“Elemental” is Pixar’s latest innovative animated entry, a story set in a world where people of the four elements – Fire, Water, Earth and Air – live together.

But can they love each other?  Specifically, can Ember Lumens, an explosive Fire person, find happiness with Water person Wade Ripple?

As the voice of Ember, who has issues regulating her explosive temper, Leah Lewis, 26, finds “Elemental” as intensely personal and relevant as it is for Peter Sohn, the film’s director and guiding light.

Lewis was born in Shanghai, adopted at eight months from an orphanage and raised in Florida.  Her younger, non-biologically related sister was adopted from the same orphanage.

She began acting at six and scored her breakthrough in a 2020 Netflix movie “The Half of It” that comedically riffed on Cyrano de Bergerac.

“Peter’s an Asian American as well from a Korean household. He grew up as a second-generation immigrant in New York,” Lewis said in a Zoom interview.  “And he talks about how he ended up marrying someone who was Caucasian,” which mirrors Ember’s life choice.

“The fact that he was able to infuse so much of his experience growing up as a second-generation immigrant into this story, which is part of so many people’s experiences. I was just immediately floored me. I was jazzed to be a part of it.”

Just as Ember must decide whether to fulfill her father’s wish that she take over the family business or go in an entirely different direction, “Instead of taking over the family shop Peter also followed a different path. In his life he ended up going the creative route.

“I don’t think Peter is as intense or as fiery as Ember is, but he definitely has a drive like no other person that I’ve met. The fact that he was able to put it into ‘Elemental’ was pretty cool: To put such large messages and such large experiences and then dumb it down into these really digestible characters that everyone can understand.”

For Lewis, this career-changing voice work began because Peter Sohn was a fan.

“He told me that in a film I had done previously, he had heard different samples of my voice. In general, I think I’m a very fiery person, very headstrong, and I’m ridiculously loyal and just such a big fan of my family.  And to have a project so perfectly fit those ideals and those morals in my life and meld my own experience with finding my creative flame!

“I’m just so excited to tell that story. Because in so many ways, it’s my story as well, too.”

“Elemental” opens Friday