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In the Disney/Pixar movie "Elemental," Ronnie del Carmen voices Bernie Lumen, the strict but loving father of Ember.

Born in the Philippines, Del Carmen went to college at the University of Santo Tomas, where he honed his artistic skills and studied fine arts in advertising.

Known as an animator and writer-director, he spent 20 years at Pixar before moving to Netflix in 2021 to be able to do his dream Filipino project that's currently in development.

Oscar-nominated Filipino director at Pixar is moving to Netflix to tell Filipino stories

In 2016, Del Carmen received an Oscar nomination for the movie "Inside Out" as its co-writer and director.

What Oscars mean to Ronnie del Carmen

Animated films typically take several years to finish, and animators and artists voice the characters in the early phase of the process.

But in "Elemental," its writer-director Peter Sohn loved Del Carmen's performance so much that he and the producers decided to give him the part.

"I recorded a lot of it at Pixar before the pandemic," he said. "Then there were times that it was in the spare bedroom upstairs of my house. The final ones, it's doing a lot of the lines over and over again at the recording booth."

Asked if he will pursue more voice-acting jobs, Del Carmen quipped: "If you'll hire me, I'll do it."

Being a Filipino immigrant, Del Carmen said he relates to the story of the "Elemental" which tells how a family moved to a faraway place after their original home was destroyed.

"It's almost as if it was tailor made for me," he said. "Being an immigrant, being a father, being a son myself, living in another country from where I was born, and struggling to try and make it and having all these very, these family issues that come up."

Del Carmen added: "These are the things that Bernie goes through. So I felt very close to what Bernie was going through in the story and it was almost a default that I can rely on."