Get Fired Up For Pixar’s “Elemental”
Voice actor Leah Lewis talks about being in Peter Sohn’s latest release, a poignant drama about immigration and parental expectations with the standard Pixar flair.
Welcome to Element City! From the mind of Korean American director and animator Peter Sohn comes a new Pixar film about immigration, family, and finding oneself. “Elemental” follows Ember Lumen (voiced by Leah Lewis), a fire person living in the city where all the elements — fire, water, wind, and earth — come and live together.
While they always tell you not to read too much into animated films, Sohn took inspiration straight from his family’s story. Ember’s parents Bernie and Cinder move from their hometown of Fire Town to Element City and open a convenience store in what becomes a predominantly fire people-inhabited part of town. In real life, Sohn’s father immigrated from Korea and saved enough to open a bodega in the Bronx.
Even beyond the environmental similarities, “Elemental” does not shy away from making allusions to Asian American and immigrant experiences. For instance, Bernie and Cinder’s real names are changed upon arrival to make it easier for people to say. There is racism — or should I say elementalism — at play when certain places are deemed off-limits to fire people but open to anyone else. Moreover, the crux of the film is about how the child of immigrants, namely Ember, handles the pressure of living up to her parents’ expectations — let’s just say she tends to explode.
Mochi talked to Lewis (“The Half of It,” “Nancy Drew”) about bringing Ember to life, how her experiences mirror her character’s, and how an outside perspective can sometimes help us find ourselves. For Ember, there is a lot of pressure to be the daughter that her parents would be proud of, and in order to do that she works every day to be worthy of inheriting her family’s shop.
“Ember’s parents are immigrants who came [to Element City] to help start a brand new life for her,” Lewis says. “I have so many friends who live that immigrant experience, and as I have been discovering my own Asian identity and culture, hearing their stories has genuinely enriched my life.”
Lewis is an adoptee from Shanghai, China, yet she shares that she resonates deeply with Ember’s story in that she understands what it is like to create our own expectations, and then feel the pressure of living up to those expectations because of our parents.
“I was adopted from Shanghai, China, and at the age of six or seven, I told my parents that I wanted to do acting and they were actually so supportive,” she continues. “They were all like, ‘We believe in you.’ Kids all the time are like, ‘I want to be an astronaut,’ ‘I want to be a fireman.’ But to be an actor is such an unpredictable kind of work to do.”
She notes that once she declared her passion for acting, her parents and her whole family got behind her, saying they sacrificed every little aspect of their lives to help her achieve the life that she wanted. “It really was a team and group effort to help me achieve this. But I do think with that comes expectations that I thought my parents put on me, and I used to be so hard on myself.”
When the audience meets Ember, she is also in a tough spot. She just had a major meltdown that cracked the water pipes in the store, flooding the basement and endangering her family and their customers, and through those same pipes flows in a city inspector, Wade Ripple, who threatens to shut down the shop, the physical embodiment of her parents’ life’s work.
Wade, a water person, is everything that Ember isn’t. Not only is he a water person — and for somewhat obvious and stereotypical reasons, water and fire people do not engage with each other — he tends to wear his emotions on his sleeve. You will see Wade and his family frequently crying from little sniffles to sobbing buckets of tears.
Lewis says that while Wade might be an outsider as viewed by Ember’s family, “he’s actually quite an insider when it comes to the kind of emotions that he has and how comfortable he is with expressing them. I don’t think Ember has ever really experienced that. It’s just like how we [could be living] our lives, growing up in our communities with our friends and family, and then someone like Wade, who at first glance is so different or an ‘outsider,’ [enters and] you actually can learn so much from them.”
For Asian Americans, Ember’s — literally — explosive anger might disrupt the viewer’s thought process. Plus, Ember is a fire person, so what more is there to expect of her — or is being stereotyped part of a larger problem? Fortunately, for Ember, Wade sees her for who she is and not who she is expected to be.
“Ember has this very emotional side to her that is quite private. [Wade] forces it out of her and [shares that] it’s okay to show your emotions,” Lewis explains, adding that the AAPI community may look at this and think she’s so angry. “We don’t really show those emotions outwardly. But I think it is really cool that she is a character that represents that, because you never really see a female get praised for being angry, and no one really loves an angry person. But I don’t think she’s angry. I think she’s actually quite frustrated with being unable to connect [with customers].”
Wade, as go-with-the-flow as he is, does not see a need to dim her light, even if it is on the fiery side. Instead, he encourages listening to one’s emotions and sharing them loudly, expressively, and with everyone. And even though water and fire aren’t supposed to mix, there is a clear attraction between the two.
Yes, “Elemental” is a love story, but also so much more. Going into the film, I expected a tired and overused plot that landed somewhere in between Disney’s “Zootopia” and Pixar’s “Inside Out.” Instead, I was treated to a beautifully created — just like Wade, I too could not take my eyes off the way Ember was drawn and animated — and well-thought-out story that takes emotions off the back burner. It has a fun plot, like all Pixar films, lots of adults-only jokes, and even some hold-your-breath moments.
Sohn’s film captures not only the immigrant experience but the second-generation experience and how those experiences clash and create tensions within families. Even my mother, who hates non-musical animated films with a vengeance, left the theater glad to have seen a film that seemed to say it is alright to have big feelings.
Disney and Pixar’s “Elemental” is an all-new, original feature film set in Element City, where fire-, water-, land-, and air-residents live together. Directed by Peter Sohn (“The Good Dinosaur,” “Partly Cloudy” short), produced by Denise Ream (“The Good Dinosaur,” “Cars 2”), and featuring the voices of Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie as Ember and Wade, respectively, “Elemental” releases on June 16, 2023. Photos courtesy of Disney/Pixar.
