49 Fun Facts About Ratatouille

In Ratatouille, what is the name of the rat who dreams of becoming a chef?

Remy is the rat who dreams of becoming a chef; his heightened senses of taste and smell set him apart from a colony content to eat garbage.

In Pixar's Ratatouille, what job does Alfredo Linguini hold at Gusteau's when Remy first catches him ruining a leek soup?

Garbage boy Linguini is rescued by a rat: Remy secretly fixes the leek soup he ruined, and the accidental hit earns him a place in Gusteau's kitchen.

How does Remy control Linguini's movements while hidden under his toque?

Pulling his hair: Remy discovers that tugging a tuft of Linguini's hair jerks his arm like a marionette string, and the pair turn that into a way to cook together.

What is the three-word motto of the late chef Auguste Gusteau?

Anyone can cook is Gusteau's motto and the title of his book; Anton Ego's final review admits that not everyone can be a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.

Colette Tatou is notable in Gusteau's kitchen for being what?

The only woman in Gusteau's kitchen, Colette is assigned to train Linguini, persuades Skinner to keep him, and the two eventually fall for each other.

What secret about Linguini does Skinner try to keep hidden from him?

The late chef was his father: a letter from Linguini's mother Renata reveals Auguste Gusteau fathered him, making Linguini the rightful owner, so Skinner hides the evidence until Remy steals it back.

In Ratatouille, head chef Skinner cashes in on Gusteau's name and face by selling what on the side?

Microwave meals sold under Gusteau's name are Skinner's side business, corn dogs and burritos that would have horrified the real chef.

The ratatouille variation Remy serves Anton Ego is called what?

Chef Thomas Keller suggested it and chose to fan the vegetable rounds accordion-style so it would look elegant on screen.

The layered dish on Ego's plate was originally created in 1976 by which French chef?

His version left out frying and peppers and added mushrooms; the name is a pun on the Turkish stuffed-eggplant dish imam bayildi.

Which American chef consulted on Ratatouille, let producer Brad Lewis intern in his kitchen and suggested the confit byaldi dish?

Thomas Keller's version of the dish had appeared in his 1999 cookbook with a piperade base and a balsamic vinaigrette.

After Skinner and the health inspector expose the rats, what happens to Gusteau's restaurant?

Gusteau's is shut down once the health inspector reports the rats; Ego loses his job and reputation for having praised it, then quietly invests in the small bistro the friends open next.

What is the name of the bistro Remy, Linguini and Colette open at the end of the film?

La Ratatouille is the bistro Remy, Linguini and Colette open in the final scene, a small place with Ego as its quiet investor and a rat-sized dining loft upstairs.

Who directed Ratatouille after taking over the project in 2005?

Brad Bird took over Ratatouille in 2005 and rewrote its story, and the film earned him his second Best Animated Feature Oscar after The Incredibles.

Which Pixar filmmaker came up with the concept of Ratatouille in 2000?

Jan Pinkava, who won an Oscar for the short Geri's Game, conceived Ratatouille in 2000 and left the project in 2005 over story concerns.

Which comedian provides the voice of Remy?

Patton Oswalt got the part after Brad Bird reportedly heard his stand-up routine about Black Angus steakhouse ads.

The waspish food critic Anton Ego is voiced by which actor?

Peter O'Toole, the eight-time Oscar nominee of Lawrence of Arabia, voices Anton Ego; the character's gaunt look was inspired by French actor Louis Jouvet.

Which actor, best known as Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings, voices the scheming head chef Skinner?

Ian Holm voices Skinner, the tiny, hot-tempered head chef; Holm was Oscar-nominated for Chariots of Fire and played Bilbo in Peter Jackson's trilogy.

Colette is voiced by which comedian and actress?

Janeane Garofalo voices Colette with a French accent; Brad Garrett voices Gusteau and Will Arnett the sous chef Horst.

Remy's father Django is voiced by which actor?

Brian Dennehy voices Remy's father Django, the colony's leader; Remy's brother Emile is voiced by Pixar animator Peter Sohn, who later directed The Good Dinosaur and Elemental.

Who wrote the score for Ratatouille and earned his first Oscar nomination for it?

Michael Giacchino's Ratatouille score, built on accordion, gypsy jazz and Parisian café sounds, brought him his first Oscar nomination and a Grammy for best score soundtrack album.

The film's French-language theme song, 'Le Festin', is performed by which singer?

It was the very first cue Giacchino wrote for the movie and stays in French in nearly every dubbed version.

Ratatouille won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at which ceremony?

The 80th Academy Awards, held in February 2008, gave Ratatouille Best Animated Feature over Persepolis and Surf's Up.

How many Academy Award nominations did Ratatouille receive in total?

Five: Best Animated Feature, which it won, plus Original Screenplay, Original Score, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

Roughly how much did Ratatouille gross worldwide?

$624 million: Ratatouille took about $624 million worldwide after opening at number one in North America in June 2007, roughly $206 million of it from domestic theaters.

What was Ratatouille's production budget?

$150 million was Ratatouille's reported production budget; the film more than quadrupled it at the worldwide box office.

To research the film, what did Pixar keep in a hallway at the studio for more than a year?

