Despite being the least important part of a Transformers movie, stupid meat-bag humans like Shia LaBeouf and Mark Wahlberg always get top billing. Really, though, anyone could do what they do. Just look a couple dozen feet up in the air, yell, “Optimus, the Decepticons are attacking!” and you’ll be considered at least as good an actor as Megan Fox.
What people are really there to see are the robots, which is why the 1986 animated movie from 1986 had actual, big-name stars playing them. Leonard Nimoy! Judd Nelson! Eric Idle! And who could forget Orson Welles in his final—and arguably greatest—role, as the planet-eating robot Unicron? The next live-action Transformers movie, Age Of Extinction, seems to be taking a cue from that classic film by hiring a pair of legitimately qualified actors, John Goodman and Inception’s Ken Watanabe, to provide voices for two of its computer-generated walking toy commercials. This comes via The Hollywood Reporter, which says that Goodman and Watanabe will be playing the Autobots Hound and Drift, respectively.
In a move that Transformers nerds would consider “burying the lede,” THR also reveals that Frank Welker will be providing the voice of new antagonist Galvatron. If anyone’s unfamiliar with the work of Frank Welker, a quick look at his extensive IMDb page will confirm they’re probably lying, but he most notably played Megatron in the original ’80s Transformers cartoon. With longtime Optimus Prime voice actor Peter Cullen returning as well, hopefully that means we’ll see a return to the witty repartee the two shared in classic scenes like this.