Animated conversation

'When I first started, I was told point blank by a studio head that no animated film would ever make more than $50million - and only a Disney film would ever get close to that. I could throw that on the six-mile high, 20-mile wide pile of total "this is reality - you better face it, kid" garbage I've been told over the years. I'm very happy to say that I've learned not to listen to that stuff.'

Gallery: Ratatouille film stills

All swept-blond fringe and baby-blue eyes, Hollywood's now 50-year-old golden boy certainly has plenty to be happy about.

True, critically-acclaimed feature debut The Iron Giant (1999) crashed and burned at the box office, but when his old Cal Arts buddy John Lasseter (co-founder of Pixar and director of Toy Story) hired him to create The Incredibles - the witty, humanly-rooted adventure of a slobbed-out superhero family - it won Bird two Academy Award nominations and made more than £127million.

That not insignificant sum gave Bird total freedom to write/direct Ratatouille - a cute, oddball tale of a culinarily gifted rodent, that despite a pleasingly sophisticated palate, has already grossed £200million and counting.

'I didn't intend it for kids, I just intended it for people who like movies,' insists Bird.

'People keep trying to steer animation to the kids table. And then when you do something that's not kid specific, they go "Woah - what? You've deviated from the course? Why would you do that? Little Buffy needs to understand every moment!"'

'I mean, what's that about? I'm entertained by a lot of the things that children are entertained by. Physical comedy I find very funny. But the things I liked watching best when I was a kid were when I didn't understand everything that was going on, such as Bugs Bunny.

'Did you know Bugs Bunny films were actually made to make adults laugh before the latest Humphrey Bogart or Bette Davis movies?

'It wasn't until the 1950s they were specifically played after school. The goal with all the Pixar movies is to make something that you can enjoy at any stage of your life.'

Born in Montana, young Bird was just 11 when he started his first animated film, finishing it at 13, and landing a dream mentorship at Disney at just 14. And though creative differences saw him leave the Mouse House after 1981's The Fox And the Hound (when he went off to develop The Simpsons), he still retains respect for its old school artistry.

'Disney was the most refined, most beautifully analysed, hardest to figure out stuff. Like, why did their panther feel like a panther, versus a generic cat-like thing?' It's a craft he feels has become confused.

'Without naming names, there are CG films out there where a ton of effort is spent on putting pores on the skin and yet when the thing moves around there's no weight to it at all; even though it's clearly 6ft 5in or so.' (Hmm, and green, and called Shr-, I'm just about to add, when Bird starts fuming in a manner so appropriately cartoonish I swear smoke is surely about to come out his ears.)

'Pores don't make it more believable - they just make it more disturbing! Why put the detail there and not where it matters? So now there's reality where there shouldn't be - and none where there should be! Not that I have opinions about this sort of thing...' he laughs self-consciously.

Then he launches an attack on Brad bugbear No.2, a lack of blue-sky thinking among other studios. 'What I would love to see emulated is what we do at Pixar - which is that every film is very different from the film before.

'I mean we're not ruling out sequels - Toy Story 2 was a terrific sequel I think. But what are you going to do - Finding Nemo... again? 'No! We believe in saying "what movie do we want to see?" not "what do we think will sell?"

For a chap so superhumanly passionate about animation, the most incredible thing Bird reveals is he's keen to speed away from it.

In fact, his next movie (still shrouded in secrecy) is live action.

'While I'm very happy that I won the [Best Animated Feature] Oscar for The Incredibles, I was even that little bit prouder to be nominated for Best Screenplay because I was nominated along with other live action films; I wasn't cordoned off. You see, I don't view animation as a super-separate thing.

'It's just another way of doing film. An animated film should be nominated for Best Art Direction, or even Best Feature - that's the future I hope we're moving towards.'

It sure looks like Brad Bird himself is blazing a trail to infinity - and beyond!

Ratatouille is in cinemas from Friday.