Montreal-born Optimus Prime voice actor Peter Cullen dies at 85

Peter Cullen at GalaxyCon Raleigh in July 2023. The Montreal-born actor, whose voice became synonymous with Optimus Prime, died Aug. 26 at 85.

Photo: Super Festivals, CC BY 2.0.

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Peter Cullen, the Montreal-born actor whose voice became inseparable from Optimus Prime over more than four decades, has died at 85.

Cullen died Wednesday, Aug. 26, at his home in Los Angeles, surrounded by loved ones, according to a statement from his family distributed by his agent. No cause of death was disclosed.

Hasbro paid tribute to Cullen on Thursday, recalling both his long association with Transformers and the family story behind the voice that became his best-known performance.

Cullen first voiced Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, in the original Transformers animated series in 1984.

Before going into the audition, however, he had spoken to his older brother Larry Cullen, a U.S. Marine veteran who had served in Vietnam.

Larry's advice changed the way Cullen approached the character.

“Be strong enough to be gentle,” he told him.

Cullen later recalled that his brother did not want him to play a stereotypical Hollywood hero who relied on yelling and bravado. Cullen lowered his voice and drew instead on the authority he heard in Larry.

He got the role.

The performance established a version of Optimus Prime that would survive numerous changes in the franchise itself. Cullen's Optimus was commanding without constantly sounding aggressive, an approach that helped define the Autobots' leader for generations of viewers.

Hasbro said Thursday that Cullen's interpretation of the character grew directly from Larry's advice.

The original animated series ended, but Cullen's connection to Optimus Prime did not.

He eventually returned to voice the character in the live-action Transformers film franchise that began in 2007, introducing his Optimus to another generation of moviegoers.

Even 40 years after the original series debuted, Cullen remained connected to the franchise's beginnings. For the Transformers 40th anniversary in 2024, Hasbro brought Cullen together with Frank Welker, the original voice of Megatron, and other original cast members for a table read accompanying theatrical screenings of episodes from the 1984 series.

A Canadian beginning

Long before Optimus Prime, Cullen was training and working in Canada.

He graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal in 1963, the same year the school produced its first graduating class.

Cullen later told the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences that some of his earliest work included performing as a disc jockey and in live comedy, along with appearances in Canadian television and radio.

Among those early jobs was children's television.

“My beginnings in Canada was a kid show called Johnny Jellybean & Friends,” Cullen recalled in a 2023 interview with the academy.

He said he played seven or eight characters on the live program.

Cullen also worked in Canadian film. The National Film Board of Canada lists him among the cast of director Robin Spry's 1969 feature Prologue, a film centred on young Montrealers amid the political upheaval of the late 1960s.

By 1971, Cullen had moved his young family to Hollywood. Voice work increasingly became the centre of his career, with jobs in commercials and animated television eventually leading to the 1984 audition that would define much of what followed.

From Eeyore to the Predator

Optimus Prime was Cullen's most enduring character, but his voice was familiar well beyond Transformers.

In the late 1980s, he took over the role of Eeyore, the melancholy donkey from the Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

Disney credits Cullen as Eeyore in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which began airing in 1988. He continued voicing the character in subsequent productions.

At almost the opposite end of the entertainment spectrum, Cullen was also responsible for one of science fiction's distinctive creature sounds.

He provided the clicking vocalizations associated with the alien hunters in the Predator films, beginning with the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film.

Other voice credits over his career included work on Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Knight Rider, G.I. Joe and other animated and television productions.

Lifetime achievement honour

Cullen's career was formally recognized in 2023 when the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award at the second Children's & Family Emmy Awards.

The academy's profile of Cullen returned at length to Larry Cullen and the Optimus Prime audition.

Cullen said he could hear his brother's voice as he went into the audition and used it to find the character. When he was asked whether he wanted to try anything else with the voice, Cullen decided he did not.

That was what a hero sounded like to him.

Decades later, Hasbro returned to the same story in announcing Cullen's death.

The company said his career covered six decades in animation, film and broadcasting and credited his Optimus Prime with influencing how generations of fans understood the character.

Cullen's family also invoked the lesson behind Optimus Prime in its statement following his death, asking those wishing to honour him to serve their communities and lead others with compassion and integrity.

They ended with Larry Cullen's words.

“Be strong enough to be gentle.”