The Real Marine Behind Optimus Prime's Voice

Peter Cullen has voiced Optimus Prime since the character first spoke on screen in 1984, and by his own account, he did not build that voice alone. It came from one piece of advice his older brother gave him right before the audition.

The Advice Before the Audition

Cullen needed his family's only car to get to the tryout. He mentioned to his brother Larry that the role was for a truck who talked like a hero.

Larry did not tell him how to sound tough. He told him the opposite.

"If you are going to be a leader, be a real leader, not a Hollywood leader with the yelling and screaming," Larry told him, according to Cullen. "Be strong enough to be gentle."

A Real Marine, Not a Movie One

Larry Cullen was not repeating a line from a film. He had lived it.

He trained as an officer at Quantico and served as an infantry officer with K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, in Vietnam.

During Operation Hastings in 1966, Larry faced what Peter has described as roughly a one-in-four chance of survival. He came home with a Bronze Star with Combat "V," two Purple Hearts, and the Combat Action Ribbon, and later made captain, serving at Camp Pendleton.

The Voice That Came From a Brother

Cullen has said that when Larry came home from Vietnam, he was different. Quieter. Calmer.

"He was a man and a superhero to me," Cullen has said.

When the Optimus Prime audition came, Cullen did not invent a cartoon voice from scratch. He drew on what he had watched in his own brother.

"My character in The Transformers for Optimus Prime came from Larry," Cullen has said.

Still the Voice, Decades Later

Cullen kept that same voice through the original 1984 cartoon, the 1986 animated movie, and every live-action Transformers film from 2007's Transformers through 2023's Rise of the Beasts.

More than 40 years after a conversation about borrowing the family car, Optimus Prime still sounds like Cullen's brother telling him to be strong enough to be gentle.

A Second Famous Voice

Cullen is also the longtime voice of Eeyore in various Winnie the Pooh productions, a much gentler role he has voiced alongside Optimus Prime since the late 1980s.