Young star steps into limelight with ‘Coco’
MOVIES
Headlining a Pixar film would mark a career high for many. Anthony Gonzalez did it near the start of his working life.
Now 12, the Los Angeles native was 9 when filming began on “Coco,” the animation studio’s first nearmusical, in theaters Nov. 22. Amid a cast full of celebrated stars, Gonzalez is the clear highlight, singing and speaking the leading role — a winning boy named Miguel, whose search for his family heritage and history accidentally transports him to the afterlife’s Land of the Dead.
Gonzalez sings, plays violin and viola, and is “working hard to master the piano,” he said in a phone interview. Most of all, he said, “I just love acting. I’ve been doing it since I was 4,” the age when he marched into a legendary Los Angeles talent agency for Hispanic performers, belted out a mariachi tune and was signed instantly.
He has done several commercials and last year appeared in the short film “Icebox,” a drama about a young boy in the U.S. immigration system, and its followup feature film adaptation with the same title.
“But I never thought I would be in a Disney/Pixar movie. I grew up with ‘Toy Story’ and I just love that.”
While the voice talent in “Coco” includes Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt and Edward James Olmos, it’s clearly Gonzalez in the limelight. The film is a fanciful take on the lively Dia de los Muertos celebrations in Mexico and throughout Latin America. It’s a joyous holiday, winking at death rather than crying over it. As openair markets sell folkart skeletons and sugar skulls, the holiday celebrates the memory of the departed with parties, food, drink and activities that the dead enjoyed in life.
Gonzalez’s character, 12yearold Miguel, finds that colorful, hallucinogenic afterlife to be kidfriendly — a parallel world where skeletons can have warm human emotions, if not hearts. But while it’s fantastic in both senses of the word, it’s not a place a young accidental tourist wants to remain for eternity.
The slowgestating concept behind “Coco” was announced by the studio early in 2012. The same year, 20th Century Fox said it would release its own vividly colorful, musical Mexican animated adventure in the hereafter produced by Guillermo del Toro. “The Book of Life,” starring Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana and Channing Tatum, was released two years later, to limited success.
Given Pixar’s rigorous talentrecruiting system and its famously long development schedules, there was no guarantee that Gonzalez would make the casting cut.
“It was a very long process,” he said, which involved auditioning repeatedly for Oscarwinning director Lee Unkrich (“Toy Story 3,” “Finding Nemo,” “Monsters Inc.”) for nearly a year between fifth and sixth grade.
As the end of 2015 approached, he had another meeting with Unkrich to perform the character’s lines.
“Lee said he had a present for me before Christmas and he went to get the present. I opened it and it was this beautiful piece of art that said, ‘You got the part!’ I was so shocked and excited that I just fell to the ground.”