Pixar’s upcoming original film, Coco, is set in Mexico during the annual Dia de los Muertos holiday and centers around twelve-year-old Miguel, an aspiring musician who ends up in the Land of the Dead. The film, which is being described as “music-packed-but-not-quite-musical” will also feature an all-Latino cast.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly on Tuesday, director Lee Unkrich (who helmed Pixar classics like the Oscar-winning Toy Story 3 and Monsters Inc.) said that choosing to have an exclusively Latino cast was an initiative from the beginning.
“It was important to us from day one that we had an all-Latino cast,” Unkrich said. “It focused us, and we ended up with a fantastic mix of people—some from Mexico and some from Los Angeles.”
The cast so far includes newcomer Anthony Gonzalez, as well as veterans Benjamin Bratt, Gael García Bernal, and Renée Victor; while there’s no official trailer for the movie yet, Disney Pixar tweeted about the characters on Tuesday.
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Write to Cady Lang at cady.lang@timemagazine.com