Good Chemistry: The Story of Elemental (2023)

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Good Chemistry: The Story of Elemental (2023)

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[whistling]

[Peter] The best stories draw

from elements of real life.

I remember learning the violin.

I was terrible, but there is a moment

when you find C, and the violin will hum.

'Cause you've hit it on the mark.

It can happen with stories as well.

Some stories can hit that C so well

that it can vibrate through everyone.

Like the universal chord.

To do that,

a storyteller pulls from real life.

-Hey, how ya doing?

-[vendor] Hello.

Can I get a hot dog, please?

I grew up in New York.

I was born in the Bronx.

My dad had two grocery stores.

In school, when I was learning

about the periodic table of elements,

when you see that chart, it always

looked like an apartment complex to me.

People that live on top of each other

just like in New York.

Each one of those little blocks

was a different culture.

Copper living next to Zinc, but don't sit

next to Helium, 'cause they're gassy.

Giving each one of those elements

a character made me laugh.

And that became

the beginnings of Elemental.

[announcer]

Please keep all limbs and branches inside.

[no audible dialogue]

[train crossing bell rings]

[no audible dialogue]

[Peter] Elemental is a movie

where earth, air, water and fire

are the characters in our community.

And within this world of elements,

there's a fire family

that immigrated from Fire Land,

and they're trying to find their place

in a crowded city

that's not so sure about fire.

Dry leaves.

[Peter]

Bernie is a shop owner like my father,

and he's brought his homeland with him,

and he wants to connect that

with the community.

Cinder, his wife, is very traditional

and believes that there's a certain way

fire people should behave.

It's true love.

[both gasp]

Which is more than

I ever smelled on this one.

Oh, goody, this old chestnut.

[Peter] In this family,

there would be a young fire girl

who would fall in love

with someone outside of her community.

But water and fire don't get along well

because they can put each other out

or boil each other away.

Here at Pixar, you're always bringing

your life to whatever that you're doing.

And for Elemental, the two sides of me

that I was pulling from

were of my relationship with my parents

and their shop.

And then my relationship with my wife

who wasn't Korean.

And the clash that that created

within my family.

I'm Wade.

I'm Ember.

[Peter] New York City has gotta be one of

the most diverse places in the world.

[Salvo]

If you go through the five boroughs,

you could literally experience

the cultures of the entire world.

More languages, I think,

are spoken in New York

than any other city in the country.

Immigrants and migrants, by and large,

come to this country for work.

[Salvo] They have resources

in the form of motivation to do well,

and, most importantly,

to do well for their children.

[Peter] My brother and I grew up

in the grocery stores that my parents ran.

[horns honking]

[Peter]

Anytime we made any money from the store,

my mom would take my brother and I

to the movies in the Bronx.

Most of the movies were American movies

that were in English.

My mother absolutely loved Kevin Costner.

His hair did something for my mom.

She just could not get enough

of Mr. Costner.

You'd be sitting next to her,

and she'd whisper [speaking Korean]

Like, "What did they say?"

And I'd be like

[in Korean]

[in English] But then I remember

my mom taking me to the public library

to see Dumbo for the first time.

And I remember not having to translate

anything for her.

That these animals,

she totally connected to.

I remember her getting very emotional

over the jailing of the mother elephant.

I always loved

that animation could be so universal.

I just remember that feeling of connecting

to something wholly in that way

that it could be your story.

We are in White Plains.

We're just leaving

to go back to my mom's place.

In my mom and dad's car that, uh,

I don't know what we're gonna do with

now that they're passed away.

My parents were from Korea.

They both came to the United States

in the late '60s, early '70s.

My father decided to try his luck

in business in New York.

My mom came as a nurse.

My parents were not supportive at all

for my love for the arts

when I was growing up.

It's a clich amongst Asian Americans

of a certain generation

that our parents never saw

a job in the arts as a practical career.

