Jim Cummings Quotes

I can picture the character in my head, and the voice just comes out.

The established characters are easy to recall. I don't know why, but they come back to me instantly when I need them. It's the one-time-only characters that I don't remember where the voice I used came from.

Sterling Holloway, the actor who had originally voiced Pooh, decided to retire in the mid-1980s. Disney decided that they wanted to continue this character with their 'New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh' TV series.

I loved Ray from 'The Princess and the Frog.' He was my guy. There was no Ray before me, so there's a level of satisfaction there.

I'm usually the guy who says, 'Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington in the Siege'!

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.

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.

By the time 'Dumbo's Circus' wrapped production of its 120 episodes, I had an agent, and I had scored my first feature film gig.

I grew up watching all the great Disney animated films and to be able to carry that torch and know that I'm contributing to the same magic and wonder for a whole new generation is a great thing.

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 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.

I was at a restaurant and I heard this little voice at a nearby table pipe up and say, 'I believe I will have the chowder.' I got up and walked out into the middle of the restaurant. There was Sterling Holloway just sitting there being Sterling Holloway. Never in a million years would I have imagined that I'd have the honor of filling his shoes. I just regret not going up to him and saying hello.

I take the work seriously. Which is why I always swing for the fences whenever I voice a character. But that said, I don't take myself all that seriously.

Everybody can identify with somebody in the Hundred Acre Wood.

One good thing about animation is that, if you do screw up a line, they won't use it. You can keep going until it's right.

Bonkers doesn't go by the book-he doesn't even know there is a book.

Sometimes at drive-thrus I go into Winnie the Pooh and ask for a jar of honey.

As a kid, I just loved cartoons. And as the credits went by, I'd study those names and then try to figure how I could get hired to do what Mel Blanc and Daws Butler did. Create all of these great voices for animated characters.

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 had to be on the set for 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' because my character was interacting with Bob Hoskins. It's a lot of 'hurry up and wait.' So there I was, at 2 a.m., sitting in a trailer at Griffith Park trying to stay awake. And I said to myself, 'This stinks.' The way I do it is better. I go into the studio about 10 a.m. There's no makeup to worry about. I can wear whatever I want. As soon I get there, I'm good to go. I record my stuff and go home.

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.'

I do all the better bears.

Don Karnage-he's one of my all-time favorites. He's so brash and so bold and so arrogant-and he just doesn't know what he's doing.