Why “Transformers One” Is ‘Full Circle’ for Keegan-Michael Key: 1980s Series ‘Was Almost a Religious Experience’ (Exclusive)

Growing up, Keegan-Michael Key recalls tuning into the ‘Transformers’ series after school. Now, he voices Bumblebee in the animated prequel

Keegan-Michael Key gets in touch with his “inner child” whenever doing voiceover work — but Transformers One was on another level.

“This movie was a full circle moment for me,” the actor, 53 tells PEOPLE of the new animated prequel, “because I really am a fan from childhood of the original cartoon people my age watched in the ’80s.”

The Transformers animated series launched a decades-long toy and movie empire when it captured kids’ imaginations in 1984. As Key notes, “the fact that there were action figures and toys that did the things that the characters did was ingenious.”

Also, he adds, when growing up in Michigan, “I wanted those toys so badly, I wanted all of them. And I probably got two total in my whole life!”

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Key recalls that as a kid he used to “come home from school and turn on the television, and it was almost a religious experience for me to be able to watch Transformers. I'd sit there and sing the theme song at the beginning and then just jump into the adventure.”

So voicing B-127 — the early incarnation of beloved yellow bot Bumblebee — in Transformers One was a dream come true for the Key & Peele Emmy winner. Alongside Chris Hemsworth as Orion Pax a.k.a Optimus Prime, Brian Tyree Henry as D-16 a.k.a. Megatron, Scarlett Johansson as Elita-1 and more, Key was more than just “a fan” of the Josh Cooley-directed prequel.

“I absolutely adore it,” he says, “and I'm a sucker for an origin story. This is one I've wanted to see for a long time because of the world-building.”

Transformers One takes place on robotic planet Cybertron, where Bumblebee and his friends toil in mines for its life-giving material — and are unable as of yet to transform. On a quest for the fabled Matrix of Leadership, close friends Orion Pax and D-16 paths cross with Cybertron leader Sentinel Prime (voiced by Jon Hamm), the god-like Alpha Trion (Laurence Fishburne) and rebel Starscream (Steve Buscemi).

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“You always kind of take for granted, ‘Oh, Optimus Prime, Megatron, they're mortal enemies, blah, blah, blah,’” says Key. “To be able to find out where it all started and where it all comes from — it's thrilling.”

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Bumblebee is just the latest in a growing list of Key’s voiceover roles, including in the hit movies Toy Story 4, The Lion King, Wendell & Wild and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. For a classically trained actor who got his breakout in sketch comedy, that’s no coincidence, he says. “It’s one of my favorite things to do in the industry, to really give over to a character.”

In the voiceover booth, he adds, “You can be over-the-top because cartoons are exaggerated by nature, so you get to be exaggerated in the work that you're doing. And I believe that requires a childlike spark from within you.”

Transformers One is now in theaters.

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Read the original article on People.