Exclusive: ''Elemental'' Stars Leah Lewis & Mamadou Athie

Hi, I'm Allison with FlickDirect and I am here with Leah Lewis and Mamadou Aché. Yeah! Woo! Everyone's so happy. I practiced. I appreciate it. Thank you. To talk about Pixar's Elemental. Hello, how are you both? Good, happy to be here. Really good, happy to be here. We're glad that you're here. So what first drew you to the character that you play, Ember and Wade, respectively?

I mean, Peter Sohn, who was the director and co-writer of Elemental, he laid Ember out for me in a way that I think was so personal to him and how honest he was about her characteristics. They already felt like they kind of matched up to my own characteristics as well. I mean, I definitely don't explode and burn things to the ground sometimes, but I definitely have a very strong-willed nature.

I'm fiercely protective over my family, and I wanna get stuff done. Ember is all about getting things done. and like, you know, community. And I think I really, really resonated that with my life too. - I couldn't wait to play a character like Wade. I love playing open-hearted, sensitive characters. I really do. I think it's important. I remember as a kid, because I felt like such a, you know, well, I was very, I am very sensitive.

And I didn't see a lot of people that looked like me inhabiting those roles. And it was always very important for me to find a lane in that. And that's been kind of a large thrust of my career. And in this movie, I got to do it to the max. And it was so fun. It was really so fun. - How much time did you spend crying? (laughing) - I mean. (laughing) - All year.

(laughing) - With Ember, she feels this responsibility to her father and her family and her culture and everything. Has there been a time in either of your lives where you felt that responsibility, that pressure? - Oh, definitely. I think, you know, and Mamadou and I were chatting about this and he mentioned this a lot too, like the debt of like gratitude.

I feel like in this movie specifically though, there are a lot of expectations that Ember places on herself. And, you know, growing up in my household, I think that because of the way that my parents sacrificed so much in their life to be able to even support my dream, which is kind of the opposite of what really happens in this film first off. You know, I was adopted from Shanghai, China and you know from a very early age like I told my parents that I wanted to pursue acting and like that's that's kind of crazy like when you hear a little kid be like I want to be an actor.

My parents were like okay, deal. And I think growing up seeing how much they sacrificed for me, you know, at the end of the day they just wanted me to be healthy and happy and confident and pursue my dream, but like I put all these expectations on myself of what I had to be or what it might look like for them and like you know my dad even tells me oh he sent me a text message the other day that was like I'm so happy for who you are and not who you think you're supposed to be.

This was like the other day and I was like elemental because that's like I definitely relate to Ember's story but you know in my case they actually really did support me, you know? Not that I don't support her in this, but I think she was even still kind of figuring out what she wanted to take, or what path she wanted to take in this story. She didn't even think about her path because it was all about her parents.

No! It was the early stages of even deciding whether she had a dream or not, you know? Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah, I mean that debt of gratitude, you know, it's kind of transformed into something more like, you know, like accepting of a gift and like, you know, just living one's life to the fullest. It's really, it's my parents, our parents were at the premiere and just to see their reaction and how proud they were and just just how happy they were for me and for themselves as well because they had a huge part in making this movie happen at least you know like at least our part, our involvement in it.

So it's their victory as well. It's their one, it's their celebration so it's all been great. Good point. So if you could be any other element than the one you play in the movie what would it be and why? I gotta go with air. They have the most freedom and who doesn't want to be able to fly. Earth, I really want to grow, I think about this I already said it, I want to grow things on my head.

I want to grow up. Vegetables, I want to feed people, you know, I love the earth. Well, I loved this movie, I loved the message, you were both terrific. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much. Hit like, smash subscribe, and get notified for when our reviews, interviews, and news go live. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]