Jim Cummings
Jim Cummings
James Jonah "Jim" Cummingsis an American voice actor and singer, who has appeared in almost 400 roles. He is known for voicing the title character from Darkwing Duck, Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog, and Pete. His other characters include Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and the Tasmanian Devil. He has performed in numerous animated Disney and DreamWorks movies including Aladdin, The Lion King, Balto, Antz, The Road to El Dorado, Shrek, and The Princess and the Frog. He has also...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionVoice Actor
Date of Birth3 November 1952
CityYoungstown, OH
CountryUnited States of America
I do very little on-camera acting, so within a phrase as a voice actor you have to know how to convey when someone is 95 years old or 19 years old. . . When I was the lead singer of the California Raisins commercials there was a traditional actor there as well and he would do all these body movements without saying anything because he was "acting." And the only acting the microphone picked up on was silence.
I have a brand new favorite for a Disney animated feature coming out next Christmas called The Princess and the Frog. I'm Ray the singing Cajun firefly. New Orleans is my second hometown. I was a deckhand on a riverboat there when I was 18, so I have that Cajun accent down pat. Ray is a lovesick firefly who's near-sighted and falls in love with the Evening Star. Of course, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger will always be favorites of mine too.
I have four daughters, with the two youngest being four years old and a year and a half. When one of my older daughters was in sixth grade, a classmate brought in their talking Winnie the Pooh doll for show and tell, so the next week my daughter one upped her classmates and brought me to school in for show and tell.
It was cool to have Mark [Hamill] ask me to do all these voices for him like he was a fan. I was like, "You're not meeting me, I'm meeting you."
I do all the better bears.
Mr. Bumpy from Bump in the Night was this funky little guy who lived under the bed and thought eating dust bunnies was a delicacy. He was as cool as he could be, and ate dirty socks.
I have some calls out to Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Eddie Murphy. I said, 'I won't star in any blockbuster films if you stay out of animated films.' They just won't call me back.
Sometimes I'll have a brief window of mini-fame thanks to 'Access Hollywood.' But it only lasts a couple of days, and then no one recognizes me anymore.
I'm usually the guy who says, 'Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington in the Siege'!
My agency tells me I am rare because I sing, do movie trailers, and do cartoons too. I like that because it gives me variety in jobs. I don't just sit and do movie trailers, and I don't just do cartoons either. I can do both, and I feel very fortunate for that.
I really have been blessed and fortunate to have accomplished what I have. I hope to do this for a long time. It's such an enjoyable job. I love to do it.
Everybody can identify with somebody in the Hundred Acre Wood.
I remember as a kid watching TV and seeing Mel Blanc doing his voices and Paul Winchell doing his ventriloquism and thinking, 'Those guys are having a good time. I want to do that.'
Bonkers is kind of a combination of Jerry Lewis and Harpo Marx, which is very strange because Harpo never spoke!