director Brad Bird, the best animation director alive right now according to voice actor Patton Oswalt, says it s very strange to watch his latest animation project with a real audience. You tend to see the movie when you go over every inch of it so many times, you tend to see it as a collection of bits. The nice thing that happens is that you get pulled out of that.
And because they re seeing it for the first time, you kind of get to reconnect with that feeling and it s very satisfying. It s nerve-wracking because you re hoping that they re going to like it and go with it. But when they do it s very satisfying.
Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar s latest excursion into the world of animation is set in Paris and follows the adventures of a rat named Remy who loves to cook. Remy s got a nose any great chef would kill for and a desire to expand his universe and strike out on his own to follow his dreams. Picking the Voice Cast: With the exception of just a couple of names, the voice cast of consists mainly of unfamiliar names.
Commenting on that decision Bird said, I think that it s helpful to be at a company that has enough confidence to do that. I think oftentimes people who are not sure about their stories or their storytellers try to inject steroids of familiar celebrities, thinking that audiences go to these things to listen to people. I don t sit there and go, You know what I m looking for in animated film?
It s a familiar celebrity voice. That s what I go to see in animation. In fact, you can turn the picture off.
I just want to hear familiar celebrity voices. The fact that our films are at least as successful as anyone else s says that that s not what people go to movies for. They want to be transported.
Pixar s standpoint, which is my standpoint as well, is that how you transport people in terms of the voices is that you pick the most appropriate one for the character. And that might be somebody famous like Tom Hanks, or Peter O Toole in the instance of our film, or it might be somebody kind of well known. Patton Oswalt is becoming well known as a comedian, but people don t think of him as a movie star.
And it might be somebody that no one has ever heard of which is like Lou Romano, art director of who s the voice of Linguini in this movie. I think all three of them turn in excellent performances and they re all perfect for their roles. So I think that that s what s important to us is who is going to encourage us onto this journey in the best way.
I wasn t personally responsible for any of that, admitted Bird. Fortunately, we have far smarter people here than me on that topic. There was quite a bit of effort expended to make the food look delicious.
Because if one of the things your movie is about is gourmet food, then you can t have it not And computers aren t really very interested in making things look delicious. They re interested in things looking clean and things looking geometrically precise, and usually hard not squishy not tactile. Computers are great for perfection.
They re not great at organic things. We had to work really hard to get the food to look like you could taste it and smell it and enjoy it. The French, Critics, and Rats: Bird said he never worried he might unintentionally insult the French with his film.
I don t walk on eggshells making movies. I mean, some people were worried about having a main character who s a critic. That wasn t my idea but I thought, If I m going to do a story with a critic being a main character, then let s do it.
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