Hank Azaria

Henry Albert Azaria ( ; born April 25, 1964) is an American actor and producer. He is known for voicing many characters in the animated sitcom The Simpsons since 1989, including Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Superintendent Chalmers, Comic Book Guy, Snake, Professor Frink, Kirk Van Houten, Duffman, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Lou, and Carl Carlson, among others. Azaria joined the show with little voice acting experience, but became a regular in its second season. For his work on the show, he has won four Primetime Emmy Awards. Azaria stepped down as the voice of Apu in January 2020, following years of racial controversy.

Alongside his continued voice acting on The Simpsons, Azaria became more widely known through his live-action supporting appearances in films such as Quiz Show (1994), Heat (1995), The Birdcage (1996) (for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Award) and Godzilla (1998). He has also appeared in numerous films including Mystery Men (1999), America's Sweethearts (2001), Shattered Glass (2003), Along Came Polly (2004), Run Fatboy Run (2007), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) and The Smurfs (2011) and The Smurfs 2 (2013). Further voice roles include Anastasia (1997), for which he won an Annie Award.

Azaria's live-action television work includes recurring roles on the sitcoms Mad About You and Friends, as well as dramatic roles in the TV films Tuesdays with Morrie (1999) as writer Mitch Albom and Uprising (2001) as Jewish resistance leader Mordechai Anielewicz. For the former, Azaria received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. He starred in the title roles in the Showtime drama series Huff (2004–2006) and the IFC sitcom Brockmire (2017–2020). His recurring role on the drama Ray Donovan earned him a sixth Primetime Emmy Award in 2016.

Azaria made his Broadway debut as Lancelot in Spamalot, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He returned to Broadway in 2007, playing David Sarnoff in The Farnsworth Invention.

Early life and education Henry Albert Azaria was born in the Queens borough of New York City on April 25, 1964, to Ruth and Albert Azaria. He began going by the name "Hank" as a child, after a pediatrician he visited said he felt it was a more suitable name for a child than "Henry".

His family spoke Ladino, also known as Judaeo-Spanish, which he described as "a strange, antiquated Spanish dialect written in Hebrew characters." Before marrying his father, Azaria's mother had been a publicist for Columbia Pictures, promoting films in Latin American countries as she was fluent in both English and Spanish. where he met and befriended actor Oliver Platt and noted that Platt was a "better actor" than he was and inspired him. before Azaria went to train at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Although he did not expect the endeavor to be successful, he decided to become a professional actor so that he would not regret not having tried later in life. Azaria has described his career progression as being gradual; he did not achieve overnight recognition or fame.

The Simpsons (since 1989) Azaria is known for his voice work in the ongoing animated television series The Simpsons. He joined the show having previously performed only one voice acting job—as the titular animated dog in the failed Fox pilot Hollywood Dog, a show he described as "sort of Roger Rabbit-esque, where the dog was animated, but everybody else was real."

Azaria did not expect to hear from the show again, but they continued to call him back, first to perform the voice of Chief Wiggum and then Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.

In addition to Moe, Wiggum and Apu, Azaria provides the voices of Comic Book Guy, Carl Carlson (until season 32, now voiced by Alex Désert), Cletus Spuckler, Professor Frink, Dr. Nick Riviera, Lou, Snake Jailbird, Kirk Van Houten, Bumblebee Man, the Sea Captain, Superintendent Chalmers, Disco Stu, Duffman, the Wiseguy, and numerous guest characters. His co-star in The Simpsons, Nancy Cartwright, wrote that: "The thing about Hank that I most remember is that he started out so unassuming and then, little by little, his abilities were revealed and his contributions to the show escalated. I realized Hank was going to be our breakaway star."

As Moe's voice is based on Al Pacino's, likewise many of Azaria's other recurring characters are based on existing sources. He took Apu's voice from the many Indian and Pakistani convenience store workers in Los Angeles that he had interacted with when he first moved to the area, and also loosely based it on Peter Sellers' character Hrundi V. Bakshi from the film The Party. Azaria disputed this on LateNet with Ray Ellin, claiming that Apu was always intended to be stereotypical.

Chief Wiggum's voice was originally a parody of David Brinkley, but when Azaria was told it was too slow, he switched it to that of Edward G. Robinson. The "Wise Guy" voice is "basically Charles Bronson," while Carl is "a silly voice [Azaria] always did."

Azaria's work on the show has won him four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, in 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2015. He was also nominated for the award in 2009 and 2010, but lost to co-star Dan Castellaneta and guest star Anne Hathaway respectively. He was nominated again in 2012. Azaria, with the rest of the principal cast, reprised all of his voice roles from The Simpsons for the 2007 film The Simpsons Movie. Azaria notes that he spends "an embarrassingly small amount of time working on The Simpsons."

