Darla Sherman

Antagonist Overview

“	She's a fish killer!	„
	~ Peach describing Darla.

Darla Sherman is the niece of Philip Sherman and the secondary antagonist of Pixar’s 5th full-length animated feature film Finding Nemo and a cameo character in it’s 2016 sequel Finding Dory. She is an 8 year old girl who was going to get Nemo as a pet fish from her uncle, but failed.

She was voiced by LuLu Ebeling.

Background[]

Personality[]

Darla is an 8-year-old girl who is a rather spoiled, immature brat. This is seen when she gets quite overexcited once she hears about her new birthday present, Nemo. She also scares the Tank Gang as she repeatedly taps the glass on their fish tank, followed by her pretending to be a piranha.

Physical appearance[]

Darla is a small, slender, fair-skinned, freckled, little girl with red hair in pigtails, green eyes, braces with a retainer, a lavender sweater that reads "Rock-N-Roll Girl", a yellow plaid skirt, white socks and black Mary-Janes.

Appearances[]

Finding Nemo[]

Darla is the 8-year-old niece of Philip Sherman, a dentist. Although she is not truly evil, and thus not a villain, she is rather rambunctious, immature and often becomes overexcited when she receives pet fish, which ironically has frequently resulted in her accidentally killing them in her excitement.

Gill and the other fish in Sherman's fish tank thinking Darla as a fish killer and that Nemo is supposed to be her new pet fish. The last fish she received in the previous year, Chuckles, was killed by her because she wouldn't stop shaking the bag Chuckles was in. In the scene where Darla is about to take Nemo from her uncle, Nemo plays dead, but Darla thinks he is just sleeping and starts shaking the bag in overreaction. Gill then fires himself out of the tank and lands in her hair, causing her to let go of Nemo bursting his bag. After Gill catapults Nemo into the air with a tooth mirror, Darla tries to grab him, but she misses and he lands in the dental sink and is sucked into the spiraling water going down the drain leading to the ocean. After Dr. Sherman returns Gill to the fish tank, Darla grabs the sink, looking down in it, yelling “Fishy!”, wanting Nemo to come back, but she accidentally breaks it, causing it to harshly squirt water in her face. It is unknown what happens to Darla afterward.

Toy Story 3[]

Darla was seen in the magazine that Molly Davis read after organizing her donations for Sunnyside Daycare.

Finding Dory[]

Though her uncle does not make a physical appearance in this film, a photo in his consulting office makes a cameo appearance in the Marine Life Institute when Dory meets Hank in the quarantine office. This may imply she has relatives working at the institute.

Disney Parks[]

Darla appears in some Finding Nemo related attractions (although she doesn't do meet and greets) such as the Finding Nemo - The Musical show at Disney's Animal Kingdom playing the same part she did in the film, and in the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage attraction in the lagoon diving with her uncle. In Tokyo DisneySea's Nemo & Friends SeaRider, Darla appears in a sequence taking place at the Marine Life Institute's touch tank where she grabs the SeaRider submarine, but drops it when Hank grabs it from her grasp.

Trivia[]

According to one of the Finding Nemo books, the shirt Darla was wearing in the film was given to her by her uncle after her pet fish Chuckles died.
Darla was named after Darla K. Anderson, a Pixar employee, as Andrew Stanton's revenge for the many practical jokes she often played on him.
Darla, in a way, is very similar to Sid Phillips, as they are both somewhat naughty human children who serve as antagonists towards the main character's races (toys and fish, respectively), although while Sid is a genuinely nasty child (in the first Toy Story) who relishes in his sick experiments, Darla appears to be much more innocent and seemingly did not mean Chuckles and Nemo any actual harm, and apparently genuinely caring for Nemo (devastated when Nemo went down the drain).
The music that plays when Darla appears at her uncle's office is The Murder from 1960's Psycho during the shower scene.

Navigation[]

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Animals
Jellyfishes (Squishy) | The Crabs | Anglerfish | Seagulls | Giant Squid

Humans
Philip Sherman | Darla Sherman | The Fishermen | Cleveland Truck Drivers