Whether you’re a hardcore Transformers fan or maybe a casual viewer who caught one or two of the movies, you’ve heard the earnest, powerful voice of Optimus Prime, who leads the Autobots both in robot form and truck form against the evil Decepticons. And in real life, the warm and generous man behind the microphone, Peter Cullen, is probably the one human the franchise’s fans can all get behind. He started voicing Optimus in the 1980s when the Transformers cartoon first hit, and was in the animated Transformers: The Movie in 1986 that killed off Optimus for a time — until fans went ballistic and he returned to the original series before its end a year later. Twenty years went by before he was tapped to voice Optimus again in 2007 for director Michael Bay’s first big-screen Transformers flick. Since then, Transformers has become bigger than ever, and so has Cullen’s star in this universe of robots in disguise. He voices Optimus yet again in the third film Transformers: Dark of the Moon (in theaters starting Tuesday night), entertains gamers as Prime in the official movie video game by Activision, and was recently nominated for a Daytime Emmy for his performance in the current cartoon Transformers Prime. When we talked recently, he was on his way to Hasbro Studios to start work on a whole new kid-oriented animated series, Transformers: Rescue Bots. Even when something else pops up, what he does has worked for nearly 30 years, “so I doubt I’ll do anything at all to change that,” Cullen says, laughing. Read below for our conversation about all things Optimus, and check out a trailer from the new video game. (Plus, if you haven’t entered to win Transformers: Dark of the Moon movie toys, you have till the end of the day before it’s too late!)
Photos courtesy of USA TODAY, Paramount Pictures
You bring a lot of emotion to the character, no matter if it’s in a game or on a big screen. Is that something that was there from the very beginning?
It happened on the very first time I opened my mouth at the audition, and it’s become a classic story and very meaningful to me of late. The time period was back in 1984, and my brother and I were sharing an apartment. My brother was a former captain in the Marine Corps who had fought in Vietnam, receiving a bronze star in combat action. In that period of time we shared living spaces together, I learned a lot from him. One morning when I was on my way to the audition, he asked me where I was going and I told him I’m about to audition for a hero and it’s a truck. He laughed, and I laughed, too, because I had no idea what I was getting into. He said, “Peter, don’t be a Hollywood hero. Don’t be one of those loudmouths yelling and screaming and pretending. Be a real hero and you can be strong enough to be gentle and understanding.” It was the character of a Marine who was talking. His timbre is very similar to mind to begin with, so it was easy to impersonate him, and the tone he gave me to set the audition was perfect. When I read the first few lines, I said, “Oh my God, this is Larry talking.” So I just did Larry. He passed away several weeks ago. It was a shock, but more so right now, every time I think of Optimus Prime, it just rings of Larry. It’s hard to talk about at this point, but there’s people who can go through life wondering if they made a difference, and Larry as a Marine and his brothers like him never have to worry about the fact.
Was your brother a big Prime fan?
Well, he didn’t know very much about him up until the latter years, after the first movie. Of course, then he was wonderfully appreciative and humbled by the fact that his kid brother by 13 months would admit to the world that his older brother is still his hero. It would embarrass him somewhat at times, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to show him in his life what tremendous influence he had on me.
When you finally returned to voicing the character, did you find that anything had changed over the years?
No, I think the only change would have been when I did the movie with Michael Bay. Michael wanted me to audition a couple of times. His concern was whether a cartoon character like Optimus Prime could relate to a human being in an acting situation, and my background prior to that had been a lot of acting: television, stage and even film. I was in fact and still am an actor, and I relieved all of those doubts when he put me up into a reading situation with another character and pulled it off enough for him to be confident with his decision.
If Optimus is your favorite character to voice, is there a close second?
I love characters who do good or make people feel good. The one I hear as frequently as I do Optimus is Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. That to me would be my next favorite characters, with how much he affects people. I get a lot of mothers who come and say, “Oh, you’re Eeyore? I love Eeyore!’ I give them that face and I go, ‘Oh boy, thank you very much…’ [Laughs]
Your role as Optimus is probably pretty unprecedented in animation, with one character so connected to one person.
Our youth really is in need and had been in search of a hero that represented so many great qualities. They’re wonderful qualities, and they’ve rang a bell with so many people. There’s a very clear and evident honesty about it. They had a goal to meet and they met it, and I’ve had the great, great pleasure and honor to be able to be part of it. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing and it’s made a big difference in people’s lives.
Is there anything else you think about when you’re doing the character now, like any modern influences?
I think the tweaks would be that he’s up to date. He’s more current and he can say things to humans that you wouldn’t have heard him say years ago. There’s more of a human recognition quality in him, and he becomes more personal or one-on-one with an individual. He’s pretty much taken on a more human, more emotional element. He’s now more sensitive to expression than he used to be. He can be funny now. [Laughs]
I noticed in the past couple of movies that he had a few one-liners.
Right. And a lot of that was ad-libbed or encouraged by Michael Bay to do something out of the box.
Can we expect more of that in this new movie?
There’s something. Michael asked me to read a line and I was a little hesitant to do it, and he said, “Well, Peter, would you just read it for me anyway? I’d like for us to have it down.” So I did. I read it. It’s in the movie. I saw the video of it and I was stunned. He just looked over and smiled at me. I said, “You put it in anyway?” And he says, “Yeah. The audience is gonna cheer loudly, Peter, just like the old days.” I said, “Oh my God, it does work, though, doesn’t it?” He goes, “You betcha.” [Laughs] I won’t give it away to you, but you’ll know it when you see it. Think Clint Eastwood.
