Ellen DeGeneres has made a comeback to the entertainment industry, stepping back into the spotlight to reprise her beloved voice role as Dory in a new Pixar project. The 68-year-old former host of The Ellen DeGeneres Show will feature in an upcoming short film set within the Finding Nemo universe, as reported by Deadline on Friday. Details regarding the plot of the still-untitled short and its release date have yet to be disclosed.
First Acting Role in Five Years
This new venture marks DeGeneres’s first acting project in half a decade. Her most recent appearance was in the 2021 mini-series Pixar Popcorn, where she also lent her voice to Dory. The character, an endearing and talkative blue tang fish afflicted with short-term memory loss, first captured audiences' hearts in the 2003 classic Finding Nemo, where she aided the clownfish Marlin in his quest to find his son. DeGeneres later reprised the role in the 2016 sequel Finding Dory, which followed Dory’s journey from the Great Barrier Reef to California’s Marine Life Institute in search of her parents.
Box Office Success of Finding Dory
Finding Dory was a monumental box office hit, grossing $486 million in the United States and over $1 billion worldwide upon its release. The film has consistently ranked among the top 15 animated movies of all time.
Recent Moves and Lifestyle Changes
DeGeneres’s return to the Finding Nemo franchise comes months after she returned to the United States. In February, People magazine reported that she and her wife, Portia de Rossi, had purchased a new home in California, following their relocation to the United Kingdom in 2024. However, a source indicated that the move was not permanent, with plans to divide their time between the UK and Montecito, California.
DeGeneres confirmed in July 2025 that the decision to move to the UK was influenced by Donald Trump’s reelection as US president. “Yes. We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in.’ And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here,’” she shared during a live conversation with broadcaster Richard Bacon.
Yet just a month later, DeGeneres and de Rossi listed their luxurious Cotswolds home for $30 million, having purchased the property for $20 million in spring 2024. “When we decided to live here full time, we knew that Portia couldn’t live without her horses,” DeGeneres explained in a statement to The Wall Street Journal via UK Sotheby’s International Realty. “We needed a home that had a horse facility and pastures for them.”
