Biography

Garry Chalk was born on February 17, 1952 in Southampton, England, UK. He is an actor, known for The Fly II (1989), Cold Squad (1998) and Beast Wars: Transformers (1996). He has been married to Colleen Nystedt since August 2013.

Deep gruff voice

Usually plays a corrupt law enforcement officer

Voice of Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal.

Voice of Luca Brasi in The Godfather video games.

Emigrated to Canada in June 1957.

Has been involved in two cartoons that were either spin offs or remakes of an earlier series. He provided the voice of He-Man in "The New Adventures of He-Man" and later provided the voice of Man-At-Arms in the 2002 version of "He-Man & The Masters of the Universe". He also provided the voice of Optimus Primal on "Beast Wars: Transformers" and later voiced Optimus Prime on "Transformers Armada".

Like most of the Beast Wars voice actors who returned for the sequel Beast Machines, Chalk strongly disliked how his character, Optimus Primal, was rewritten as a religious fanatic and, according to co-star Scott McNeil, would often flip out in anger between recording sessions.

Originally auditioned for the role of Megatron evil leader of the Predacons when he was approached for Beast Wars: Transformers (1996) while David Kaye, who ultimately played Megatron, auditioned for Optimus Primal heroic leader of the Maximals, which went to Chalk. Ironically Chalk would play the original Decepticon Megatron in a season 2 episode of Beast Wars while Kaye later voiced Optimus Prime on Transformers Animated (2007).

Unlike John Erwin and Cam Clarke, who provided the voices of both He-Man and Prince Adam i (Erwin in the 1983 Filmation series and Clarke in the 2002 Mike Young Productions series), Chalk only provided the voice of He-Man, while a different actor, Doug Parker, provided the voice of Prince Adam.

[on 'Leap 4 Your Life'] I do improv in movies sometimes but I've never actually been in a movie where we just had a structure and improvised all the script. I discovered I'm a lot more open to going with the flow as far as improv goes than I used to be.