You're gonna be a doctor or a lawyer,

but you're never gonna be an artist

'cause you can't live off of that.

Elemental is not an autobiography

by any means,

but it was absolutely inspired

by my life experiences in New York

and my parents' stores.

[movie reel clicking]

All I wanted to be was an animator.

That was the dream.

The first spark,

the thing that started it all,

I saw a flip-book when I was a kid.

I remember flipping it

over and over again.

There was such a magic, that idea that

this motion was made up of still images.

And that blew my brain as a kid.

These are the books

that I did some drawings in

when I was seven or eight.

Cannot believe my brother found these.

That's all I did

in the corner of my textbooks.

In the corner of any book

that I ever read,

there would be a flip-book.

This corner is so dirty

from flipping this thing so many times.

This kid could've animated

this bat better.

[laughs]

[sniffs] Oh, my God.

They smell like childhood.

I finally convinced my parents

to let me go to art school.

I went to high school in New York

and then CalArts in Southern California.

And out of school, got a job in LA

that got me up to Pixar in 2000.

I started off in the art department

on Finding Nemo.

Each show that I was on

was either in the art department

Spot falls back out. Arlo catches him.

or story. Sometimes animation.

-With the kiss?

-Yeah. It's good.

Then, once in a while, doing voice work.

Look, lady.

My first one was

Hey, look.

a mugger in The Incredibles

-[grunts]

-that Helen Parr knocks out.

Hey, look-- [grunts]

Emile would be the next one

in Ratatouille.

I'm hungry.

And I don't need the inside food

to be happy.

All right, okay, okay.

I think I'm getting something there.

Might be the nuttiness.

Could be the tang.

Will you defend Oozma Kappa?

And Scott Squibbles

in Monsters University.

My name's Scott Squibbles.

My friends call me Squishy.

I'm undeclared, unattached and unwelcome

pretty much everywhere but here.

Then I will meditate on this.

I was also the voice of the Pet Collector

in The Good Dinosaur.

[hums] I name 'em, I keep 'em.

From there, Sox in Lightyear.

I can provide sleep sounds if you like.

I have several options.

Ocean Paradise, Lower East Side,

ooh-- Dental Waiting Room.

Good night, Buzz.

[hisses]

[hisses]

On the movie Up,

I was on the character development team.

I drew a bunch of

different designs of Russell.

One of them was sort of like

a chubby version of myself.

[laughs]

A chubbier version, to be kind.

Russell isn't exactly me

-[gasps]

-[Peter] but some of me got in there.

The hat, for sure.

It was something I'm very proud of,

being Asian American,

is that he's an Asian kid

without an accent.

There isn't any stereotypes

to what being Asian is.

He was just an Asian American.

And I love being a part of that.

It was a lucky path for me.

All I wanted to be was an animator.

That's it. Period. For my whole life.

But I love telling stories.

Like some sort of, like, cloud pulse

that goes up.

I had pitched an idea for a short,

and, uh, they gave me a shot at it.

So that was my first directing gig.

And from there, I got to work as

a director on The Good Dinosaur.

And now Elemental.

It all just came from loving the work

and getting really lucky

with the opportunities.

One of the inspirations

to make this film was this award

that I luckily received in the Bronx

right after The Good Dinosaur.

My family and I had never been

to anything like that before.

They were all dressed up

in really nice outfits.

My dad put on his fanciest toupee.

When it was my time to go up on stage,

looked out to the audience,

in front were my mom, dad

and my brother and his wife.

My dad was stoic,

doing that sort of heavy breathing

that he's not gonna cry.

And my mom was-- had, you know,

all that mascara ru--

like tire marks all over her face

from crying,

and it really hit me really hard.

"Oh, my goodness."

How much they had sacrificed,

and look at them now.

I put that speech away, tore it up,

and I just thanked them.

I came back from New York, and I was

describing the ceremony to people here

and the relationship with the parents

and some of the cultural clashes

that one has

being first generation

versus second generation.

