Ernesto de la Cruz

"I have to sing! I have to play! The music, it's not just in me, it IS me!"

- Ernesto in one of his films. "Seize your moment/Vive tu momento."

- Ernesto's famous quote, also foreshadowing his true colors.

Ernesto de la Cruz is the sole antagonist of Pixar's 19th full-length animated feature film, Coco. He is Hector Rivera's former music partner and friend, Miguel's former idol, and a famous singer and musician who dazzled the audience with his good looks and his charm, and was a source of Mexican pride due to his handsome looks, strong morals, and his standing up for his fellow Mexicans. After dying of being crushed by a giant bell mid-performance, he resides as a soul in the Land of the Dead. However, it was revealed that Ernesto murdered Hector and stole all of his songs and compositions, and even keep all that in secret.

In English, he is voiced by Benjamin Bratt, who also voiced El Macho in Despicable Me 2 and portrayed Antonio Pope in Ride Along 2, and El Topo in Snitch. In Spanish, he is voiced by the Mexican singer, Marco Antonio Solís (also known as "El Buki") on his first villainous role.

Personality
"Security, take care of Miguel. He's been... extending his stay. (Miguel: What?! But I'm your family!) And Hector was my best friend. Success doesn't come for free, Miguel. You have to be willing to do whatever it takes to... seize your moment. I know you'll understand."

- Ernesto revealing his true colors.

At first glance, Ernesto presents himself as a charming, wise, sensible, and intelligent individual who encouraged others to follow their dreams no matter what, making him seem like a good role model to others (especially to Miguel). He also comes across as a very fun, friendly, and approachable person, the sort who's the life of the party wherever he goes.

However, it all turns out to be a facade to hide his true nature: that of a selfish and overambitious person who wanted glory and fame for himself, even if it meant murdering his best friend Hector in order to steal his song book. His afterlife as a spirit has also allowed him to strengthen his reputation, and he will go to malicious lengths to maintain it, even considering Miguel a liability in his eyes to the extent of murdering the boy to hide his secret.

Beginnings
Ernesto was born in 1896, he started out as a former friend and business partner of Hector, as they both entered the music industry wooing the people of Mexico. However, they got into an argument as Hector promised to return to his wife Imelda and daughter Coco while Ernesto wanted to continue on with the business. Pretending to support Hector's decision of returning to his family, Ernesto secretly spiked Hector's drink with poison, which took effect as they walked down the street.

Watching Hector succumb to his death by the poison, Ernesto took the opportunity to steal Hector's guitar and song book and pass off the songs as his own, gaining a reputation in the music industry and becoming one of Mexico's most acclaimed musicians, as well as a film star. Imelda, never knowing about the incident and Hector's desire to return home, grew resentful towards Hector and instigated a ban on music for the entire Rivera family while taking a hobby of making shoes as the main family business. Eventually, during one of Ernesto's concerts while singing Hector's famous song "Remember Me" in 1942, he was killed in an act of karma when a backstage hand accidentally pulled a lever that dropped a church bell onto him. Despite this, Ernesto maintained his reputation as he continued to perform to the citizens of the Land of the Dead, supplied with his own mansion and a crew of security guards at his disposal.

The Day of the Dead
The film starts with Miguel (the youngest Rivera descendant) living in the ville "Santa Cecilia" with his family, including a very old Coco who is suffering from Alzeheimer's. Unlike the rest of the Riveras, Miguel loves music and, in secret, hopes to one day be as famous as Ernesto, whom he considered to be his hero and idol.

Upon learning about a talent show during the Day of the Dead, Miguel discovers from Imelda's portrait that his descendant has a guitar similar to the one that Ernesto's holding in a photo. Believing that Ernesto is his great-great grandfather, Miguel tries to explain his discovery to his family, but they refuse to believe this, with Miguel's grandma Elena destroying Miguel's guitar and forbidding him to play music again. Fed up with his family's hatred of music, Miguel angrily curses his family before running off, deciding to perform the show himself. However, he can't enter without an instrument, so he decides to take Ernesto's guitar inside his mausoleum and use it in the concert. In the moment Miguel struck the notes, he becomes a type of ghost, being unable to be seen or heard by the living except for a street dog named Dante. In the cemetery, Miguel meets his deceased relatives, who are shaken that Miguel has entered into the Land of the Dead.

Land of the Dead
As Miguel is taken to the Land of the Dead for offanded his deceased relatives by taking Coco, Imelda and Hector photo, he meets his relatives: including Imelda, who is unable to cross to the world of the living as Miguel took her portrait from the ofrenda. They discover from an officer that Imelda can help Miguel return to the world of the living before he turns into an skeleton at sunrise.

