Is there anything more wholesome than a working doggo who doesn’t even know they’re doing a job? I think not. Just take Gyoza, the full-time pug and part-time voice artist who provided the sound effects for the new Halo Infinite video game.
Halo creators debuted their latest team member with a sweet video showcasing his incredible work. “Meet our favourite pug, Gyoza. The best friend of our studio’s Technical Art Director, his grunts, breaths, and excitement are sure to make for some…interesting sounds in #HaloInfinite,” they captioned Gyoza’s expert showreel.
This beautiful pupper’s work is the purest thing I’ve seen today, but he’s not the only hard working animal voice actor out there.
For the 2007 film Transformers, sound designers used a metal wind-up clock and the growls of a young cougar for the character Frenzy. In Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the orcs of Moria were voiced by a pack of baby elephant seals. In 1993’s Jurassic Park, the sound of Donald Gennaro being eaten by the T-Rex while on the toilet was achieved by a horse munching on a corncob. Who would’ve thought!?
Voice acting works the other way around as well. For this year’s live-action reboot of the Lion King, Chance the Rapper was hired as a ‘nostalgia consultant’ (whatever that means) and even provided “background noises” for the film, including the sound of “antelopes grazing.”
In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Chance demonstrated his voice work which sounds a lot like me eating a burrito.
As for Gyoza, we’re all just going to have to play Halo Infinite to hear the little guy in action. He definitely deserves Employee of the Month for being the goodest of boys.