Ratatouille Movie Characters:
The Main Characters

Compared to other Pixar movies like The Incredibles, the Ratatouille movie characters are not as many. But it doesn't take away from the movie's touching plot. Get to know each one well and enjoy the movie even more.

Let's learn more about all the main character rats and people in this movie.

Remy

The lead character in the Ratatouille movie, Remy is a blue rat who lives in a French countryside cottage with the rest of his rat colony. Remy feels out of place, not having the same qualities as the rest of the rats. He doesn't like to steal and he likes to savor good food.

Food is Remy's passion. He has a gift for taste and smell and has a talent for cooking. He knows what goes well with what and Remy has a dream to one day be a chef.

Remy's hero is Auguste Gusteau - the famous chef who makes the claim that "Anyone Can Cook" and Remy believes that, too. He is saddened when he finds out his hero died, and Gusteau appears as his imaginary friend to help him through dilemmas and decisions that lead to his success when he ends up in Paris at Gusteau's restaurant.

In the Ratatouille movie, Remy befriends Alfredo Linguine, a garbage boy hired at Gusteau's. Remy saves the soup Linguine ruined and Linguine saves Remy from his demise after he's captured.

Remy learns that he can control Linguine like a puppet when he sits on his head and tugs on his hair. Remy becomes a great chef by channeling his actions through Linguine and his dreams come true.

Alfredo Linguine

Alfredo Linguine is a lanky and awkward young man who turns out to be Auguste Gusteau's son and rightful heir to Gusteau's restaurant. In the Ratatouille movie, he was sent to the restaurant to get a job after his mother had passed away. But since he cannot cook and doesn't know the first thing about food, he is hired as the kitchen garbage boy who basically cleans up the place.

Because Linguine is clumsy, he knocked over a pot of soup during his first night at work. He tries to make the soup right again, but only makes it worse. Remy sneaks down from a skylight window and saves the soup, but Linguine catches him and hides him under a colander.

Linguine and Remy become friends when Remy saves him from the soup situation and Linguine saves Remy from being destroyed on Skinner's orders.

Linguine learns that Remy can control his movements when the rat tugs on his hair and so together they cook fantastic meals at Gusteau's restaurant.

In the Ratatouille movie, Linguine is attracted to Colette, the only woman in the kitchen. She shows him the ropes of working as a cook in the restaurant and they become close and later develop a romance with one another.

He also discovers that he is Gusteau's son and rightful heir to the restaurant and has Skinner, the chef, fired. But the success of Gusteau's new-found popularity is short lived when Linguine and Remy's secret is discovered.

But because he and Remy impressed restaurant critic Anton Ego so much, they were able to open a small and wildly popular bistro called La Ratatouille at the end of the film.

On a side note, Alfredo Linguine's name is food-related. Alfredo is a creamy white garlic sauce for pasta and linguine is a long, thin spaghetti-like pasta that is flat instead of round.

Colette Tatou

But she develops a soft spot for garbage boy turned cook Alfredo Linguine in the Ratatouille movie. Colette defends him when he is caught fixing some soup he spilled onto the floor and later takes him under her wing to teach him the ins and outs of cooking in a professional kitchen.

She doesn't understand why Chef Skinner has such an interest in Linguine and tries to get Linguine to open up to her the morning following a meeting in Skinner's office. Linguine was still asleep during her questioning, though, with Remy controlling his movements.

Thinking he was insulting her, she slaps his face and walks out. The slap wakes up Linguine and he follows her to her motorcycle. He raves on about telling her the truth about something, almost like a lunatic, and she gets out her pepper spray. Remy, who is hiding under Linguine's hat, doesn't want the truth to come out, so pushes Linguine into Colette and they kiss.

The kiss blossoms into a relationship between the two and when Linguine discovers he is the rightful owner of Gusteau's they fire Skinner and pair up as partner chefs, taking Gusteau's to new heights of popularity.

Later in the Ratatouille movie, when the truth about Remy emerges, the entire kitchen crew walks out but Colette remains with Linguine, although she does leave at first. She lives by Gusteau's motto that Anyone Can Cook, and can give support to Remy the Rat, who can cook VERY well.

When Gusteau's has to be shut down for rat infestation in the Ratatouille movie, Colette, Alfredo and Remy open a new bistro with funding from the one food critic they never thought they could win over: Anton Ego.

Anton Ego

Anton Ego loves food, but if he doesn't love it, he does not swallow. So it goes to show that Anton Ego is a thin and humorless man. In the Ratatouille movie, Ego is a powerful restaurant critic who makes or breaks the chefs and the restaurants they own, and is greatly feared in the culinary world.

