Screenwriting duo behind Pixar film 'Elemental' have Columbus connection

Screenwriters John Hoberg and Kat Likkel, known for their TV and animation work including the new Disney and Pixar film "Elemental," are proud Midwesterners.

Hoberg, a Columbus native who went to Grandview Heights High School and graduated from the Columbus Academy, and Likkel, who grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan, and Colby, Kansas, have a long history as a writing duo.

Initially, the Los Angeles-based married couple resisted working together, which Likkel attributes to sexism in the industry and wanting to make it as a solo female writer. She said at the time, and somewhat still, women were often in teams with men to avoid discrimination. And getting a job was difficult.

"My very first writing job as a solo writer ... when somebody introduced me and said, 'This is Kat. She's a really funny writer,' this showrunner said, 'She's a woman. How could she be funny?'"

But she still landed jobs. Likkel's animation experience is wide; she worked on the beloved animated Nickelodeon shows "Rugrats" and "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters," where in the latter she got to direct the voice acting performance of acclaimed actor Tim Curry, who voiced a recurring character.

"Those are the moments that you love. ... It's like those moments where you hope you can tell them someday," said Likkel.

Likkel's animated screenwriting work also includes episodes for Disney's "Timon & Pumbaa," and co-creating the animated ABC and UPN show "Sabrina: The Animated Series," based on Archie Comics' "Sabrina the Teenage Witch."

Hoberg joked that he was able to write for the "Sabrina" series due to his relationship with Likkel. But his career also veered toward live-action kids' TV, including Nickelodeon's sketch comedies "All That" and "The Amanda Show."

Hoberg and Likkel worked separately in kids' TV for a while, but each long desired to break through to "grown-up TV."

Eventually, when they teamed up and wrote their first script together, it was only months before they were hired on a sitcom.

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Their breakthrough came with "Hope and Faith," a 2003 ABC sitcom starring Kelly Ripa, which they credit for providing valuable experience working in front of a live audience. They went on to write and produce for the sitcom "Better Off Ted," the medieval musical comedy "Galavant," and the hit shows "Black-ish," on ABC, and "My Name is Earl," on NBC.

"As a married couple going into a writers' room, you have two perspectives on the same thing. And we are very comfortable just being honest around people about our relationship and everything," said Hoberg. "To write anything, you have to get (to) the core honesty about emotions."

Likkel added, "You've got to be willing to be able to mine your own emotions, your own faults. And so, being a team, I think really upped that for us."

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Positively fiery: 'Elemental' story was inspired by Hoberg, Likkel and Pixar team

It wasn't until Pixar called that Hoberg and Likkel would make a major return to animation.

Their names were first floated around in 2012 thanks to their colleague and "Cars" screenwriter Dan Fogelman, but their first meeting with Pixar didn't occur until 2019, when a few individuals from the studio noticed their bios on a panel at the Austin Film Festival. This connection finally led to a meeting with Mary Coleman, then-head of creative development at Pixar.

A subsequent meeting with director Peter Sohn was shrouded in secrecy. Likkel said it felt like a "super secret spy mission," where they were whisked away in a limo, flew to Pixar, and had a whirlwind tour and an hour-and-a-half meeting with Sohn about a film they didn't know anything about.

Hoberg said the discussion centered around their family and relationship dynamics, revealing elements that would eventually influence the characters in "Elemental." Hoberg describes himself as somewhat emotional and positive to the point of exasperation, like the character Wade, and Likkel as a tough, fiery exterior that "hides a very sweet heart," like the character Ember.

Likkel said the story of "Elemental," a rom-com centered in a place where diverse "elements" live together, originated from Sohn's personal experiences as a Korean American, and his exploration of cultural clashes and individual identity within his own family. Sohn is married to an Italian American, and the blending of cultures resonated among Pixar's writers and animators, including Hoberg and Likkel, who is third-generation Dutch American.

The team also aimed to explore breaking away from familial expectations in this story.

"The movie of Elemental is really personal to him (Sohn) and his life," said Likkel. "It is the story of a person (Ember) who is discovering ... that maybe her heart is in a different place than what her family had planned for her. And the difficulty of deciding between those things."

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The power of animation and showing the 'very human thing' inside

Quickly after Hoberg and Likkel received the job offer and relocated to California to work at Pixar, their time was disrupted. It was 2020, right at the sudden onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Likkel said quarantine measures forced everyone to work remotely, but Pixar quickly adapted, providing the necessary equipment for virtual collaboration. The majority of the movie was written during the pandemic, which had minimal impact.

Hoberg and Likkel describe the filmmaking process at Pixar as meticulous and ever-evolving. Every three months, the "Elemental" team would create a new, hand-drawn rough draft of the movie, with viewings held for everyone in the company to provide feedback.

Despite the long break from animation work, Hoberg and Likkel still have a great appreciation for the medium.

Unlike live-action, animation offers the freedom to imagine anything, Hoberg said. Still, animation and live-action both require finding the relatable human element at the core of the story.

"What's great with animation is you can just explode that in the biggest possible ways to help people feel what that character is going through," he said. "What you have to do is find the human relatable thing, regardless of whether it's a fire character or whether it's a talking car. What is that very human thing inside?"

Hoberg and Likkel consider working with Pixar as the best creative experience of their careers. Working with some of the best animators and writers in the industry was a bucket list item, and they'd have a hard time saying no if presented with the opportunity to work with the studio, especially Sohn and the "Elemental" team, again.

"During the pandemic, when the world and everything was going crazy, we all got to sit there in this little bubble and work on this lovely film," said Hoberg. "It was just a nurturing, wonderful experience."

Hoberg and Likkel shared that they hope their story inspires others. Hoberg remembers reading stories about fellow Columbus natives who achieved success in the Dispatch, whether in or outside of Columbus, and how he envisioned that being him one day.

"That's really exciting for me and helped me have the courage to go out and try things," Hoberg said. "We were like, 'Maybe someday there'll be an article that said that we made a movie.'"

Likkel emphasized the power of seeing accomplishments by people from your hometown.

"It makes it possible for you to do it, too," she said. "I think if either John or I can inspire somebody ... to say, 'I can do this, too,' I would be so proud of that."

tmoorman@dispatch.com

@taijuannichole

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: A Columbus native co-wrote the new Disney Pixar film 'Elemental'