Lou Romano was not supposed to be the costar of Ratatouille. He was busy production designing The Incredibles when he recorded a scratch track for early animation. By the time Brad Bird took over directing the film, he became attached to the voice so now Romano voices Linguini, the human chef taking cooking lessons from a rat.
Lou Romano Talks Ratatouille
"It didn’t really hit me until I saw the film and started seeing my scenes with other characters in the film and other voice actors and other actors like Ian Holm and Peter O’Toole," said Romano. "That’s when it started dawning on me that this is so bizarre but wonderful. I get to share scenes with these great actors. But during the whole recording process, because I was in isolation and thought it was temporary, I didn’t really think of it at the time. I just was helping out. A lot of people at the studio, actually all their temporary dialogue is taken from people at the studio. And sometimes they’ll keep those people as the character."
Since it was temporary, Romano did not even do a French accent. "Early on they considered having Linguini having a French accent. I tried a little bit. This was again just when I read for the part in the scratch test, ‘Try it with French accent.’ I tried that and I tried it with an Italian accent, even. They were just looking for my own speaking voice. And it worked logically with Brad because he made the Americans in the film kind of the outcasts. All the rats and Linguini have American accents."
Coming from the technical side actually helped Romano in the vocal performance department. "Maybe I had an advantage in that I watched Ratatouille during its development and watched the process, watched the story evolve. And definitely it was helpful in seeing all of the character designs develop and seeing my character being drawn and sculpted and fully realized. It gave me a clear picture of who he was."
Now that he's been with Linguini for several years, Romano could not help but inherit some of his affection towards cuisine. "I do love good food. I appreciate the artistry that goes into it. I think the people that work here or in a creative environment I think can appreciate anything that is somewhat creative, or that has a certain level of craftsmanship that goes into it, like cooking or whether it be sound design for film or illustration work."
Ratatouille opens to theatres on June 29th.
For the trailers, posters, stills and more movie info, go to the Ratatouille
Movie Page.
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