“Just don’t use too many inflections,” he adds, in a perfect Eeyore voice.īut his strangest creation may be the odd, and uncredited, vocal effects he developed for the titular creature in the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger action-horror flick Predator.Īt the time of his audition, Cullen had injured his voice when working out the boisterous roars of King Kong for the 1986 film King Kong Lives. “You just project it down and just be monotone,” says Cullen. While Optimus Prime may be his best-known character, Cullen has provided voices to dozens over the years including sad-sack donkey Eeyore for various Winnie the Pooh projects. “I was disillusioned a little bit about acting but, what the heck, you just keep plugging on,” he says. From there, he went to Hollywood in the early 1970s to work as an announcer on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show, among others. That led to some comedy pieces and gigs for CBC television. He worked in various Canadian cities in theatre before making the move to television and radio back in his hometown, including a late-night gig for CGKM on a show called Milkman’s Matinee. He attended the National Theatre School in Montreal while doing one-hour radio dramas for the CBC. The rest of it was just being in a studio with 14 other guys and gals and doing your script and having a ball.”Ĭullen may not have set out to become a voice actor, but his background of acting, announcing and radio seems a perfect precursor for the profession. He wanted to see if you could act, communicate with a human being. You had to be a little more responsive to the human characters because of Michael Bay’s direction. But there was some challenges in doing that. “I was curious to see how much of it would remain the same. “When it went to film, the big film, it was a leap,” he says. In fact, Cullen said the transformation from animated to live-action was surprisingly smooth. But I’m making too much of a thing out of it. But, come to think of it, I probably could have read the line satirically and gotten away with it. I took the character very seriously and I still do. It wasn’t slanderous or anything, it was just the choice of words and temper. I don’t even like repeating them so I won’t. “My instinct was that it was wrong and it was something he would never say. “I refused to use a couple or words and I was forced to,” he says. In fact, he took a stand against a small snippet of dialogue that he felt was inappropriate, a battle he ultimately lost. Maybe it’s because of those poignant origins, but it’s a job that Cullen has taken to heart over the years. Directed by Michael Bay, the film begat a lucrative franchise and plenty of work for Cullen, who has voiced the character in all four sequels and its 2018 spin-off, Bumblebee. He has played the role for various mediums over the years, including the 2007 mega-budgeted, live-action blockbuster. Other actors have voiced the role, but it’s safe to say that Cullen is the actor best known for giving life to the heroic leader of the Autobots, a giant robot from another planet who can transform into a semi-trailer truck.Ĭullen first got the role back in the 1980s for the animated series, which itself was based on a popular line of Japanese toys. But it goes a long way in revealing why Optimus Prime is not only the Montreal-born voice actor’s most famous creation but also his favourite. That’s how I handled it.”Ĭullen has told the story before. It was Larry, my brother, on the pages in front of me. The tone of his voice was very, very clear and compassionate and soft with depth.
Don’t be a yelling, screaming, Hollywood phoney. “But his advice to me was that to be a leader, be strong and compassionate. “When he came home, there was a marked difference in his overall demeanour,” says Cullen, in an interview with Postmedia.
Larry was a captain in the Marine Corps and a Vietnam War veteran who had been awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. Peter Cullen looked to his brother, Larry, when it came to developing the voice of heroic Transformer, Optimus Prime.
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