Up until 1998, Azaria was paid $30,000 per episode. Azaria and the five other main The Simpsons voice actors were then involved in a pay dispute in which Fox threatened to replace them with new actors and went as far as preparing for the casting of new voices. The issue was soon resolved and from 1998 to 2004, they received $125,000 per episode. In 2004, the voice actors intentionally skipped several script read-throughs, demanding they be paid $360,000 per episode. The strike was resolved a month later, with Azaria's pay increasing to something between $250,000 and $360,000 per episode.

In 2008, production for the twentieth season was put on hold due to new contract negotiations with the voice actors, who wanted a "healthy bump" in salary. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Azaria and the other cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode.

In an April 24, 2018, appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Azaria discussed his reaction to The Problem with Apu, a 2017 documentary by Hari Kondabolu that examined Azaria and other white actors who had played South Asian roles as stereotypes. During the interview, Azaria described how watching the documentary had changed his perspective on the issue: "The idea that anyone, young or old, past or present, was bullied or teased based on the character of Apu, it just really makes me sad." Later in the year he retired from voicing Carl for similar reasons. In April 2021, Azaria apologized for voicing the Apu character, on Dax Shepherd's podcast.

Further career (since 1991)

Television work

With the continuing success of The Simpsons, Azaria began taking on other, principally live-action roles. He was a main cast member on the show Herman's Head (1991–1994) playing Jay Nichols, alongside The Simpsons co-star Yeardley Smith. He regularly recorded for The Simpsons and filmed Herman's Head during the same day.

Azaria produced and starred in the sitcom Imagine That in 2002, replacing Emeril mid-season in the NBC lineup. He played Josh Miller, a comedy writer, who "transformed" each episode into a character Miller has imagined, "provid[ing] a humorous outlet for his frustrations at home and work". Production closed after five episodes and it was canceled after just two aired, due to poor critical reaction and ratings. Azaria later commented on the show: "I wanted to do something really truthful and interesting and impactful. We had a bunch of executives sitting in the room, all agreeing that The Larry Sanders Show was our favorite thing on television, but we couldn't do it on NBC, and nor would we want to from a business standpoint; it simply wouldn't make enough money. By the time it aired, the writing was sort of on the wall, and I don't blame them at all. It was apparent it wasn't working." After reading the pilot script, he sent it to Platt, who took the role of Huff's friend Russell Tupper. while John Leonard of New York magazine said he was a "shrewd bit of casting." The show garnered seven Emmy nominations in 2005, including a nomination for Azaria for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

Returning to live-action television in 2011, Azaria starred in the NBC sitcom Free Agents, a remake of the British series of the same name. He played Alex Taylor, a recently divorced public relations executive "who is missing his kids and trying to keep himself together", and ends up sleeping with a co-worker Helen Ryan (Kathryn Hahn). Azaria also served as a producer on the show. Despite Azaria mounting a campaign on Twitter to save it, the series was canceled after four episodes due to low ratings. Between 2014 and 2016, Azaria had a recurring role in the second, third and fourth season of Showtime's Ray Donovan, playing FBI agent Ed Cochran. He won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his work on the show in 2016, as well as earning a further nomination the same category the following year. He played the lead role of Jim Brockmire, a legendary baseball announcer, fired for a profanity-filled breakdown live on air after discovering his wife Lucy Brockmire (Katie Finneran) was having an affair. Azaria based the voice and style of Brockmire on several veteran sportscasters, including Bob Murphy and Phil Rizzuto. The character originated as part of the third episode of the Funny or Die web-series Gamechangers, entitled "A Legend in the Booth", which Azaria also co-wrote. In November 2012, Azaria sued actor Craig Bierko over the ownership of the Brockmire voice. The case was ruled in Azaria's favor in 2014. Both actors had been using a baseball announcer voice before and since meeting at a party in 1990, but United States district judge Gary Allen Feess ruled that only Azaria's voice was, as Brockmire, a defined, "tangible" character and thus subject to copyright. In 2016, IFC confirmed development on the series, on which Azaria also served as an executive producer.

