Interview with Living Legend Jim Cummings - The Voice Behind Winnie The

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Disney Studios. All opinions are my own.

When you get a chance to meet an icon, you jump at the chance. That is exactly what happened at a recent ‘Friendsgiving’ picnic in our own version of the 100 Acre Wood.

Jim Cummings, the very voice of Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, and so many other characters, stopped by to have a chat and it was so much fun hearing what he had to say!

Jim Cummings has been doing the voice of Winnie the Pooh and of Tigger since the late ‘80s. It was delightful to see him effortlessly transition between his normal voice right into that of Pooh and Tigger, and a slew of other characters that I remember from my childhood.

We chatted with Cummings in honor of the upcoming Blu-ray release of Christopher Robin and he had quite a bit to say!

Jim Cummings Christopher Robin Interview

What did you think of the storyline for Christopher Robin?

I thought it was a great idea, you know. What if Christopher Robin grew up and turned into a person and got stuck working like the rest of us… It was just so magical. Pooh and the gang went out there and kinda saved him. Kind of returned the favor after all those waterfalls that he saved us from.

As you can see, Cummings really identifies with himself as Pooh. It’s such a magical thing to really see the person behind an animated character!

When asked about the recording process for voicing the characters in this movie, specifically, Cummings told us that the recording process was a little different than it was for animated films. He said everything was recorded in one day in London. This gave the actors something to react off and, later, they went back and re-recorded some lines.

We re-looped it again and changed a lot of lines. You’d be surprised at how different it was from the very, very first initial recording. But we did that then rewound and did Tigger. It was a bit of a process. There was more looping [in this film] than in anything else I’ve ever done but it worked.

Note: Automated Dialog Replacement (ADR) is the process of re-recording dialogue by the original actor after the filming process to improve audio quality or reflect dialogue changes (also known as "looping" or a "looping session"). ~wikipedia.org

When you’re recording for the film, do you all do of Pooh’s lines first and then Tigger’s? Or, if they’re having a conversation, do you go back and forth?

I’ve been Pooh since ‘87 and Tigger since maybe ‘89 or ‘90. Back then I would go back and forth. But, I just wanted to maintain a little more integrity. [So now I] just do all of Pooh and then all of Tigger.

Tigger, [here he transitioned to a flawless Tigger voice] he’s a little more raspier. He’s got a little hoarse in there. So you understand my position. I’m sure.