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 the trailer "Seize your moment/Vive tu momento."

- Ernesto's famous quote

Ernesto de la Cruz is the main 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, he resides as a soul in the Land of the Dead. However, it was revealed that he stole all his most famous songs and compositions from Hector.

He is voiced in English 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 and in Spanish by Mexican singer Marco Antonio Solís a.k.a "El Buki" on his first villainous role.

Personality
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.

However, it is later revealed that Ernesto is nothing more than a two-bit, selfish, worthless, and overambitious ne'er-do-well who poisoned his best friend Hector and stole his song book to achieve fame and glory and will resort to even hurting a child to preserve his evil and treacherous nature.

Beginnings
Ernesto started out as a former friend and business partner to 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 spikes Hector's drink with poison, which took effect as the latter was walking down the street with Ernesto.

Watching Hector succumb to his death by the poison, Ernesto secretly took the opportunity to steal Hector's song book and pass off the songs as his own, gaining a reputation in the music industry and becoming one of the most acclaimed musicians of Mexico, as well as a film star. Because of this incident and being unaware of Ernesto's actions, Imelda grew resentful towards Hector for abandoning their family 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", an accident occurred when he was crushed to his death by a church bell. Despite this, Ernesto maintained his reputation as he continues performing 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 also secretly loves music and hopes to one day be as famous as Ernesto, whom he considered to be his hero and idol.

Upon learning that there was going to be a talent show during the Day of the Dead, Miguel attempts to use his guitar and soon learns 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 discoveries to his family, but they refuse to believe this, with Miguel's grandma Abuelita 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 on 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 met his deceased relatives, who are shaken that Miguel enter into the Land of the Dead.

Land of the Dead
As Miguel is taken to the Land of the Dead by his deceased relatives, he meets 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 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), who 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 actress Frida Kahlo.

During the celebrations inside the mansion, Miguel gets Ernesto's attention by singing one of his favorite song that he sung on television, though he ends up falling into the water fountain 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.

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 Ernesto of leaving him behind as one of the forgotten while he takes the fame and glory for himself. Ernesto tries to be civil with Hector, but 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. It was then Hector realized that Ernesto had deliberately murdered him to get his songs and ideas 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 pit where he can't escape. Finally being aware of Hector's former occupation as Ernesto's partner in the music industry, Miguel asks if all of this was true or not. Ernesto then revealed his true colors by taking away Hector's portrait and ordering his guards to imprison Miguel in the pit, saying that he needed to take extreme measures to seize the moment in becoming a famous musician, which made Miguel realize what a complete fraud that Ernesto really is.

In the pit, Hector begins to fade as his daughter Coco is starting to forget him, which made Miguel realize that Hector, not Ernesto, is his real great-great grandfather. Eventually, they are then rescued by Imelda and Pepita, who were guided by Dante to them. Miguel then explains the events to his deceased relatives that Ernesto was responsible for murdering Hector and stealing his songs that caused the Rivera family to create the music ban in the first place. Having learned the truth about Hector's death from Miguel, Imelda and the others agree to help them recover the stolen portrait and expose Ernesto of his 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 fight while Imelda accidentally ends up on stage after recovering Hector's 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 wooing the entire audience. Ernesto then 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 grabs him and the photo, saying that he's not going anywhere. Miguel angrily berates Ernesto for murdering Hector and stealing away his songs, but Ernesto doesn't care by saying that he'll do whatever it takes to achieve fame and glory. Without hesitation, Ernesto angrily drops Miguel and the photo into the lake before taunting Hector of his imminent fate of being forgotten.

Death
Though it would've seemed that Ernesto has won, he realized too late that Miguel have been saved by Pepita while the photo dissolves into the lake. He also realized that several of Miguel's relatives have secretly recorded his confession with a camera, leaving everyone to see what a complete fraud that Ernesto really is. Outraged by this revelation, the audience angrily turned against Ernesto, labeling him as a fraud and murderer just as Pepita arrives on stage to confront him for his actions. Realizing now that's he in hot water, Ernesto attempts to run away, but Pepita grabs him 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 to death once again, 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 letter 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" sign was put on Ernesto's old mausoleum as the villagers now consider him a disgrace for his actions against the Rivera family.

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.
 * The other 4 Pixar films to have a character with similar qualities are Toy Story 2 (1999) with Stinky Pete the Prospector, Monsters Inc. (2001) with Henry J. Waternoose III, Up (2009) with Charles Muntz and Toy Story 3 (2010) with Lotso.
 * 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".