# Objective
- You usually want to say that a given animation *should* be playing, doing nothing if it's already playing.
## Solution
- Rename play to start and add new play method that won't overwrite the existing animation if it's already playing #6350
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## Changelog
### Changed
`AnimationPlayer::play` will now not restart the animation if it's already playing
### Added
An `AnimationPlayer ::start` method, which has the old behavior of `play`
## Migration guide
- If you were using `play` to restart an animation that was already playing, that functionality has been moved to `start`. Now, `play` won't have any effect if the requested animation is already playing.