Mr. Peabody and Sherman Characters Explained: Full List, Voice Cast, and Historical Cameos
At the center of the story sits Mr. Peabody, voiced by Emmy-winner Ty Burrell. Fresh off his celebrated performance as Phil Dunphy on Modern Family, Burrell stripped away his trademark bumbling energy to play an impeccably refined polymath. Peabody speaks with crisp mid-Atlantic diction, constantly recalculating flight trajectories and analyzing biological compounds on the fly. Burrell’s performance keeps the character human despite his canine form, letting micro-fractures of parental panic show through the dog's polished, pedantic veneer.
Opposite him stands Sherman, voiced by young actor Max Charles. Unlike the wide-eyed, passive sidekick of the 1950s shorts, this version of Sherman struggles under the suffocating weight of his father’s immense genius. Charles infuses the character with genuine childhood clumsiness and curiosity. Sherman knows everything about the Battle of Waterloo and the Boston Tea Party, yet he lacks the emotional vocabulary to navigate first grade, sparking the movie's central crisis when his playground innocence collides with ordinary schoolyard cruelty.