By a relative's "blessing" with a glowing petal of Aztec marigold, Imelda agrees to let Miguel back home, but with the condition that he must give up his desire for music. Outraged by this, Miguel angrily refuses and runs away before allying with Hector, who is currently a lonely and forgotten jokester trying to visit his family to no avail and being unaware of the true causes of his death. Forming a deal, Hector offers to take Miguel to Ernesto in exchange of delivering Hector's picture to his family's ofrenda so that he won't be forgotten. During their journey to Ernesto's mansion, Hector, Miguel and Dante are being tracked down by Mama Imelda's spiritual guide (an alebrije called Pepita).

After participating on a contest to get an entrance to the mansion, an argument breaks between Miguel and Hector after the latter discovers that the former could have returned to his home all the time (as Miguel had previously lied to Hector by claiming that Ernesto was his only family). In response, Miguel leaves Hector and Dante, determined to sneak to Ernesto's mansion on his own.

Meeting Miguel
Miguel manages to enter the mansion with the help of a band (who were the winning participants of the contest) and looks for Ernesto while Hector followed him disguised as the famed painter Frida Kahlo.

During the celebrations inside the mansion, Miguel gets Ernesto's attention by singing one of his favorite songs that he sung on television, though he ends up falling into the swimming pool by accident. However, Ernesto dives in and saves Miguel, who explains about his discoveries of his ancestry to Ernesto. Despite being aware that he had no living relatives, Ernesto exploited the opportunity by taking it as a sign of joy and spending a quality time with Miguel to gain more support from the guests.

After the party is over, Ernesto stated that he had to make a decision in leaving everything behind to pursue his own dreams of becoming a musician and advises Miguel to do the same if he wishes. As Miguel explains his situation to Ernesto, the latter agrees to give him his blessing to send him back.

True Colors
Just as Ernesto is about to give Miguel a petal of Aztec marigold to send him home, they are interrupted by an arriving Hector, who confronts Miguel of leaving him behind and demands him to take his photo as he gets home. As Hector gets into a brief argument with Ernesto over the songs that he wrote, things changed when Miguel pointed out the similarities between Hector and Ernesto's argument with one of Ernesto's films where the villain attempts to kill him with a poisoned drink. Catching up to the similarities between the arguments, Hector finally realized the truth that Ernesto had deliberately murdered him to get his songs to achieve the fame for himself.

Outraged by this revelation, Hector angrily berates Ernesto for his betrayal, but the latter calls in his security guards to take him into a large cenote pit where he can't escape. Finally being aware of Hector's former occupation as Ernesto's partner in the music industry, Miguel wonders if all of it was true or not, though he denies this to Ernesto. However, being unwilling to trust Miguel, Ernesto revealed his true colors by crumbling the petal and taking away Hector's portrait before ordering his guards to imprison Miguel in the pit, admitting that he had to murder Hector to seize his moment in becoming a famous musician. This made a horrified Miguel realize what a murderous fraud that Ernesto really is.

In the pit, Hector begins to fade as his daughter Coco is starting to forget him due to her deteriorating mental state, which made Miguel realize that Hector, not Ernesto, is his real great-great grandfather. Eventually, they are rescued by Imelda and Pepita, who were guided by Dante to them. Miguel then explains the events to his deceased relatives and that Ernesto was responsible for murdering Hector and stealing his songs in the first place. With that in mind, Imelda and the others agree to help Hector and Miguel recover the stolen portrait and expose Ernesto's true colors.

Final Showdown
During Ernesto's sunrise show at a stadium, Miguel and his deceased relatives sneak in (with the help of Frida Kahlo) to recover Hector's portrait. However, they run over to Ernesto by accident, where Imelda angrily berates Ernesto for murdering Hector and causing her family's grief. Unperturbed by this, Ernesto calls his security staff to detain Miguel and his relatives, forcing Miguel's relatives to fight back while Imelda accidentally ends up on stage after recovering Hector's photo from Ernesto. Spotting Imelda on stage, Ernesto angrily orders his guards to stop her and steal back the photo.