Pretty much everyone said,

"That's the heart of the film.

That's the heart of the next thing

that you're doing."

-[panting]

-Huh?

-[announcer] Next stop, Element City.

-[scoffs]

[Peter] Element City itself

was based off many cities

from San Francisco to Amsterdam to Venice.

But because I grew up in New York,

there were a lot of places

that inspired moments in the film.

[ship horn blowing]

Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty

were huge inspirations to our film.

This idea of a hopeful place where people

all were welcomed was a big piece.

Many Americans today

trace their roots to Ellis Island.

[Salvo] It was a tremendous celebration

of what this country is all about,

and it holds a special place in history

for so many groups.

[Polland] So many Americans are

either immigrants themselves now

or the children of immigrants

or the descendants of immigrants.

Whether it was people

brought here voluntarily or not.

Immigrants are always new blood

to a culture.

They shake things up in a good way.

They bring an edginess.

They bring ambition.

They bring creativity.

They bring resourcefulness.

Ooh. Aw.

[cheering]

[Polland] This country has

always been composed of people

who have come

from a variety of different places.

My family's originally

from Southern Italy.

I was born in Moscow.

Mom's side is from Finland.

-From Korea.

-China.

From Harlem.

-Her mom is from Puerto Rico

-[sniffs]

and her dad is from Dominican Republic.

European mutt.

You know, sixth-generation somethin',

somethin', somethin', somethin'.

But that's what makes

New York City so special.

[man over PA] Welcome to Element City.

Please have your documents ready.

-Your names?

-[speaking Firish]

[speaking Firish]

Great. And how do we spell that?

[speaking Firish]

How about we just go with

Bernie and Cinder?

Welcome to Element City.

[horns honking]

[Peter] My parents came

to the United States separately.

They would meet each other in the Bronx,

there, at a church.

My mother was very tall.

My father was very short.

Somehow my dad managed to be

the same height as my mom in every photo.

My mother didn't want to have anything

to do with him when they first met,

but my father's reputation

sort of won her over.

A priest said, "He's a very hard worker.

He will provide you with a good life."

After their first meeting,

five weeks later, they would get married.

I'm a honeymoon baby,

and so nine months later, I was born.

When I was a kid,

I didn't really emotionally understand

what it took for them

to come here with nothing

and then build a life in New York City,

especially at that time.

The world of the 1970s in New York City

was a very difficult one.

The population of New York

was actually decreasing.

People were moving to suburbs

or getting out of the city.

[Salvo] The people who stayed,

many of them struggled to make a living.

[Peter]

My father came to New York with $150.

He came here with nothing.

In '70s of New York,

$75 would get you three months' rent

in an apartment in Harlem.

The other $75, he rented a hot-dog cart.

He saved up enough money to get

a grocery store in the North Bronx.

[Polland]

Opening up a grocery store in the Bronx

in the 1970s would be very arduous work.

[Salvo] And there was a lot of racial

and ethnic change and a lot of hostility.

[Peter] Rocks get thrown at you.

Or other times

when you get robbed at gunpoint.

[Salvo] But immigrants still came here

in the 1970s,

because the situation

and the conditions here

were far better

than in their countries of origin.

And they saw opportunity,

even in the midst of a fiscal crisis,

the likes of which we have not seen

in quite a long time.

[customers chattering]

-Jo-Joseph?

-Yousef.

Yousef? Nice to meet you.

Yeah, my dad used to own this shop.

-And, uh--

-Been a while.

Yeah, it's been a long-- So sorry.

This is my dad's first grocery store

that he had built from scratch.

This is so amazing.

My dad built all of this.

This was all by his hands.

It hasn't changed much.

Um, definitely,

it's got a nice new life in this.

My father had an insane work ethic

that a lot of immigrants have.

He'd have to get up in the morning,

go to Hunts Point Market,

bring the produce in.