Film work

"[Azaria's] appeal can best be summed up by, of all things, his hilarious cameo in the goofy comedy Dodgeball. As Patches O'Houlihan, the dodgeball champion who will age into the magnificently gruff Rip Torn, he delivers a pitch-perfect performance in an instructional video in which he chain-smokes, encourages a child to pick on those weaker than him, and steals the film from a cast of comedic greats. It's a wonderful, odd moment that could have failed miserably in the hands of a lesser actor, and he manages to pull it off with only seconds of dialogue. In my humble opinion, and using my limited knowledge of boxing terms: Pound for pound, Hank Azaria is the best actor working today." — Playwright Jenelle Riley on Azaria. while Empire wrote that he "[stole] the show." For the role he used a Guatemalan accent, and made himself sound as effeminate as possible. He had chosen two possible voices, an effeminate one and a tougher one. After advice from a drag queen, he chose the effeminate voice. Three weeks into production, he realized he sounded exactly like his grandmother, which aided his performance.

Azaria played composer Marc Blitzstein in Tim Robbins' film Cradle Will Rock in 1999. Paul Clinton wrote that Azaria was "brilliant as the tortured (is there any other kind) artist Blitzstein." The same year he appeared as author and journalist Mitch Albom alongside Jack Lemmon in the television film Tuesdays with Morrie, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for the role. Azaria described the latter as the "best work [he has] done." Azaria commented: "all the roles I got were in comedy at first, and I was certainly happy to get those, so I never felt the lack of being considered a dramatic actor because I was so happy to get what I got. And then I became surprised later on when I got dramatic roles. But I never went, 'OK, now it's time to get a dramatic role.'"

Since Huffs conclusion in 2006, Azaria has continued to make multiple film appearances. He played the smooth-talking Whit Bloom in David Schwimmer's directorial debut Run Fatboy Run (2007). During production he became good friends with co-star Simon Pegg, performing The Simpsons voices on request, frequently distracting Pegg when he was supposed to be filming. He worked with Stiller again on 2009's Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian in which Azaria played the villainous pharaoh Kah Mun Rah, utilizing a Boris Karloff accent. Although the film received mixed reviews, critics praised Azaria's performance. Perry Seibert of TV Guide wrote that "thanks to Azaria, a master of comic timing. His grandiose, yet slightly fey bad guy is equally funny when he's chewing out minions as he is when deliberating if Oscar the Grouch and Darth Vader are evil enough to join his team." He appeared as Abraham in Year One (2009), Dr. Stan Knight in 2010's Love & Other Drugs, and played Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano in Lovelace (2013).

Azaria played Gargamel in the animated/live-action adaptation of The Smurfs (2011). Azaria wore a prosthetic nose, ears, buck teeth, eyebrows and a wig, as well as shaving his head. He spent approximately 130 hours in the make-up chair over the course of the production. Azaria considered Gargamel's voice to be the most important part of his performance. The producers wanted an "old, failed, Shakespearean actor" voice, but Azaria felt this would lack energy and wanted something more Eastern European. He eventually selected a voice similar to that of Paul Winchell's from the cartoon. Azaria disliked the cartoon when it first aired, and considered Gargamel too one-dimensional a character and "just this straight villain"; More positive reaction came from Scott Bowles of USA Today called Azaria the "human standout"; Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times felt he suffered the "greatest disservice" of the film's cast due to a poor script. Azaria noted in an interview with The A.V. Club that The Smurfs and Night at the Museum were films he agreed to do primarily for the money, but that "I won't even do that unless I think it will at least be fun to do...I really try to throw myself into it, figure out the funniest, cleverest way to get the material over, and make it fun to do and fun to watch." In 2016, Azaria starred in Norman with Richard Gere.

Further voice work Azaria performed a number of voice roles in addition to The Simpsons, although he noted in 2005: "I started doing other voiceovers for cartoons for a couple of years, but I didn't really love it. I was spoiled by The Simpsons." In the animated feature Anastasia (1997), he voiced Bartok the bat and reprised the role in the direct-to-video prequel Bartok the Magnificent (1999).

He also voiced Eric in the American dub of the series Stressed Eric, and Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg in Chicago 10 (2007). For example, Sandie Chen of The Washington Post said "Azaria has been honing his over-the-top Spanish accent since The Birdcage, so anything he says grabs some laughs", while Emma Simmonds of Time Out called him an "unflappable presence, voicing two characters with style". Later in the year he voiced The Mighty Sven in Happy Feet Two. He also voiced the lead character, Texan border agent Bud Buckwald, in Bordertown, which aired in 2016, as well as Shelfish Sheldon in Mack & Moxy the same year.

Once The Simpsons was "going steadily" and Azaria had enough money to live on, he stopped working on commercials as he found them "demoralizing", feeling that he sounded sarcastic whenever he read for them. When recording the part of "Jell-O Man" for a Jell-O commercial, he was told to make the voice he offered "more likable and friendly so that children like him." After pointing out that "Jell-O Man" was a fictional character, he left and pledged to never record for an advertisement again.