Anton Ego does not believe that anyone can cook as Auguste Gusteau did and was critical of the chef's idealist message. Gusteau was so upset when his five-star restaurant became a four from Ego's review that he died, which automatically reduced the restaurant one more star to three. Ego's harsh review that caused Gusteau's mysterious death compared Chef Gusteau to Chef Boyardee. Ouch!

On the night of the review, Ego is elusive when he says, "Give me some perspective," to the confused waiter. Back in the kitchen, Remy communicates to Colette that they should make ratatouille, the simple peasant vegetable stew.

In the Ratatouille movie, Remy makes it a special way, artfully sculptured on a plate and drizzled with colorful sauce on the plate. It only takes one bite for Ego to be transported back to his childhood when his own mother made the stew for him. Ego's face brightens and he is delighted by the time his meal is finished.

When Ego finds out that a rat is the one who cooked his magical ratatouille, he ponders what he will write in his review. He changes his mind that "Anyone Can Cook" and he calls Remy the finest chef in all of France.

Ego helps Colette and Linguine open a bistro after Gusteau's is closed down and calls it La Ratatouille, with special rooms and ladders for Remy and his colony to hang out. Ego is their number one patron.

Skinner

Chef Skinner is a small man with a thin mustache and bulging eyes. He was the sous-chef when Auguste Gusteau was alive, but became the restaurant's head chef upon Gusteau's death in the Ratatouille movie.

Skinner doesn't have a whole lot of moral integrity; he has plans in the works to begin a line of frozen microwaveable dinners with Auguste Gusteau's well-known image. It would have been Gusteau's worst nightmare, but for Skinner? It only means profit.

Chef Skinner is put in the difficult situation of having to hire Alfredo Linguine as a garbage boy when the young man told him that his late mother was involved with Gusteau. Her request was for Linguine to get a job at the restaurant.

It is only when Skinner finally opens the letter Linguine gave to him much later that he realizes that Linguine is the rightful heir to Gusteau's restaurant, and not him as expressed in Gusteau's will. He tries to keep this fact from Linguine and makes life difficult for the young man in the Ratatouille movie.

Then Skinner sees Linguine with Remy on several occasions, and his attempts to uncover Linguine's plot fail again and again. One night he sees Remy in his office taking the will and other legal documents that prove Linguine is rightful heir. An exciting chase ensues in Ratatouille, and Remy gets away with the precious paperwork.

Shortly thereafter, Skinner gets the boot and is fired from Gusteau's with Alfredo Linguine heading the operation. The frozen food idea is immediately scrapped and Skinner ends up spying on Colette and Alfredo, sabotaging them by calling the health inspector to complain of a rat problem in the restaurant.

Through his spying efforts, Skinner learns that it is Remy who can cook, and he captures Remy in a rat cage. This is on the night that the famously harsh restaurant critic, Anton Ego, is scheduled to visit Gusteau's.

Skinner goes to Gusteau's in disguise and takes a table near Ego to watch how badly Linguine will fail without the help of his little chef. To Skinner's astonishment, Linguine serves both he and Ego an elegant dish of ratatouille. Ego loves the dish, which surprises Skinner even more.

He races to the kitchen to see how Linguine did it, and sees the kitchen full of rats helping with the cooking. Because of what he saw, he is bound with this mouth taped shut and tossed into the walk in refrigerator, along with the health inspector who arrived shortly before Skinner.

Gusteau's closes, of course, because of the rat infestation, but once Linguine and Colette open their new bistro, Skinner admits defeat and leaves them alone.

Auguste Gusteau

A talented master chef with a five star restaurant, Auguste Gusteau built his reputation and fame with a motto and book, "Anyone Can Cook."

However, he was given a nasty review by restaurant critic, Anton Ego, who disagrees with him that not anyone can cook and compared Chef Gusteau to Chef Boyardee. Ego's bad review knocked Gusteau's rating from a five star to a four. The comments and reduced star rating upset Gusteau so much that he died mysteriously.

In the Ratatouille movie, Gusteau appears with Remy the rat as his guide, giving Remy the advice he needs on being true to himself. Auguste Gusteau is Remy's hero and he gives the rat timely advice and deep thoughts to mull over.

Auguste Gusteau is also Alfredo Linguine's father resulting from a romance long ago. Linguine was surprised to discover that Gusteau was his father, and he rightfully inherits the restaurant, but not before Skinner tried to stop him from knowing.

• Ratatouille Minor Characters