It would be these long days

from 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning

till like 11:00 at night,

seven days a week.

You know, my mom was the cashier

in the center here.

They had built this big wooden box,

the nest of the shop.

Now, that was something that

we were trying to recreate in the film.

[car honks]

[both] Welcome.

[Peter] There would be this hub

where our main characters sort of live.

Kol-nuts, coming up.

Kol-nuts, coming up.

[Peter] That shop is not only

the place that Ember grew up in,

not only a place for the community,

but Dad's dream.

To give Ember, like my father

to my brother and I, a new life.

This shop is dream of our family.

Someday, it'll all be yours.

My dad was building all of this stuff

for my brother and I.

And by the time I was getting into,

you know, middle school and high school,

um, it would soon become a reality where

he would talk about learning the business.

I am so proud to have you

take over my life's work.

[Peter]

"This can be a possible future for you."

[crowd cheering]

[Peter] The places that they worked,

they didn't see how someone could

get a job in the arts and have a life.

In their protective way,

it was always a "no."

Ember is our main protagonist.

[laughs] Winner, winner, charcoal dinner.

[Peter] She's a twentysomething,

young fire woman.

She is a really dutiful daughter.

She loves her parents,

and she's very appreciative for

the sacrifices that they've made for her.

-[coughing]

-Are you okay?

Just tired. [sighs]

Let me help.

[Peter]

One of her main issues is her temper.

No. [blows] No, no, no, no. [blows]

Just give me one for free!

That's not how this works!

[Peter]

And it's sort of an obstacle for her.

[inhales deeply]

[Peter] But she has a talent

that becomes more of her identity.

Done.

[Peter] And that gets triggered

by someone that she meets.

[screams] Fire! Fire!

-[screams] Fire!

-[Ember] Hey! Hey!

Oh, sorry!

You're so hot.

Excuse me?

No, I mean, like, you're smoking!

-No, I didn't mean it like that.

-Are you done yet?

-Yes, please.

-Come this way.

[Peter] Wade Ripple comes

from a world of privilege.

Water is most of the Earth, so the city

should feel like water's the majority.

Water was there first,

and then earth came second,

and air would be there,

and then fire, last.

So he would come from privilege,

and he wouldn't know that feeling

that the world isn't built for you.

I was born here and lived

a very culturally Korean life at home.

But at school, it was very American.

This is my dad's second grocery store.

I have not been here in over 20 years.

I can't believe how it has not changed,

and changed.

Growing up, I just wanted to be American.

And at that time, I remember feeling

ashamed of, like, my heritage

'cause it was made fun of all the time,

and I didn't want to be that.

Took me a long time to understand

these two parts of myself,

being Korean and being American.

There was so much a part of me

that wanted to fit in,

but it's a part of

those developmental milestones

that I've learned, when you assimilate,

the phase of being

ashamed of one's culture

and then the evolution

of when that turns into pride.

[Ngai] Assimilation is associated

with the idea of the melting pot,

that immigrants become Americans.

And that often implies

a kind of cultural whitewash.

Literally, whitewashed.

It assumes that there is some

static American thing to assimilate into.

And that presupposes in a way that

that thing stays constant.

[Peter] What I love about New York is

that everyone sort of keeps their culture.

Keeps what they bring here

from their respective countries.

And so it's more of like a salad bowl

of different sort of vegetables

living together

versus a melting pot where, you know,

you're sort of stripping away things

and sort of becoming

more h*m* in one thing.

My dad started as a hot-dog-cart guy.

Saved his money. Bought one building.

Saved his money. Bought another one,

until he bought half this block out.

It's just the American dream for sure,

but, like, I remember walking with him,

you know, going from shop to shop

to check out each shop,

and, um,

some people were throwing rocks at us.

And telling us to like,

"Go back to China!"

And I remember we were like,

"We're not Chinese!"

Silence!

