When Teddy Riner dubbed a character from Zootopia

Remember, the Olympic giant was Finnick, a tiny, malicious fennec fox.

The 2024 Olympic Games were meant for him. After lighting the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony, with athletics champion Marie-José Pérec, Teddy Riner shone in the City of Lights by winning his third Olympic title on Friday – after London in 2012 and Rio in 2016 – against South Korea's Kim Min-Jong. Eleven times world champion, the gold medallist has become the most successful judoka in history. A titanic monster on the tatami, did you know that Teddy Riner also took part in the dubbing game? For a character whose build is far from being as impressive as his.

You may not have noticed, but it's him who plays Finnick, the little fennec fox who is Nick Wilde's scam partner in Zootopia. Released in 2016, this animated film from Disney studios featured a young rabbit named Judy, whose dream was to become a police inspector in the capital: Zootopia. But it's not easy when you're a small mammal…

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For her first mission, Judy files tickets. When she comes across a fox, she is wary and prefers to follow him. She sees him entering an ice cream shop, run by elephants. He is not alone, but accompanied by a little man dressed as a baby elephant. This one is apparently his son and he dreams of becoming one of his pachyderms. But the seller refuses to sell them ice cream, because they only serve large animals. Faced with this injustice, Judy intervenes, taking the boy to heart, and threatens the elephant with a fine for violating health regulations. He gives in and finally gives an ice cream to the little one, and it is the rabbit who treats him. She ends up discovering that it was in reality a scam set up from scratch by the fox, Nick, and his partner Finnick. The objective: to divide the large ice cream into smaller sticks to sell them to the small rodents. Not a cent is lost.

When the fennec fox speaks for the first time, the contrast is striking. This tiny animal has a voice that goes up into the bass – and that, thanks to Teddy Riner. Incidentally, in the original version, Finnick is also dubbed by an athlete, but of a completely different kind, since it was Tomy Lister, a professional wrestler from the late 80s and early 90s.

At the time of its release, interviewed by Paris MatchTeddy Riner confided:

“It's a great experience, you have to get the character into your head, go into this tiny world, enter into osmosis. It was really huge. I had good coaches, notably Emmanuel Jacomy, the French voice of Denzel Washington. I was really helped, it was cool.”

At Figarohe explained that several takes were necessary, but that he was ready to start again because the experience had convinced him: “It was a change from my everyday world and the tatami mats.” Moreover, the following year, the champion returned to the studio to dub a character in the film Lego – Ninjago.

In the making of Zootopiashared by Disney, we see an excerpt from a dubbing session of Teddy Riner.

Zootopia is available to (re)watch on Disney+ and Première Max