Be Strong Enough to be Gentle: Peter Cullen, 1941-2026

Optimus Prime is Peter Cullen’s defining role for a lot of people, the one that is getting headline space in most obituaries. That’s even the case here, after a fashion; the quote at the top comes from the touching story Cullen would often tell about fashioning the voice of Optimus Prime out of advice from (and impression of) his older brother, Larry, a Captain in the Marine Corps whose service in the Vietnam War Peter said changed Larry into a much quieter man. That he could maintain the intent of that voice even among all of Michael Bay’s sound and fury is a testament to his mastery of the craft. But I didn’t grow up on Transformers; when I read the news of Peter Cullen’s passing my immediate association was Eeyore.

The start of his career, as with his life, was distinctly Canadian. He was born on July 28, 1941 in Montreal, Quebec, and in 1963 was in the first graduating class of the prestigious National Theatre School of Canada. Throughout the rest of the ’60s, he appeared on local children’s television, worked as a DJ on a Montreal radio station, and had a recurring character on the CBC Radio comedy series Funny You Should Ask. It wasn’t until 1967 that he managed to break into American television as an announcer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and then roughly another decade before he managed to penetrate the insular world of voice acting.

It’s in the period of ’80s voice over work that it’s impossible not to notice the infrastructure of an entertainment ecosystem that basically doesn’t exist anymore. There weren’t celebrities taking voice acting roles (with very rare exceptions) because it was seen as lesser work, and as a result there was a clear path for advancement in the industry. Peter Cullen had a lot of “Additional Voices” credits on shows like The Smurfs, Snorks, and Alvin & The Chipmunks (he even does the vocalizations of the Predator in Predator!), which became named character appearances in one or two episodes of things like Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (as Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Mysterio, and Red Skull) and Knight Rider (the original voice of K.I.T.T.’s nemesis K.A.R.R.), which eventually led to main roles on The Transformers, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, and The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

But within ten years of Peter Cullen landing Optimus Prime, Disney and Pixar would erase the stigma of voice acting, and it became much harder for working voice actors to advance to lead roles or even hold onto characters they had created. Cullen almost wasn’t brought back for Michael Bay’s blockbuster Transformers series, and it was only massive fan outcry that got him back in the alien big rig. And then Brad Garrett did replace him as Eeyore in the 2011 Winnie the Pooh. (This led to an amazing video caught at a con appearance where Cullen imagined an encounter between Eeyore and Optimus. “I don’t get to be me anymore,” he said as Eeyore, drawing awws from the crowd. “Eeyore,” Optimus replied, “Whose butt do I have to kick?” He did get to voice Eeyore once more in a 2017 episode of the Disney Jr. show Doc McStuffins.)

Peter Cullen had a long, illustrious career full of varied characters, but there’s something poetic about his two biggest being Eeyore and Optimus Prime, because they are perfect complements: a noble, hopeful leader and a depressed, downtrodden donkey. It’s very rare to see someone who had played a larger-than-life hero for so long also effortlessly inhabit someone who so desperately needs saving, but when you’re told to shape that hero with the strength to be gentle, maybe that ability to be vulnerable isn’t so difficult.