-[gasps]

-Yeah, great.

Can we talk about 102A and 104E

when they get to the back of the line?

Good morning. Where do I see you?

Yo, Carolyn.

Thanks for doing this one.

This one is a--

a real close one to my heart.

The xenophobia that Ember

and her father experience.

Um, it's taken many forms in the film,

meaning it comes from a real place for me

in terms of growing up in New York

and experiencing things like this.

I had gum thrown in my hair.

I remember that.

And I didn't know it at the time,

but I remember, like,

my father getting super angry

at the people that were yelling at us.

It's always shocking anytime this kind of

xenophobia comes up 'cause every time

In terms of this film of, like,

fire and water not being able to,

you know, be together,

there was-- this is one moment where

the world says that it's not meant to be.

The security guard--

He's not just doing his job,

he not only believes the bureaucracy of--

of at that time in the city, he's saying

-[speaks Firish]

-Go back to Fire Land!

Because she's so young, I feel like

it's more like, "What is going on?"

-Burn somewhere else!

-Get out of here!

[Peter] Before she goes to the shame,

she's beginning to have that, like,

inception of the idea of like,

"We-- Yeah, we're not wanted here

for some reason." You know?

As a kid, you don't know what that is.

You don't know that it's hate.

You don't know that it's ignorance.

You just think that that's what life is.

-[Kaiser] I know what that feels like.

-[Peter] Yeah.

-I really appreciate you doing this one.

-Yeah.

-[Peter] Thank you very much.

-Thank you for trusting me with it.

[Peter] Yeah, thank you.

The pieces of xenophobia and racism,

they weren't, you know, some concept that,

you know, there's a message

that I need to talk about.

They're just experiences.

But this was always a love story

from the very beginning.

It was the heart.

No. Wade, we-we can't touch.

And those darker experiences,

at the right amount,

could help us understand

who the characters were

and the holes that they had

in their lives.

I think I'm failing. [sobs]

[Peter] And then how the love would begin

to fill those holes

in each of the characters.

[cries]

When I was in high school,

my father found

this art supply shop that he took over.

He didn't want to do the--

the six to 11 hours anymore.

My brother now runs my father's shop.

Growing up as the older brother,

it was my job to beat him up

and give him a very tough life.

And wherever we would go,

I would just cram him in a box.

-Would you say that that's how--

-You did very well.

[laughs]

[Peter] Because our parents

were saying "no" to a career in the arts,

this shop was gonna be mine.

In Korean culture, like,

that's a responsibility

that befalls the older sibling.

That's right.

And-- [laughs]

And I left and I went to California,

and to this day, I'm so grateful.

Still have so much guilt over it.

Like, "Man."

[Phillip] Because of the art supply store,

our father got to meet artists

that were actually

making a living for themselves.

And that idea of like,

"Wait, you're an artist?

And you can make money?

Like, you-- This actually works?"

I think that was the moment

where our father accepted it.

And actually started pushing.

"If you're gonna do this,

you're going all in."

[Peter] Because my parents

didn't speak English very well,

my brother and I would become

essentially like cultural brokers.

[Salvo] For most immigrants,

the children are born here.

They learn the language very, very quickly

and act as interpreters for their parents.

And act as a segue

into the larger culture.

Between going to the supermarket

or going to the movies,

there was always

some amount of translation.

[Phillip] I don't know how

they purchased houses or signed contracts.

It's amazing that they were able

to navigate that part of the world.

My Korean isn't great, so I'm, like,

translating at a third-grade level.

And so there's always some level

of miscommunication.

You're just always translating

not only language but,

"No, no. That's called sarcasm, Mom."

That would be the source of

a lot of arguments,

where, as a young kid, telling my mother

what we can or cannot do in this culture.

Without speaking the language,

my father had a charm

where he could make connections.

Oh. [laughs]

-Happy birthday!