Other work Azaria wrote and directed the 2004 short film Nobody's Perfect, which won the Film Discovery Jury Award for Best Short at the US Comedy Arts Festival. a film about two American workers who journey to get their jobs back, after their factory is moved to Mexico. In 2009, Azaria told Empire he was instead focusing on making a documentary about fatherhood. In 2011, he told the Los Angeles Times that this project was "half-complete" and was "forever looking for financing to finish it."

He has periodically returned to theatrical work, appearing in several productions. In 2003, he appeared as Bernard in a run of David Mamet's play Sexual Perversity in Chicago, along with Matthew Perry and Minnie Driver, in London's West End. Reuniting with The Birdcage director Mike Nichols, and being a huge Monty Python fan, he saw it as an opportunity he could not pass up, describing it as "so much fun that I haven't realized how tiring it is,"

He took a break from the show in June 2005 to work on Huff, but returned in December 2005. In late 2007 he starred in Aaron Sorkin's The Farnsworth Invention, playing RCA head David Sarnoff. In 2016, he starred in the world premiere of Dry Powder opposite Claire Danes, John Krasinski, and Sanjit De Silva, directed by Thomas Kail, at the off-Broadway Public Theater in New York City.

In August 2024, after his 60th birthday, Azaria began touring with Bruce Springsteen tribute act Hank Azaria and the EZ Band.

Acting style and vocal range Azaria's friends refer to him as "the freakish mimic" due to his ability to copy almost anyone's voice, instantly after he has heard it. As a child, he believed that everyone could do this, but later realized that it was not a common talent.

For many of Azaria's characters, much of their humor is derived from a "funny voice", such as The Birdcage and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. He stated that "being funny with a funny voice is more my comfort zone, a broader character that I try to humanize, a kind of silly or wacky persona that I try to fill in," although he finds it "much easier to be someone much closer to myself," as it requires "less energy ... than playing characters that are so out there and high strung." Playwright Jenelle Riley wrote in 2005 that Azaria was "by far" her favorite actor, praising his "versatility" and "tendency to take small roles that would normally fade into the background and to consistently create characters people care about," noting his roles in Shattered Glass, Mystery, Alaska and especially DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story. His relationship with actress Helen Hunt began in 1994; they married in a traditional Jewish ceremony at the couple's home in Southern California on July 17, 1999. The two had appeared together in Mad About You and the Simpsons episode "Dumbbell Indemnity". and Hunt filed for divorce after a six-month separation, citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce was finalized on December 18, 2000.

Azaria began dating former actress Katie Wright in 2007, and the two married later that year. They have a son named Hal (b. 2009). The family has one dog, Truman, and two rescue cats, Mookie and Wilson. In 2013, the family began renting a home on 80th Street in Manhattan, with plans to make a final decision on where to live in two years. Azaria previously owned a fifth-floor co-op loft on Mercer Street in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood, which he bought from photographer Cindy Sherman in 2005, before selling it in 2013.

Azaria is a fan of the New York Mets and the New York Jets.

Azaria suffered from alcoholism for several years. He credited his longtime friend Matthew Perry for encouraging him to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and has been sober since about 2006. His contribution to the substance-free dorm at Tufts University inspired it to be renamed "Simpson House".

Azaria is the godfather of Oliver Platt's son, George. Azaria donated to several Democratic Party candidates in the 1990s and 2000s. He enjoys the music of Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen, and he has stated that he would have been a therapist if he were not an actor. Azaria co-founded the educational support charity, "Determined to Succeed".

On May 22, 2016, he was awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) from Tufts University.

Acting credits Film Year Title Role Notes 1990 Pretty Woman Detective Albertson Cool Blue Buzz Direct-to-video 1994 Quiz Show Albert Freedman 1995 Now and Then Bud Kent Heat Alan Marciano 1996 The Birdcage Agador Spartacus 1997 Grosse Pointe Blank CIA Agent Steven Lardner Anastasia Bartok Voice 1998 Great Expectations Walter Plane Homegrown Carter Godzilla Victor "Animal" Palotti Celebrity David 1999 Cradle Will Rock Marc Blitzstein Mystery Men Jeff / The Blue Raja Bartok the Magnificent Bartok Voice, direct-to-video; also producer

Awards and nominations Organizations Year Category Nominated work Result American Comedy Award 1999 Funniest Male Guest Appearance in a TV Series Mad About You 2000 2018 Best Actor in a Comedy Series Brockmire 2019 2021 Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Mad About You 2017 Ray Donovan (episode: "Norman Saves the World") Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture 2004 Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series Huff Tony Award 2005 Best Actor in a Musical Monty Python's Spamalot Teen Choice Awards 2009 Choice Movie Villain Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian