Did You Know Katya Echazarreta, the First Mexican-Born Woman To Go to Space, is in ‘Elio’?
Art by Stephany Torres for Remezcla
Elio, Disney Pixar’s latest intergalactic film, has a star-studded cast voicing the animated characters that include Zoe Saldaña, Brad Garrett, Jameela Jamil, and Ana de la Reguera. Now, the roster has expanded to include Mexican engineer, Katya Echazarreta.
Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Katya Echazarreta is the first Mexican-born woman to travel to space in 2022. Now, her career continues to take off in a new direction as a narrator in the latest Disney Pixar film.
Echazarreta’s voiceover cameo debuts at the beginning of the film when Elio stumbles upon a space exhibit. In the English version, the narrator of the exhibit is American Astronomer, Carl Sagan. In the Spanish Latin American version, Echazarreta narrates the space exhibit.
In an Instagram video shared by Echazarreta, the engineer expresses her excitement for joining the Elio cast, as well as an additional feeling of gratitude for being the Spanish voice for Sagan’s part of the movie. In the Instagram caption, Echazarreta says “Lending my voice to this narrator, who connects humanity to the universe through curiosity, science, and imagination.. felt like coming full circle.”
Elio follows the story of an imaginative 11-year-old boy, Elio Solís, who becomes earth’s ambassador after a series of mishaps and makes alien friends along the way. He’s voiced by Yonas Kibreab.
Saldaña, who plays Elio’s aunt Olga Solis, has stated that the film has been important for Latine representation, centering on the Mexican-Dominican boy’s misadventures. She said, “The fact that, like, six decades later, this beautiful diaspora is being acknowledged as a fabric of the American sort of community is quite amazing.”
Elio is now playing in theatres.
