The director and producer of Finding Dory have told RTÉ Entertainment that the movie's youngest star was "paid in chocolate".
Seven-year-old Sloane Murray, who voices Young Dory in the sequel to 2003's Finding Nemo, is the daughter of Finding Dory producer Lindsey Collins but was cast in the film almost by accident when director Andrew Stanton needed to record a child's voice so he could hear one particular line in playback.
"It wasn't even done professionally at first," Stanton told RTÉ Entertainment. "We were just, 'Could we get her in for this one line? Just so it doesn't sound like an adult doing it, to see what it feels like'. And it was like, 'Wow, that sounded amazing'."
"She was four-and-a-half," added Collins, and the line was: 'I'm Dory and I suffer from short term memory loss'. Because she was four-and-a-half she couldn't pronounce it. She said, 'I suffer from short term memembery loss'. Andrew was like, 'Sold!'"
The youngster's role then became bigger as work on Finding Dory continued over a number of years, and in the finished movie she has a number of scenes with Dory's parents Charlie and Jenny, who are voiced by Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton.
"It was fun for me, she got to come into work with me," continued proud mum Collins. "It's something I get to have for the rest of my life, which is pretty great. When she's 18 and driving me crazy I can play the movie back and say 'See! One time she was very cute!'"
When asked whether her daughter had inquired if some of Finding Dory's box office haul was making its way to her piggy bank, Collins replied: "As far as she knows she got paid in chocolate! So there's no need for her to know anything more than that for a while. But I'm sure it'll come up!"
Finding Dory is in cinemas from Friday.
