Image via Dandy House PublishersPublished Oct 12, 2026, 1:30 PM EDT
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Peacock's move to turn the Dungeon Crawler Carl novels into a live-action show is a big swing, to say the least. For fans of Matt Dinniman's sci-fi fantasy LitRPG series, the bizarre world and sense of humor and horror of the series have always felt better suited for animation, where the colorful characters, imaginative video game and tabletop RPG mechanics, and sheer scale of the shifting dungeon floors could be captured in style. However, the streamer already has a talented team that has the author's stamp of approval, including Thor: Ragnarok co-writer Christopher Yost and Shadow & Bone creator Eric Heisserer as co-showrunners, and Seth MacFarlane, whose live-action Ted has thrived at Peacock, producing. They also affirmed their commitment to making something tailored for the fans with the announcement that audiobook narrator Jeff Hays would be back to voice Princess Donut.
GC, BWR, NW Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk is just as important to DCC as Carl himself. Their journey through the World Dungeon at the center of the deadly intergalactic Dungeon Crawler World game show begins alongside one another, and they spend most of their time throughout the eight currently released books leading a party of crawlers together and learning more about the apocalyptic scenario they've been thrust into. Although she may be a vain and sometimes rude Persian show cat given the ability to speak, the stories reveal that she contains multitudes, being deeply protective of those close to her and forging a bond with Carl as they vow to survive together, all while she becomes an in-universe fan-favorite crawler and one of the dungeon's most powerful inhabitants. Hays has plenty of experience showing her many sides, but for television, the approach necessarily has to change.
DCC's man of many voices sat down alongside Dinniman for an interview with Collider's Maggie Lovitt at New York Comic Con, where he opened up about translating Donut to live-action. The natural challenge with bringing such a character to life is convincingly applying the many emotions Donut experiences to a realistic cat. For Hays, though, it'll also be different because he'll actually be on set with the rest of the cast rather than in a booth. He's not planning on changing how the cat sounds, of course. "Well, I think changing it too much would be a mistake," he asserted. However, the narrator is already thinking ahead about how to best embody and stay in Donut mode in a production where he isn't constantly swapping between voices.
"Obviously, the reason they hired me is because everyone... all the listeners were saying they would do horrible things to them if they did not, right? So presumably, they want Donut to sound the same. But I think I obviously also need to take a slightly different approach, in the sense that I need to be more present, or Donut needs to be more present within me throughout the entire thing. I have to learn how to stay in character for longer."
Jeff Hays Is Working on Managing His Facial Expressions for 'Dungeon Crawler Carl'
Although viewers won't see him on-screen, one thing Hays wants to focus on before the DCC series begins filming is his facial expressions. "I have to embody her not just in the voice but in the face," he continued. "If you watch me narrate Donut or anything, my face is pretty crazy. My eyebrows, especially. People give me lots of shit about it. So I need to actually be more conscious of what my face is doing, especially even if they don't use my facial movements for the animation or anything like that." That's not a concern in the booth, where the only thing the readers will notice is his voice, but there's more to consider if he's going to be present during filming.
Hays' goal is to avoid having any of his "crazy" facial movements shape his eventual co-stars' performances. He feels that, if he's doing his job correctly, they'll be able to look past the actor and focus on Donut. There are other challenges to starring in the production, like having to actually memorize his lines, but for the most part, nothing he's doing differently will radically change the beloved cat from who she is in the books.
"I'm gonna be on set with the rest of the actors, and if my face is going crazy while I'm talking to them, and I'm just letting it fly the same way I would in the booth, that's gonna color their performance, and I want them to feel like they're talking to a cat. I want that to come through in their acting as well. So that means I have to really focus and really memorize all the lines, which is something I'm absolutely not used to, and something I need to get good at before the shooting starts, so that I can be present as a cat while I'm talking to these people. So, yeah, the performance is going to change a little bit because of that, but hopefully not too much. You know, hopefully it's just a smooth transition into the medium."
Peacock's Dungeon Crawler Carl series adaptation is still in early development. Stay tuned here at Collider for further updates as work continues on the show.
Network Peacock
Writers Chris Yost
English (US) ·