By Fred Topel | Image property of 20th Century Fox
Ray Romano really puts a lot of work into the Ice Age movies. Manny the mammoth may sound like him, but there’s a little more subtlety than people may realize. He actually had to get back into character for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Ray Romano Talks Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
“I have a couple lines from Ice Age that kind of ramps me into Manny,” Romano explained. “’I’m not going’ is a little more nasaly and then I’m Manny. Mostly I just do a couple of the lines and I get into that voice that I think Manny is like. It’s funny because everybody thinks the couple movies I’ve done, people just think you’re you but in your head, you hear your voice, you’re doing a character. You’re hearing your voice different. It’s maybe only to your ear but you are doing it.”
Dawn of the Dinosaurs does show Manny in a new light, particularly when he encounters prehistoric nitrous oxide. “The laughing scene, because Manny never really laughed before, [was difficult]. The hardest part was just the physicality of it, standing in front of the microphone and pretending that you’re wrestling with a dinosaur. It’s kind of weird. You’ve got to get used to it.”
The whole gang returns, including Sid the sloth and Diego the tiger. Romano still hasn’t gotten over the way they construct the group dynamic from separate recording sessions. “That’s the thing. That’s [the director’s] job because we’re never in the room together. You’re the one who has to match everything precisely, the tone, the energy and everything.”
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Then there’s losing the immediate feedback he’s used to as a stand-up comedian. “You’ve got to get used to it, as a comedian, except for Carlos [Saldanha] and the sound guys, nobody’s really there laughing at what you’re doing so you’ve got to believe that it’s funny. Or they’re behind the glass so you just see them laugh.”
At least Romano’s getting laughs. Sometimes he feels like his costars upstage him. “It’s tough for me when you bring the new guys in because I know they’re going to get all the laughs. It’s always the little guys. In the first movie, I’m like okay, Sid gets all the laughs. In the second one, I go there’s Crash and Eddie. In the third one, there’s another new little guy.”
Manny starts his own family with Ellie in Dawn of the Dinosaurs. If there’s an Ice Age 4, he expects to face familiar family issues. “Manny seems to be like 12 years behind what’s really going on in my real life. I think in the next one, he’s going to be on Cialis probably.”
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is out in theaters now.
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