Legendary voice actor Jim Cummings has played over 400 roles including Darkwing Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.  The last two, he reprises in Disney’s newest live action film Christopher Robin.

Cummings voices the soft spoken Pooh and exuberant Tigger opposite Ewan McGregor, as Christopher Robin, and Hayley Atwell, who plays Christopher’s wife Evelyn. Cummings sat down and talked about the Pooh reboot, what the movie says to young people, and how doing voices on Christopher Robin was different.

On Reboots

When asked about the idea of rebooting Winnie the Pooh, Cummings jokingly said, “I thought it was a terrible idea, but I did anyway. I said, well, hey, I’m here, you know.”  He energetically continued:

On Adulthood

Next Cummings talked about what the movie says to today’s young people:

“No, I thought it was great. I thought it was great, especially after the last Winnie the Pooh feature.  The animated one that they released. […] So, I’m glad we’re back and in such fine fashion. I think it’s beautiful.”

Working on Christopher Robin

When the topic of the film was brought up, Cummings said:

“Well, I can tell you, the story, it tells you to just slow down and, that’s the old expression, stop and smell the roses.  And the world, it’s crazy. It’s spinning a thousand miles an hour. It’s so easy to get caught up in the workaday world. Whatever you’re doing, the nine to five, the this, the that. Hitting the rat race and the rats always seem to win. It’s just great that Pooh and the gang– who better to go out and bust out of the Hundred Acre Woods and bring Christopher back down to earth. And say, hold on, what about your daughter? What about your wife? You know, we could all use that because it’s easy to get lost.”

MORE: Read Screen Rant’s Christopher Robin Review

“Well, we knew it would be a little less boisterous, by virtue of the animation.  It’s not traditional 2D animation. It’s a little more subtle. And they’re probably not quite indestructible. After all they are cloth and stuffing. But it was just a more still approach, a more zen sort of approach.  For lack of a better word, a little more serenity. Not completely insane for honey the whole. No flights of bees carrying them aloft. And no cliffs, no cliff diving.

“So, it’s, just in general, a little more pulled back.  And it works, I think… so, well. And I just hope everybody else loves it too.”

  • Christopher Robin Release Date: 2018-08-03