USA Today have posted short bit with voice actor Peter Cullen talking about the Optimus Prime voicing for the Transformers series over the years. Cullen will be reprising his role in the new movie "Transformers: Age of Extinction" as the Autobot Leader character. Read on for his comments and a look a new image of Optimus Prime from the movie what will be out in theaters June 27, 2014.
The fan-favorite robot: Optimus Prime in Transformers: Age of Extinction.
Optimus Prime has undergone quite a few vehicular makeovers in the past 30 years of Transformers projects, yet his earnest and heroic voice has never wavered, thanks to Peter Cullen.
For the big-budget Transformers: Age of Extinction, the actor once again reprises the role he's been playing since the 1980s Transformers cartoon. Now Prime and his Autobots have a new human ally (Mark Wahlberg) but they are in conflict with the evil Decepticons as well as the U.S. government.
"He is exactly who he was from the very original concept," Cullen says of Prime. "I've always felt a hero should have the qualities that are inspiring and helpful and fatherly and at the same time (be) courageous. I don't see those character traits changing at all."
Transformers is more than a lifetime gig as a transforming big rig for Cullen. It's also a family affair: His son Clay is a stuntman on Age of Extinction, and Cullen's brother Larry, a Marine who served in the Vietnam War and died in 2011, continues to be the inspirational foundation for Optimus' steady and strong tone.
"Though Larry's gone," Peter Cullen says, "he lives on in my mind as Optimus Prime because he was my hero."
