The Predator is one of the most recognizable and terrifying creatures in all of science fiction, and bringing the alien to life was a team effort. Seven-foot-tall Kevin Peter Hall is the one who stepped into the Predator suit and gave the creature its imposing presence on screen, but a legendary ’80s voice actor is actually responsible for creating the sounds the Predator makes.
You may not recognize Peter Cullen’s face, but you definitely know his voice. Cullen is a prolific voice actor with more than 200 roles to his name, but millions of people love him best as the voice of “Transformers” hero Optimus Prime. Cullen’s been voicing the character since he starred in the original ’80s cartoon, and over the years he’s also played superheroes, villains, dinosaurs, Addams family members, and so much more.
The “Predator” production took an interest in Cullen because he’d done monster sounds for 1976’s “King Kong.” Unfortunately, that experience left him reluctant to take on another monster role. “It caused me to cough up blood, and so I chose to never do monster type sounds again,” Cullen told The Digital Fix in 2006. Cullen was hesitant, but he decided to take a chance on the movie anyway. He didn’t show up with any creature sounds in mind, but Cullen helped kick off the entire “Predator” saga by making up one of the most iconic monster sounds of all time on the spot.
How Peter Cullen developed the voice of the Predator
Peter Cullen went into “Predator” wanting to avoid making typical monster sounds, but then the filmmakers tried to hand him another restriction. They didn’t want him to see the Predator itself. Cullen insisted that he couldn’t come up with a sound for the creature if he had no idea what it looked like, and after much deliberation, he got to see the shot of the Predator taking off his mask.
“When [the Predator] did that,” Cullen said at a 2018 TFcon panel, “I saw this ugly, ugly face, and these tentacles going like this. It reminded me of an upside down horseshoe crab dying in the sun on a beach when I was a kid. It was nasty.” That disgusting image was exactly the inspiration that Cullen needed. Thinking about that rotting horseshoe crab made Cullen imagine a kind of crackling and clicking sound that he thought felt perfect for the Predator.
In the studio, Cullen’s sound was so quiet that he had to get up close and personal with a boom mic for the recording. He said that director John McTiernan couldn’t even hear the sound while on set, so McTiernan wasn’t all that impressed at the start of the recording session. After playing back the recording and getting to hear the haunting clicking sound that so many sci-fi know and love today, McTiernan knew that Cullen had struck gold.
Another 80s icon briefly played the Predator
Before Kevin Peter Hall and Peter Cullen combined forces to bring the Predator to life, someone else took a crack at the role. Fading action star Jean-Claude Van Damme was originally cast as the Predator, and he actually suited up and filmed some scenes as the creature itself. Unfortunately, Van Damme’s run as the Predator was short-lived and semi-disastrous, but without it we might not have the Predator that exists today.
Van Damme reportedly had his own ideas about how to portray the Predator, and he argued for more fight choreography and kickboxing-styled moves for the creature. He and the filmmakers argued about their competing visions, but the biggest problem with “Predator” for Van Damme was the costume. “The actor had to wear a felt suit that covered his whole body,” Bill Duke told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, “and with 90 and 100 degree temperatures, [Jean-Claude] had passed out twice from dehydration.” Van Damme, and that fur suit, were both replaced, and we ended up with the version of the Predator that still loves to hunt Earthly prey today.