By: Izumi Hasegawa November 25, 2015
The youngest brother in the Ochoa Boyz, Raymond Ochoa, beat 1,399 boys to be cast for the voice of the main character, Arlo the Dinosaur. How did he make it? He told us his acting tips. The now 14-year-old Raymond went through his voice change during the recordings and he talked about the experience. And, even though he and his brothers are celebrities, they are very much regular people like us. Yes, they have sibling quarrels!
Q: You were chosen from 1,400 boys for this role. You must be pretty proud of yourself for that.
Oh yeah. I don’t usually say that. The only time I say that is to my brothers. I auditioned in front of 1,400 (I guess 1,399) people. No big deal. I don’t go and brag about it. I just brag about it to my brothers. You’ve got to make yourself sound cooler than you are to your brothers.
Q: What did you do to audition for it and then while recording your voice?
There’s a lot of scenes where I have to cry or scream and yell, and I think the hardest thing I had to do was put myself in a moment where I was like that. I used to have a dog. I was very close to my dog, and he passed away, so when I need to bring out a moment where I’m crying, I bring out that moment. I was really close to my dog. His name was Rinkles. All of the boys in my family’s names are spelled with an “R,” and he was a boy, so he was Rinkles with an “R,” not a “W.” Fun fact. I had to bring (the memory) of him in there and it really helped me. It was cool because I was able to relate my dog Rinkles to Spot.
Q: Your voice is a little deeper now.
Yes. I was 12 and 13 while recording this. Now I am 14. It was challenging throughout the film when my voice got deeper. Every time (I recorded) they had to play my voice so I could hear and match it. It was like match pitch. I felt like I was doing Pitch Perfect.
Q: How do you stay grounded now that you’ve had some success?
Staying grounded, I can’t really take the credit on that one. It’s really how you’re raised by your parents. I have amazing parents and also it’s your brothers and your family. My brothers are so amazing. My older brother Ryan, he is probably the most generous person I know in my life. He’s the one that kind of helps me and guides me. All of my brothers help me to be grounded, so I really try to be like my brothers, because all of them are so nice and very kind and I look up to them.
Q: They kick your butt every once in a while though, right?
That is true. Sometimes they’ve got to lay down the law and aren’t always nice.
Q: Were there any recent fights?
There’s never fist fights but those bickers literally over the dumbest things ever but we’ll start fighting about it — simple things like, “I want the remote.” That happens all the time. Or I want to watch what I want to on TV and my other brother wants to watch the football game. That’s how it is. But we’re very close at the same time. We’re all in a music group. That’s how close we are.
The Good Dinosaur opens in theaters on November 25th.