At first, Imelda is reluctant to perform, but Miguel encourages her to sing as Hector plays the guitar. Imelda starts singing "La Llorona" while evading more of Ernesto's security guards, which surprises her dead relatives and woos the entire audience. Deciding to handle things in person, Ernesto comes in stage singing and tries to take the photo while trying to make everything seem as part of the show, though Imelda frees herself from Ernesto and gives Miguel the photo and her blessing. However, just as Miguel can touch the petal, Ernesto angrily grabs him and the photo, ranting out that he won't let him go back because it would destroy his legacy as a musician. Miguel angrily refutes this by stating that Ernesto just murdered Hector for his songs, but Ernesto doesn't care by saying that he'll do whatever it takes to achieve more fame and glory. Without hesitation, Ernesto drops Miguel and the photo into the lake before taunting Hector with a fake apology, telling him that the show must go on.

Defeat
Though it would've seemed that Ernesto prevailed as he returns to continue his performance for the concert attendees, he realized too late that several of Miguel's relatives secretly recorded his confession with a camera, exposing his true colors to the audience, who then angrily jeers him for his actions. He also realized that Pepita saved Miguel while Hector's photo dissolves in the lake, just as Pepita arrives on stage to confront him. An enraged Pepita grabs Ernesto and lifts him up before throwing him away from the stadium. Ernesto falls on a bell tower and watches in horror as the bell falls and crushes him once again (mimicking his original death), much to the audience's delight.

After gaining the blessing and returning to the world of the living, Miguel uses Hector's guitar to help Coco remember him by singing "Remember Me". Coco also revealed that she kept Hector's old letters detailing his lyrics and the ripped piece of Imelda's portrait detailing Hector's face, allowing the Rivera family to finally learn the truth about what happened to Hector. With that in mind, the Rivera family agreed to abandon their ban on music and proceeded to expose Ernesto as the fraud by using the photo and the letters as evidence of their findings. This leaves Hector to replace Ernesto as the village's new idol and hero; even a "FORGET YOU" ("OLVIDADO" in Spanish) sign was put on Ernesto's old tomb as the villagers now consider him a disgrace for his heinous actions against the Rivera family.

It is possible that Ernesto still exists in the Land of the Dead since he was already dead, but it may be a matter of time before the living begin to forget about him due to his heinous crimes, which will eventually lead to him vanishing from the Land of the Dead for good.

Trivia

 * Ernesto is the fifth main antagonist in a Pixar film to actually die at the end of his film, after Hopper from A Bug's Life, Syndrome from The Incredibles, Charles Muntz from Up, and Mor'du from Brave. Though in Ernesto's case, he actually dies twice, in both the human realm and in the Día de los Muertos realm.
 * Ernesto de la Cruz is a tribute to the singer/actors of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema like Jorge Negrete, Pedro Infante, Jorge Solis and many others.
 * However, Ernesto de la Cruz is actually physically based on the beloved Mexican icon Pedro Infante (in fact, the second last name of Infante was "Cruz").
 * Ernesto De la Cruz is the 5th Character in a Pixar film to be a surprise main antagonist, where he may not seem bad at first but would later reveal his true colors later on in the film towards the climax.
 * Ernesto de la Cruz is voiced in the Spanish version by an actual Mexican singer and actor, Marco Antonio Solís a well-known songwriter and singer, also known as "El Buki".
 * There are hints that Ernesto isn't Miguel's great-great-grandfather:
 * Ernesto is genuinely shocked upon realize he has a great great-grandson. While this, at first, can be seen as Ernesto not caring to see his family, it can also mean Ernesto is never married or had an illegitimate child, which if the latter is true, it would shatter his reputation due to Mexicans have very strict thoughts about child born out of wedlock.
 * When Ernesto gives a blessing to Miguel, his flower petal didn't shine, which is yet an another indication of Ernesto not being a family member of the Riveras.
 * There are hints that Ernesto is a villain:
 * Hector told Miguel that he knows Ernesto because he used to play songs with him and taught him everything he knows. This is proven to be true when it's revealed that Ernesto killed Hector for his songs when Hector was about to leave the life and go back to his family.
 * When Ernesto learned of Miguel's predicament that he has to return to the living world or he'll die, he calmly said, "I really do need to get you home" with the same casual indifference as if he just learned the kid was up later past his bedtime than he thought. He also tells Miguel that it's been fun and "I hope you die very soon". These are two subtle but tell-tale hints that Ernesto is a sociopath with no regard for life itself, and willing to murder someone out of jealousy (like Héctor for his songs) when he thinks they might threaten his fame.
 * When rescuing Miguel from the pool, Ernesto pushes his guitar out of the way before dragging him to the surface. This shows that he's trying to protect his reputation, and is willing to kill anyone who tries threatening it.