyland Park at 70 years old, or in one of our newer theme parks like in Shanghai, that the core experience delivery remains the same. We’re able to do it faster now, we’re able to do it in more immersive terms because of the technology that’s available to us, and we’re able to take advantage of the incredible stories that are now coming out of our studios.

So at its core, it’s remained the same: Anywhere we go in the world, you will know that it is a Disney Experience you’re participating in, whether it’s at Disneyland or in the future in Abu Dhabi.