Just weeks before the first Transformers spinoff Bumblebee hits theaters, we’re learning some big news: Dylan O’Brien is voicing the titular robot.

The Maze Runner and Teen Wolf alum has big shoes to fill — or should we say, create? Bumblebee has never spoken in a movie before.

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura told IGN, “Since we were approaching this as an origin story, we felt that it was appropriate that you got to hear his voice. That’s the simple logic that we employed. The longer term implication of that is different. But the short-term implication of that is, since we really are resetting the mythology, essentially, of who Bumblebee is. And so, that seemed to us to be the appropriate, to get the chance to hear what he sounds like.”

Di Bonaventura says Transformers fans needn’t worry about Bumblebee finally getting a voice — he says that test audiences have liked O’Brien voicing Bumblebee. “Dylan has that great quality in his voice of youthful exuberance, and also sort of trustworthiness. I think those are the two qualities that we wanted Bumblebee to have,” he said.

Perhaps most impressive is how the secret has remained under lock and key for so long.

We’ve been keeping track of what O’Brien has been up to following his leading role in the book to film adaptation of James Dashner’s Maze Runner series. Next year he has a new film out called The Education of Fredrick Fitzell.

Bumblebee also stars Hailee Steinfeld, Justin Theroux, and Angela Bassett and hits theaters December 21. It is the first film in the Transformers series not direct by Michael Bay. This time, it’s Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) behind the wheel.