The DisneyPixar animated feature Coco is an absolutely perfect love letter to family that will make you laugh and cry, want to know more about your heritage, and celebrate where you came from. Despite a generations-old ban on music, 12-year-old Miguel (voiced by Anthony Gonzalez) dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz (voiced by Benjamin Bratt), and in an act of desperation to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the Land of the Dead, a stunning world filled with color and beauty. Once there, he meets the charming Héctor (voiced by Gael García Bernal), who helps Miguel learn the real story behind his family history before he returns home.

At the film’s press junket, Collider got the opportunity to chat 1-on-1 with Gael García Bernal about what it means to him to be a part of a project like Coco, his hope that it will score him some cool points with his kids, how important his own family heritage has always been to him, how collaborative the voice recording process is, and what he hopes kids take away from this film. He also talked about wanting to work with filmmaker Jonás Cuarón again, and what he enjoys about directing.

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Image via Disney-Pixar

Collider:  After I saw this film, I called it “an absolutely perfect love letter to family” because it’s such a beautiful story about cultures and traditions, with gorgeous songs and characters that will make audiences laugh and cry. What does it mean to you to be a part of a film like this, telling this story?

GAEL GARCIA BERNAL:  It means a lot, actually. When films come out, and they are really good, they can surpass every expectation that you have. This film leads you to wonder, even more, even though it sounds a little bit cheesy, about the magic of cinema. I’m in awe of the way the directors managed to put together a film about this tradition, in such a way that it’s very loyal to the tradition itself, but also it engages on a very personal level and it has a very personal point of view. It has all of the good things that you expect from a film.

Of all the characters that you could voice for a movie, could you ever have imagined that you’d voice a singing skeleton?

BERNAL:  No! But on the other hand, now that I’ve seen the movie, I’m like, “This has to be!”

Does voicing such a cool character like this give you any cool points with your own kids? Are they excited about this?

BERNAL:  I hope so! It’s one of those stories that’s there to be told. When doing the movie, one of the references I had for the character was Baloo from The Jungle Book. I wanted to portray that because Héctor is a similar character, with the singing and everything. Hopefully, my kids will hold Héctor on the same level as Baloo.

Did this experience change the way that you view your own family and heritage, or has that always been important to you?

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Image via Disney-Pixar

BERNAL:  Oh, it has always been important, absolutely! It’s the hive where we can always go back. I have a huge, huge family, full of characters. It’s where I get most of my ideas and stuff from. The way that I engage with it now, I don’t know how it’s changed, but it must have somewhat.

What did you think when you got to see the look of your character?

BERNAL:  I love the ragged aspect he has. Most characters are people that you want to be. You want to live that life. It gave me a chance to think about what it would be like to be a musician.

How did you find the voice recording process? Do you find it very freeing, or do you find it challenging?

BERNAL:  It’s a collaboration, really. The essence of Héctor comes from different places. It comes from who the character is, in terms of how they draw it, and then there’s the voice and the sound of it. They build it up, and when you start to build it up in the collaborative process and they include certain things from the actor who is recording it, it becomes a character. It’s a very different way of doing it from doing a live-action movie, but if you look at it from the outside, it’s kind of the same. It’s just groups of people that work on a character, that illuminate the character, give it motion and animate it. That’s also filmmaking. You create something out of little bits and pieces.

Do you still feel a certain sense of ownership when you watch the film? Does it still feel like your performance?

BERNAL:  If I didn’t know what I was doing, then I might not feel such a sense of ownership. But because I knew what was going on and where it was heading, I felt very attached to it. Even if it’s a live-action movie, there’s a sense of ownership, but then there’s the moment when it’s done and it’s no longer yours because you belong to that movie. Héctor has an ownership of me, in a way, and that’s for life because it’s out there now.

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Image via Disney•Pixar

What do you hope audiences take away from this film, especially younger kids who might not know anything about their own heritage yet?

BERNAL:  I hope that they find themselves inspired. I want them to enjoy the movie, of course, but I hope especially kids that are born in the United States, who are sons, daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren of people who come from Mexico, feel empowered. They come from a very complex and profound culture. At the moment, there is such an established narrative of hate, so I hope they can feel empowered and are able to counteract those lies about who their parents or their grandparents or their great grandparents are. If I could dedicate this film to someone, it would be to those kids, here in the United States.

At this point in your life and career, what do you look for in a project and what gets you to decide that something isn’t right for you?

BERNAL:  At this point, it’s the same as it’s always been, in the sense of doing something that is good and that is engaging. One of the things I value most about doing films is the human interaction. Engaging with people where something interesting will come out from that and that it takes me places I don’t know, that’s what I look for. I want to find something that incites even more curiosity. It’s pretty open. I don’t have a very set thing that I’m looking for, specifically.

When I spoke to Jonás Cuarón last October, he told me that he was writing a Zorro movie for you to star in. Is that something you’d still like to do?

BERNAL:  Well, I hope to work with Jonás again. That would be fantastic! That would be lovely. If it’s Zorro, that would be great. But, who knows when that will happen.

You’ve also done some directing. What have you enjoyed about directing, and are you going to direct again soon?

BERNAL:  Yes, I want to keep on directing. What I enjoy about it is that it’s a different thing, completely, from what you do when you’re acting. You have the possibility to play around with all of the different elements of cinema, and you build, construct, try out things, and experiment. It is also a very interesting way to write something like a novel or a poem, and then put it out there. I don’t want to have a career, as a director. I like being able to direct, every now and then, because it allows me to really give it all, when I’m directing, and to try out things and not have any expectations. I want to be very free about it. You find the answers as a group, but there has to be a very personal point of view. That’s what makes great films.

Coco is in theaters on November 22nd.

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Image via Disney, Pixar
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Image via Disney-Pixar

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Image via Pixar