Comic readers have long been fans of Lucky the Pizza Dog, and the rest of the world joined them after watching Disney Plus show Hawkeye. The monocular canine made his debut in the show and, while he didn’t actually do much other than eat some pizza and look cute, that’s good enough for me.
He’s played by Golden Retriever Jolt, who has her own Instagram page with nearly 40,000 followers. Her bio lists her as an “animal actor, agility, dock diving, rally, and canicross” performer, though they should almost certainly add “very good girl” to that resume.
We’ve already learned that the original plan was to use Disney’s fake dog tech (as seen in Cruella) to depict Lucky using CGI, though Jolt was so impressive on set they didn’t need to. Now, a new behind-the-scenes video shows us what it’s like to work with her. Check it out:
Other people singing Jolt’s praises include Hawkeye director Rhys Thomas, who said:
“Jolt did an amazing job. There are very specific things the dog needs to do. She was great. I was definitely dubious, and I had images of a CG dog. Genuinely, I can’t think of a moment we lost time because of Jolt. She was on it.”
He continued lavishing praise on her, saying she was “just a consummate professional. A little easier than some of these folks, to be honest with you.”
But there’s a melancholy story behind this adorable character. Matt Fraction created Lucky after his Golden Retriever Captain Applejack had to be put down shortly before he began work on his Hawkeye comics run. Lucky is intended to be a tribute to his own dog, so it should mean a lot to him to see Jolt in action on Disney Plus.
It remains to be seen whether there’ll be another series of Hawkeye, but fingers crossed they bring Jolt back as Lucky in a future MCU movie or Disney Plus show.
