Jones recounted the series of events that led to Pierce hiring him during an interview with Comic Book Resources in July 2008. It was explained to him early on that Abe could finally be voiced by a “big-name celebrity voiceover” to sell better. film. The fact that they had to be covered from head to toe to play Abe on set every day made it unlikely the A-list actor would commit to doing more than that for this type of supporting role, Jones reasoned. However, he made it clear that he wanted to keep running to voice the character in the finished film:
“Of course, I, as an actor, when you play a role, you play a role, and that includes everything. So when I heard this up front, I said, ‘I’d rather you don’t do that, I will. like someone else will play the character.’ So my name was thrown in the hat, I made the possibility known that I could be the voice of choice. That’s as good as it would get for this particular job.”
During filming, Jones said he was directed to sound like a cross between Pierce “Frasier” characters, Niles Crane, and HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It was Del Toro who later informed him that Pierce would voice Abe in the final film. When Jones asked if there was a problem with his voice acting, del Toro assured him there was no problem. Casting Piece is solely about the film studio, Sony,” thought [about] get ass on the chair. It’s part of the filmmaking business that I’m not a part of, and I didn’t know anything about it,” Jones added. “So they made that decision for their own reasons.”