The Garfield Movie: Harvey Guillen Confirms Odie Won’t Talk in New Film

The first trailer for The Garfield Movie was released last year and saw Chris Pratt voicing the titular cat. The movie also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Nicholas Hoult, Hannah Waddingham, Cecily Strong, Ving Rhames, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, and more. Another big name on the lineup is Harvey Guillén, who is best known for playing Guillermo de la Cruz in What We Do in the Shadows. Guillén is voicing Odie, the beloved dog known for annoying Garfield with his enthusiasm. However, Odie doesn’t talk in any iteration of Garfield. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Guillén in honor of the digital release of Disney’s Wish, and we asked if he’ll be talking as Odie in The Garfield Movie.

“That was my first thing,” Guillén said about being offered the role. “‘Excuse me. Sorry,’” he recalled. “When they asked me to do Odie, it was shortly after Puss in Boots had come out and they said, ‘We love what you did with Perrito, and he’s so sweet and kind, and the way he does everything.’ I was like, ‘Oh, thank you.’ And they’re like, ‘We’d love for you to be Odie.’ I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I was like, ‘Thank you.’ And then I was like, ‘Wait, doesn’t Odie not talk?’ ‘Exactly.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ He said, ‘We would love for you to convey every kind of emotion that the character would have without saying a word.’”

“And I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ He’s like, ‘We know you can do it because we can do it with words, some are your side already on Puss in Boots, but imagine if you took the words out, and then you just did it without words.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, yes, yes, I hear you.’ And it was a challenge and I loved it because it’s so different. Now it’s just different from Perrito, different from Gabo [from Wish], from Nightwing [from Harley Quinn], all the voice characters that I’ve played so far, it’s different from all of them. And I like to say we’re not playing the same note over and over. And so it was nice and I think people are going to really enjoy it.”

Wish is available now at Digital retailers, and will be available on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD on March 12th. The Garfield Movie is expected to be released on May 24th.