-[grunts]

[Peter] He always told us, as a kid,

that he learned English

from Star Trek and Bonanza.

He had this gregarious nature,

and he would always--

He couldn't pronounce words and stuff,

but he would say 'em like

that's the way that they should be.

He would say the word "nuclear,"

"Nicaragua."

That's right.

And he would just be like,

"Ah, there's a Nicaragua reactor."

And you're like, "Dad, it's nuclear."

"Ah, same thing. Whatever." You know?

I came home once, and he was watching,

um, the Spanish channel.

And I was like, "Dad,

you're watching the Spanish channel."

He's like, "It is?"

Hmm. I think he's lying through his feet.

-Teeth.

-Whatever.

-[Peter] He didn't care about the details.

-[Phillip] Yeah, yeah.

Those details were not important

when the world was so shifted for them.

[Phillip]

I married my wife who is from Korea.

It was interesting,

when she first met my parents,

they were conversing so freely.

Just watching Heather talk to my parents,

making them laugh.

My parents never laughed.

And I'm like, "This is so bizarre."

And I was like,

"Peter, you have to see this."

The idea of how bad

our language barrier was

-Mm-hmm.

-didn't really come into play

until you see

what it looks like without it.

That was the office that my brother and I

hung out in after school.

[Phillip] And they had a little TV

up there with a busted speaker.

So we would be watching cartoons

with no sound.

I think that's where probably

my brother learned how to draw.

We'd get these big pads, and then

we would be drawing on both ends of it.

And then there was a day where, you know,

we were just drawing basic stickmen.

And my stickmen are just like your--

your basic hangman stickmen

with, like, straight lines, and his--

They weren't really.

They were really good.

No. His had, like, character.

Like they were dancing on the page,

and you could feel emotion and expression

from a little stupid stickman.

And you're like,

"Wow, that's-- that's different. That's"

I guess that's what you call talent.

[laughs]

My childhood was trying to help my father

with each one of these places.

-Oh!

-[both laughing]

-Water. Keep an eye on them.

-[water person] Hey.

[laughs] Oops.

[Peter] So my first job was security.

You splash it, you buy it!

[screaming]

The whole job would be like,

"I think this guy stole something!"

There were no cameras,

so you would just stand in a lane.

Yeah. There were mirrors

you would be eyeballing.

I wasn't helping anything. I was terrible.

I was just playing in the aisles

most of the time.

My brother, when he did art, 200%,

stays up late, would constantly draw.

But when you're at the art supply store

and you have to work,

he'd find a nice place to sleep.

[both laugh]

Between, like,

walls that were, like, two feet,

and I'd just wedge myself

on top of the mat boards.

Secret places

that my mother would be like,

-"What are you doing here?"

-[laughs]

-"This is where you're at? Not working."

-[laughs]

This is the same right here. Oh, my God.

What we used to do here

was hang out in the fridge

and scare the crap out of people.

If someone was grabbing the milk,

you'd push the milk cartons to the edge

so they couldn't--

They'd have a tough time, and we'd giggle.

Uh, the bologna life.

That's what this was.

We lived in every section of the store.

We'd do our homework.

We eat lunch in different aisles,

or we'd grab food.

There's still some of that junk food

from the '80s

still somewhere around here, and here.

You know, this is Sara Lee.

You know, this is Hostess.

The proudest thing for him,

as a dad, was like,

"My two sons are tall. Look at this."

We're not that tall, you know, but, like,

he was a short man, and so, like,

there was always like,

"Eat good. Grow." You know?

I assume him allowing us to eat

all this stuff was, uh, you know,

to get us, like, nice and big.

And so congratulations, Dad.

You were successful.

I don't know if it was

just that time period

or how crazy helicopter parenting

has gotten today,

but wasn't a lot of day care going on.

We'd bike everywhere. Busy streets and

"What's the next street we can get to?"

And if you got to this other neighborhood

that you hadn't been before,

there were kids there that are like,

"You don't belong here!"

