Have you seen Disney’s Christopher Robin yet? It’s already in theaters, so I encourage you to go and take the family. I have seen it three times and I love it more each time. My daughters also want to see it again.

Read this post to learn why I believe every mom needs to see Christopher Robin and why the messages in this film are so needed today – especially for parents! 

Today, I’m sharing my interview with Jim Cummings, who is the voice actor for both “Winnie the Pooh” and “Tigger,” which is quite amazing. He was really funny from the get go and he really loved my HONEY shirt.

Usually, when we have an interview, we are gathered in a room waiting for the talent to come in and we clap to welcome them. Jim Cummings came in to see our photo with Christopher Robin Director Marc Forster and started speaking in his iconic Winnie The Pooh voice to us. There’s something about that voice that just warms your heart.

I think almost no matter how old you are, there’s a certain feeling. It’s a pipeline to you at five or eight years old… like, ‘oh gosh, that reminds me of when I was,’ you know, and then you’re going, ‘oh, that’s, boy those were good times, oh say something again.’ … I think it’s like audio comfort.

For many people, Winnie The Pooh is someone they grew up with. I was raised in a slum in the Dominican Republic so I didn’t quite get to know the Hundred Acre Wood friends until Elisha was born, almost 16 years ago.

I had written about Jim Cummings on my D23 Expo recap from the Lion King panel and I am in awe that just a year after that amazing experience, I met the man behind the iconic voices of Winnie The Pooh and Tigger. 

Jim Cummings has been voicing Tigger and Pooh for the last 30 years (he first took on the role in 1988), so I asked him what it means to him to bring Winnie the Pooh back to life again. It can seem like an obvious question, but I knew that his response would go beyond an “I love it!,” or “it means a lot.” His response was very tender to me.

Well, he’s been around with me for a long time. And it feels great. And I love the reimagining, I love you know, oh my goodness, Mark’s vision is sublime. Did you guys see it yet?

We answered YES, so he asked us if we loved the movie and there was a resounding YES in the room. We had screened it the night before and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

I haven’t seen it. …I mean I’ve seen some of it, I mean I know how it ends. But, you know, it just feels great to be associated with such a beautiful, a beautiful franchise. It’s not a franchise to me. What am I trying to say? It’s a universe…

You know, the hundred-acre wood, everybody knows about it and everybody knows all those characters and they have a sweet spot in everybody’s hearts and it’s an honor… it’s a privilege to bring them forward to new generations.

I’ve jokingly said, ‘Winnie the Pooh generation is every three and a half years because brand new set of Pooh fans.’ …It’s joyous.

It’s joyous indeed. I confess it was hard to focus on the questions and answers when he made the voices for us. I was grateful for audio recorders because I just wanted to be in the moment – to live this moment with him.

I’ve mentioned previously that I want to become a voice artist. It’s interesting, because I don’t particularly think I have a great voice, but it’s something that I started considering and hasn’t left my mind. The way Jim Cummings spoke about voice acting really ignited a fire in me and I think I’m going to go for it!

I always think of it as sculpting. Pooh and Tigger were established a long, long time ago. Job one when you’re taking over a character that’s been established is has to sound like him if he sneezes or… has hiccups or fill in the bodily function. It has to sound like him and from there you know, you’re an actor, character actor, so you’re playing the character.

But, the new ones like Dark Wing Duck or Hondo, you work with the animators, with the producer, with the writers… and it’s kind of like audio sculpting, it’s like a sculpture you can hear.

That sounds so amazing and I want to be part of it. Of course, this journey started much earlier for Jim Cummings, who has been doing impressions and imitations since he was a child.

I was very annoying. God, they just hated me and I cringe when I think of it.

He told the story on how he did impressions of his Aunt Grace and people around him would ask him to stop. He joked that his advice to become a successful voice actor was to start out doing impressions of his Aunt Grace, “obviously.”

