Actors Ray Romano and John Leguizamo are the voices of Manny the Mammoth and Sid the Sloth in the new animated film Ice Age. The movie is Ray (Everybody Loves Raymond) Romano's first feature film and he's a mammoth! Leguizamo has many films to his credit, including the recent Moulin Rouge and a comic part in Collateral Damage. Both guys got a charge out of giving life to their prehistoric critters. When we talked with them recently, they were totally upbeat about their experience.

John did some strange research. He watched films of actual sloths in order to get under Sid's skin. Now sloths aren't exactly action heroes. "It was like watching erosion. Sloths are hard because first of all, they have no emotion, so slow, so I started to do all of the typical voices that suited him and that wasn't working. I tried high-pitched voices and so I said send me some Discovery Channel sloth footage and I watched four hours of that. Whoopie, it's the mating season!"

Nailing a voice for the little creature wasn't easy for the actor. "The narrator said that they stored food in their cheeks. I started working on that and that's how I got the voice finally. [Does the lisp and voice]."

Ray compared Manny to his Raymond character on TV. "I think my voice lends itself to this guy. I think Manny is a version of the character I play on TV, but he's not passive. He's probably more cynical and has a bigger chip on his shoulder but he's also a good guy too. The guy on TV wants to be left alone. He's kind of anti-social. He'd rather sit at home and scratch himself."