Keegan-Michael Key teased his take on the voice of the Autobot Bumblebee in the upcoming animated feature Transformers One.
“For playing Bumblebee, it’s funny, [there’s] not a lot of affectation to my voice,” Key explained in an interview with Collider while promoting his latest animated movie, Migration.
The comedian continued, “The director of this, he goes, ‘I really want your voice. I just want Keegan’s voice.’ So it’s kind of Keegan as Bumblebee. You’ll see. It’s interesting. Unlike [Migration], where I’m working in a dialect or I’m doing something like Super Mario Bros. where I’m really trying to disguise my voice, this one I’m bringing a lot of me to it.”
Key plays the lovable Autobot’s voice alongside an all-star cast featuring Brian Tyree Henry as a young Megatron and Chris Hemsworth as young Optimus Prime. In June, the Thor star revealed to Collider how he will ditch his native Australian accent to differentiate the Autobot leader from Peter Cullen’s iconic voice.
“The Optimus Prime that you hear on the screen in the films is an older, mature … you know, he’s been around for many, many, many, many years,” Hemsworth said. “This is the sort of origin story, so it’s the younger version of him. So there are sort of hints and colorings that hopefully resonate enough with the Optimus Prime we know, but it is a youthful version of him, and different. But he won’t be Australian.”
The story of Transformers One
As the first animated theatrical release for the series since Transformers: The Movie in 1986, Transformers One is a prequel set in the early years of the Autobot and Decepticon war on Cybertron. The story will follow Prime and Megatron in their youth as friends before turning into sworn enemies. Produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and directed by Toy Story 4’s Josh Cooley, Transformers One co-stars Scarlett Johansson as Elita, Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime, and Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion.
Transformers One is scheduled for release on September 13, 2024.