A vivarium of pet rats sat in a Pixar hallway for more than a year so animators could study how they move; the crew also took cooking classes to get the knife work right.

Which Pixar short was screened before Ratatouille in cinemas?

Lifted, Gary Rydstrom's short about a teenage alien bungling an abduction, ran before Ratatouille in cinemas.

The film's title works as a pun on the French dish and on what?

The species of its hero: the title hides the word 'rat', the animal Remy is, inside the name of the Provençal vegetable stew.

The film is set mostly in which city?

Paris: Remy surfaces from the sewers beneath Gusteau's restaurant after being swept away from his colony during a hasty escape from a farmhouse attic.

The real dish ratatouille comes from which region of France?

It is especially associated with Nice, and began as a rustic way to use up a glut of summer vegetables.

The word ratatouille comes from Occitan and the French verbs ratouiller and tatouiller, which mean what?

To stir or toss is the root: ratouiller and tatouiller are expressive forms of touiller, and the word originally meant a rough stew.

According to purists, how should the vegetables in a ratatouille be cooked?

Separately, then combined: purists sauté each vegetable on its own so nothing turns mushy and only bring them together at the end, as Julia Child's recipe does.

Which of these is NOT one of the usual vegetables in a traditional Provençal ratatouille, the dish behind the Pixar film?

Potato has no place in a classic ratatouille: the usual six are tomato, onion, garlic, courgette, aubergine and bell pepper, seasoned with Provençal herbs.

On which platform did teacher Emily Jacobsen post the Remy song that began Ratatouille the Musical in 2020?

TikTok: Emily Jacobsen's 'Ode to Remy' went viral there in August 2020, and Daniel Mertzlufft's orchestrated arrangement set off a wave of fan-written numbers.

In the January 2021 benefit concert of Ratatouille the Musical, who played Remy?

Tituss Burgess played Remy, with Wayne Brady as Django and André De Shields as Ego; the January 1, 2021 stream raised more than $2 million for The Actors Fund.

The Ratatouille the Musical concert was directed by Lucy Moss, co-creator of which hit stage musical?

Six, the pop musical about Henry VIII's wives, was co-created by Lucy Moss with Toby Marlow; the Ratatouille concert she directed drew around 350,000 viewers.

Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, the ride that shrinks guests to rat size, first opened in 2014 where?

Disneyland Paris: the ride opened in its Walt Disney Studios Park on July 10, 2014; the Epcot copy in the France pavilion followed on October 1, 2021.

What is unusual about the vehicles on Remy's Ratatouille Adventure?

They run on no track: the rat-shaped cars slide across the floor on their own, the same trackless idea used by Rise of the Resistance.

Before Ratatouille, Brad Bird made which 1999 animated film that flopped in cinemas but became a cult classic?

The Iron Giant, Bird's 1999 Warner Bros. debut feature, bombed at the box office before winning a devoted following; he later went live-action with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

What score does Ratatouille hold on Metacritic, tying it with the very best-reviewed Pixar films?

96 is Ratatouille's Metacritic score, level with the original Toy Story at the top of Pixar's list; its Rotten Tomatoes rating is also 96 percent.

Which Gusteau's staff member does Pixar regular John Ratzenberger voice?

Mustafa, the head waiter at Gusteau's who relays Ego's order to the kitchen, is voiced by John Ratzenberger, the voice of Hamm in Toy Story.

Which Pixar director got exclusive control of the story in 2004, before leaving to work on Up?

Bob Peterson, who later co-directed Up, was handed the story in 2004; after three months Pixar management gave the film to Brad Bird, who killed off Gusteau and enlarged Skinner and Colette.

According to Jan Pinkava, the critic Anton Ego was designed to resemble which bird?

A vulture: Ego's hunched shoulders, long neck and beak-like nose were drawn to read as a vulture, a critic waiting to feed on failure.

Which comedian was approached for a role but declined because he was busy raising kids?

Ian Holm, by contrast, was cast as Skinner after Brad Bird saw him in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

How did a Pixar staffer in a chef's uniform help animators study Linguini's soaked clothes?

Jumped in the studio pool: a staffer in a full chef's uniform took the plunge so animators could see which parts of the suit clung and which turned translucent when soaked.

A bite of Remy's ratatouille sends Anton Ego back to which memory?

His mother's cooking as a child: the first bite whisks Ego back to his boyhood kitchen, where his mother served ratatouille after he fell off his bicycle.

Remy and Emile's DVD short Your Friend the Rat was made mostly in which animation style?

2-D hand-drawn: Your Friend the Rat, the eleven-minute short on Ratatouille's 2007 DVD, was Pixar's first short done mostly in traditional 2-D animation, bookended by CGI Remy and Emile.

Ratatouille's 2006 release date was pushed back a year to make room for which film?

Cars: when Pixar pushed Cars from late 2005 to June 2006, Ratatouille slid from 2006 to June 29, 2007, a week after its Kodak Theatre premiere.

A planned Ratatouille-branded drink for Costco was dropped after complaints from which group?

The California Wine Institute objected to a Ratatouille-branded wine planned for Costco; industry labelling standards bar cartoon characters on alcohol to avoid appealing to under-age drinkers.