Garofalo is the secret ingredient

By Courtney Lear

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 7/7/07 — As the latest golden goose for Pixar goes into its second box office weekend to face the robot giants of “Transformers,” the rat in “Ratatouille” still has a lot of heart.

“The concept in this beautifully wrought film is about the pursuit of excellence, it doesn’t matter if it’s cooking or what because that’s what Pixar is about, the pursuit of excellence, that’s why it took them 5 years to make this film,” said Janeane Garofalo who plays Colette, the perfectly French sous chef at Gusteau’s kicking and clawing reclaim the restaurant’s lost stars.

The French character was a new challenge for the 42-year-old New Jersey native.

“I’ve not been to France. I’ve not taken French. I’ve never done a French accent in a movie before,” said Garofalo. “I had a CD of a French man speaking English and I mimicked him. Then when I lost the CD I watched International CNN where they had a French anchor.”

Her personal training gave Colette a sweet and sly delivery including one of the best lines in the movie “Sorry to be rude, but we’re French,” thrown off the cuff with a smooth Parisian slant.

Her French bread persona (hard on the outside, soft in the middle) struggles to carve out her place in the kitchen in a similar way to the film’s fuzzy hero Remy.

“They picked the thing that would have the hardest time becoming a master chef, that’s a rat. Think of all the obstacles a rat would have to overcome to become a five star chef at a fine dining restaurant in Paris,” she said.

But just as culinary rats struggle in a human world, women struggle in male dominated kitchen, which Garofolo compared to Hell’s Kitchen.

“I think women don’t tend to thrive in Gordon Ramsey style screaming. I don’t think it works with the feminine nature to have people screaming in your face like a sergeant. They don’t tend to thrive in those conditions. They will probably cry, I know I would and then it’s not fun. I think if I were in the kitchen I’d cry a lot,” she said.

However, the Garofolo understands that the waterworks are for show, conflict equals entertainment but she doesn’t approve.

“It’s a sport about seeing other people being humiliated. I don’t understand it like lets see how embarrassed this person can get doing this or how drunk they can get in front of us. I really don’t understand that concept of you want to watch the awkward stuff as if life doesn’t have its own awkward humiliating moments.”