Sonny is played by actor Alan Tudyk, who provides the robot's voice as well as the motion-capture performance. Tudyk, a native of El Paso, Texas, studied drama in college and also attended the prestigious Juilliard School for a short time. Tudyk's acting credits go back to the late 1990s, and his career has been going nonstop ever since.
Perhaps one of Tudyk's most well-known film roles comes from the anachronistic 2001 comedy, "A Knight's Tale." Tudyk played the squire, Wat, sporting a shock of red hair and a hot temper. He starred alongside actors Paul Bettany ("WandaVision"), Mark Addy ("Game of Thrones"), and the late Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight"). For sci-fi fans, Tudyk is known best as Wash, the dry-witted pilot of the spaceship Serenity in the short-lived cult TV series, "Firefly." He reprised his role as Wash in the feature film, "Serenity," which helped to conclude the storyline of the canceled series.
Tudyk has appeared in a plethora of film and television roles over the years, and is often cast in a supporting or minor role. However, he finally found his niche as the star of Syfy's "Resident Alien," in which he plays an extra-terrestrial who assumes the identity of a human doctor, Harry Vanderspeigle, in order to fulfill a secret mission on Earth. So far the series has been a hit for the cable network, and was recently renewed for a second season.