-That's right.

-"Get outta here!"

We're like, "This is our country too,

but let's go! Let's get outta here!"

-[Phillip] That's right.

-Yeah.

We would both ride together. One bike.

[Peter] There were no parents.

Like a urban Lord of the Flies,

but instead of Piggy with the glasses,

it was, like,

Ramn with the banana-seat bike.

Now, as a parent and having kids,

I've become very nostalgic.

Walking around my dad's shops

triggers those old memories.

My mom would have these wood pallets,

put cardboard on top of it,

and we would just sit there playing cards.

My dad would mind the store,

and then he would come in

when there were no customers

and eat with us very quickly.

Simple foods with my mom and dad.

Yeah.

Yeah, my boy, I'm feeling that.

[Chambers] If this makes you happy,

I'm not gonna be--

[Peter] I owe Phillip a lot.

I did fall in love

with someone who wasn't Korean.

It is.

We met at CalArts.

She was this amazing artist.

It was my second year,

and it was your first year.

Mm-hmm.

[Peter] When I first heard her laugh,

it melted my heart.

I just fell in love with her.

I think of that time as,

like, the best time.

[Chambers] That was a good era.

[Peter] Yeah.

Our grandmother's dying words were,

"Marry Korean."

[speaking Korean]

You know? And then she passed, you know?

-And--

-Freedom!

[laughs]

Promise me one thing.

Marry Fire.

[grunts]

[Peter] Anyone, if they weren't Korean,

wasn't good enough.

The pressure's for real.

["Steal the Show" starts]

This is gorgeous.

How long were we together

before we got engaged?

It was, like, seven years?

[Chambers] Probably. Yeah.

[song continues]

[Peter] I had kept you a secret.

My dad was very welcoming,

but my mom was still unsure.

Who is this guy?

It was love that kept us together.

-[chuckles]

-No? Too cheesy. I'm sorry.

It's totally cheesy.

[song continues]

[Peter] I think she became more welcoming.

Did you feel that?

She would tell me things,

how I'm good for you, like--

-[chuckles]

-Uh-huh.

"Anna's good with money. You're not."

-Like, 'cause you're

-[laughs] Yeah.

[Peter] But I remember it was a slow burn

for her to open up.

I remember your dad, he was very nice.

He would make me

a special giant salad bowl to myself.

-Yeah.

-[laughs]

[Peter] Right. 'Cause we don't eat salad.

That was very nice of him to do.

-[Peter] Yeah, I miss that about him.

-Yeah.

[song continues]

-Let me take a picture of you here.

-[chuckles]

[Peter] My mom and dad never said,

"I love you."

They never said those words.

Only later in my life,

did I understand that they didn't need to.

In Korea,

there is an understanding, culturally,

taking care of each other,

that was the "I love you."

[Chambers]

Your mom loved to buy me jackets.

[Peter] I know. That was her way of saying

how much she really loved you.

[shutter clicks]

[song ends]

[Peter] I've never really

done anything personal like this.

This film is all about gestures of love.

There was a moment in Ember's past

where there was some xenophobia,

and she wasn't allowed to enter

this station to see this beautiful flower.

Wade finds a way for Ember to see it.

It's very much

Wade's gesture of love to Ember.

[Ember] Whoa.

Elemental is not just a love story

between a boy and a girl, fire and water.

It was about a parent and child as well.

[both speaking Firish]

[Peter] There were constant

gestures of love from my parents.

Taking care of each other,

that was the "I love you."

Good daughter.

[Peter] Having lost my parents

while making this movie,

it became a way to honor them.

It became my gesture.

It was the best way

that I can say, "I love you."

[jazzy piano plays]

Uh, we would like to get

two hot dogs, please.

Thank you.

Cheers.

-[laughs]

-[mutters]

I'd eat two bites probably.

The Twinkie wrappers

are, like, stuck in this.
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