Who Plays Bernie In Pixar's Elemental?

The newest animated film from Disney and Pixar, "Elemental" tells the story of two feuding families, one of fire elements (the Lumens) and the other of water (the Ripples). One of the reasons the families' mutual antipathy resonates with the audience is thanks to the character of fire patriarch Bernie Lumen, father to protagonist Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis). Bernie's disapproval of water-based elements forms the plot's central conflict and the drama that sparks from it.

Viewers of "Elemental" who enjoyed the voice-acting performance for Bernie might be surprised to learn that the character is not played by a seasoned voice actor at all. In fact, a look at Ronnie Del Carmen's credits on IMDb will show just three acting credits outside of his role as "Bernie" in "Elemental," and two of them are in earlier Pixar projects. Instead of voice acting, Del Carmen's bread and butter is as an animator and storyboard artist. He's been working in various capacities in animation going all the way back to the early 1990s, particularly on Pixar projects.

Ronnie Del Carmen has a little bit of voice acting experience prior to "Elemental," having appeared as "additional voices" in Pixar's "Inside Out," a film he co-directed; and in the role of Windstar in "Soul." His only other acting credit? He appears in the low-budget 2009 mockumentary "Tracy" as "Actor #6." While Del Carmen has really just started reaching his potential as a voice actor, he's an old hand in his established animation companies. Some of his earliest work was as a storyboard artist for projects like the animated "Where's Waldo?" series and the well-regarded "Batman: The Animated Series" (as well as its theatrical installment "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm"). He served as an artistic story supervisor on 1998's "The Road to El Dorado" and 2002's "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron," and in 2003, he began his long association with Pixar as the story supervisor on "Finding Nemo." Del Carmen branched out to directing for Pixar, first for the short film "Dug's Special Mission," then for "Inside Out," as co-director and original story writer.

"I felt very close to Bernie's journey — being an immigrant, being a father, being a son," Del Carmen told Esquire on the subject of his performance in "Elemental." "I could empathize with the journey of a dad with a very talented and headstrong daughter because my own daughter is like this. She works in film, and she's a go-getter. So I needed that as a way to understand how Bernie is challenged." That empathy helped Del Carmen create a memorable voice performance in "Elemental" despite the vast majority of his animation experience being elsewhere.

"Elemental" is in theaters now.