I always say, ‘you know, if you want to, if you do a perfect impression of somebody, everybody knows, that’s cool, you never know.’ And if you do an impression of somebody super famous that everybody knows and don’t sound anything like him, that’s a new character. And, if you do a perfect impression of somebody nobody knows, your mailman or someone, that’s a new character. And you mix and match…

He takes care of his voice very well and calls it “an instrument.” I can relate to that with all the teaching, training and public speaking I do.

I’ve never smoked a cigarette yet and I don’t drink whiskey. Just don’t abuse it. You know, I’ll go to a football game or a concert and I’m not yelling.

As far as having the mindset of a successful voice actor he commented:

I was accidentally, probably doing research for the characters now cause people say, ‘well, you do voices,’ and that’s true. But, we’re just character actors really that you don’t see. You know, it’s, it is a voice and I get the idea of saying voice actor, but really, it’s a character and that’s how they sound when they talk.

In Disney’s live action, CHRISTOPHER ROBIN is reunited with Winnie The Pooh and his Hundred Acre Wood friends. Jim Cummings sums up the plot like this:

Staying true to the characters and true to the feeling is the way to go. And we’re right back there to square one with this and I just think it’s brilliant.

What do you do? What’s the pitch on this? What if Christopher Robin grew up, got in trouble, turned into a hum drum, work a day drone, like everybody else.

What would we do? Well, by God we’d have to get Winnie the Pooh in there to fix that. So, we did.

It’s such an amazing film and so heartwarming!

Fun Facts About Jim Cummings – The Voice of Winnie The Pooh and Tigger

* As a child, Jim Cummings favorite Hundred Acre Wood character was Tigger. Tigger and Eeyore. He remembers doing the voices as a kid even while doing something casual like playing monopoly.

** Jim Cummings almost met Sterling Holloway(the voice of Winnie the Pooh in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh featurettes through 1977) while eating at a diner in Laguna Beach with his wife, before he was in the voice acting business, but didn’t have the courage to go say hi to him.

*** The favorite character Jim Cummings voiced is Ray, from Princess and the Frog because his baby girl Gracie looked just like 4-year-old Tiana in the opening scene. Gracie is 13 now and he showed us a picture of her on his phone. She dressed like Princess Tiana for the premiere, too!

***3 He ad libs a lot, not only with Tigger and Pooh but with other characters like Hondo from Star Wars and Dark Wing, and others, except for Ray, in Princess and the Frog, who was one of his favorites, but he couldn’t change any of the lyrics to the song.

It has to contribute to the story. It can’t be we’re having a scene, this is what’s happening, and say, ‘oh here’s a funny joke, okay stop, okay laugh, now, where were we? Oh, yeah, we gotta go back to the scene.’

Fun fact: Tigger ad libs more than Pooh does!

***** Jim Cummings loves Winnie The Pooh quotes, or what he calls a “plain, right down to earth, calm, serene, sweet little logic.”He shared 3 of his favorites with us, which are some of my favorites too!

Always remember… Yo are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.

I always get to where I’m going by walking away from where I’ve been.

People say nothing is impossible but I do nothing everyday.

Wow! What an epic interview – and I didn’t even share most of it! Stay tuned for interviews with  Hayley Atwell (“Evelyn Robin”), Bronte Carmichael (“Madeline Robin”), and CHRISTOPHER ROBIN Director Marc Forster, and make sure to read my interview with Ewan McGregor (“Christopher Robin”).

Remember to connect with Disney Christopher Robin on Facebook, Disney Studios on Twitter, and Disney Studios on Instagram, and visit the Christopher Robin movie web page for more CHRISTOPHER ROBIN updates! The official hashtag for the film is #ChristopherRobin and our press event hahstag is #ChristopherRobinEvent.

Have you ever thought about voice acting? What is your favorite part of this interview? Share them with me in the comments below! CHRISTOPHER ROBIN is playing EVERYWHERE, so get tickets as soon as you can!

[ela]