

Iago resembles a red lory, with red feathers and blue tipped wings, bluish-purple tail, and white around the eyes.

Gottfried is often referred to as "the Iago guy" and similar terms, being more known by his voice role than by name. Gottfried's unique onstage persona led to him being cast as the wise-cracking Iago. “That seemed to open the door for other voiceover jobs.” that has been one of those things that lives on,” he said. Gilbert Gottfried has said that his voiceover career really began after voicing the character in the 1992 film. Rossio also mentioned, since Iago is too small to contain such emotions, "you end up with a feathered Gilbert Gottfried." Iago's animator Will Finn tried to incorporate some aspects of Gottfried's appearance into Iago's design, especially his semi-closed eyes and the always-appearing teeth. Screenwriter Terry Rossio shared a concept behind Iago on his website Wordplay, in that Jafar transferred his emotions to his pet, allowing him to do magic without distractions. In the original story treatment by Howard Ashman, Iago (previously named Sinbad) had been originally conceived as a "British" calm and serious straight man working off Jafar, who was originally conceived as more over-the-top, comedic, and irritable, but the filmmakers later reversed their personalities in large part in order to make Jafar more threatening and when they saw Gilbert Gottfried in Beverly Hills Cop II, Gottfried was cast to provide Iago's voice. Iago's original voice actor, Gilbert Gottfried
