Andrew Stanton pitched his idea and story to Pixar head John Lasseter in an hour-long session, using elaborate visual aids and character voices. At the end of it, an exhausted Stanton asked Lasseter what he thought, to which Lasseter replied, "You had me at 'fish.'"
Director Andrew Stanton did the voice of Crush, the sea turtle. Stanton never intended to do the voice of Crush, only providing the voice for the film's rough cut, but when it proved popular in test screenings, he decided to do it for the final film. Stanton recorded all of Crush's dialogue lying on his couch in his office.
Surpassed Disney's own El rey león (1994) as the highest-grossing animated film. The Lion King producer Don Hahn called director Andrew Stanton to congratulate him, saying, "It's about time." Finding Nemo held the record for only a year until surpassed by Shrek 2 (2004).
Pixar developed a realistic look of the surface water but had to make it look fake so people wouldn't think it was actual footage of the ocean surface.
Nemo's father, Marlin, was originally voiced by William H. Macy. According to James B. Stewart's book "DisneyWar," it was after seeing an early cut of the film with Macy's voice that then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner infamously told his board of directors, "This will be a reality check for those guys...It's OK, but nowhere near as good as their previous films. Of course, they think it's great. Trust me, it's not." Director Andrew Stanton recast the role of Marlin with Albert Brooks, and the film went on to get some of Pixar's best reviews ever and become the highest-grossing animated film of all time. Even worse for Eisner, Disney's distribution contract with Pixar was close to expiring at this time. Thus, he faced the difficult position of trying to renew it with Pixar's owner, Steve Jobs, who already loathed Eisner before that insult. That situation of Disney being in danger of losing their most consistently successful producer of films because of Eisner's denigration proved to be one of the numerous complaints about him that prompted the shareholders to fire him.
Rove McManus: the crab threatened by Dory. Rove was the biggest late night talk show host in Australia at the time, with his show Rove Live (2000).