Ellen DeGeneres is coming back to the big, or rather, small, screen, and she is bringing everyone’s favourite forgetful fish with her.

The former talk show host is set to reprise her role as Dory in a new short film set in the Finding Nemo universe, according to Deadline. 

No further details have been announced at this stage.

The return marks DeGeneres’ first acting credit since the 2021 Pixar Popcorn mini-series, in which she also voiced the beloved blue tang. 

She originally brought Dory to life in 2003’s Finding Nemo, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, before reprising the role in 2016’s Finding Dory, a global phenomenon that grossed over $1 billion worldwide.

The news is notable given that DeGeneres, 68, had suggested her public appearances were effectively over. 

After ending The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2022, following widely reported allegations of a toxic workplace, she relocated to England with wife Portia de Rossi in 2024 and released a Netflix stand-up special, Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval, in which she addressed the controversy with her characteristic dry wit.

“Well, let me catch you up on what’s been going on with me since you saw me last,” she told the audience. 

“I decided to take up gardening. I got chickens.” She then appeared to consult notes before deadpanning: “Oh yeah, I got kicked out of show business.”

She also took aim at the headline that had followed her. 

“‘The Be Kind Girl wasn’t kind.’ That was the headline. Here’s the problem: I’m a comedian who got a talk show, and I ended the show everyday by saying, ‘Be kind to one another.’ Had I ended my show by saying, ‘Go f–k yourselves,’ people would have been pleasantly surprised to find out I’m kind.”

Prior to the special’s release, she had told a California audience it would likely be her final screen appearance. 

“This is the last time you’re going to see me. After my Netflix special, I’m done.” 

Dory, it seems, had other plans.