Henry Albert "Hank" Azaria (uh-zar-e-uh) (born April 25, 1964) is an American actor, voice actor, producer, and comedian. He voices the shady, yet miserably lonely bartender Moe Szyslak; Springfield's most incompetent police chief Clancy Wiggum; snarky comic book store owner and adult geek Jeffrey Albertson; the Jerry Lewis-esque resident wacky inventor, Professor Jonathan Frink; surfer dude-sounding resident criminal Snake Jailbird, Kwik-E-Mart store clerk Apu Nahasapeemapetilon (before the character was retired due to a controversial documentary about how one man considers Apu to be a negative racial stereotype of people from India), Milhouse's loser father, Kirk van Houten; harried and humorless nuclear plant worker, Frank Grimes (who only appeared in one episode, but is considered popular with fans); Homer's African-American/Icelander best friend, Carl Carlson (until he was replaced with Alex Désert), the Mike Tyson-esque professional boxer, Drederick Tatum (until he was replaced by former SNL cast member, Jay Pharoah); Springfield police officer, Lou (until he was replaced with Alex Désert); quack doctor Nick Riviera, Frying Dutchman proprietor and incompetent sea captain Horatio McCallister (known as "The Sea Captain" on the show and with fans), slapstick-prone Mexican sitcom actor Pedro Chespirito (a.k.a "The Bumblebee Man," as he often appears on his show in a bumblebee costume) [until he was replaced by Eric Lopez], and the Charles Bronson-esque Sarcastic Middle-Aged Clerk (known as "Wiseguy", though "Day of the Jackanapes" revealed that his real name is Raphael).

Among him, Dan Castellaneta, and Harry Shearer, Hank Azaria has voiced the most characters.

The Simpsons[]

Azaria is most famous for his voice work on The Simpsons. He joined the show at age 22, having previously performed only one voice over as an animated dog in the Fox pilot Hollywood Dog (1990). The first voice he performed was that of the town bartender Moe, redubbing Christopher Collins who had voiced the character in the original track. Having known him from the failed pilot, casting director Bonita Pietila called Azaria and asked to audition for the voice of Moe. At the time he was doing a play, in which he performed the role of a drug dealer, basing his voice on Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon (1975). He used that voice in the audition and was told by Matt Groening and Sam Simon to make it more gravelly, with it becoming the voice of Moe. Groening and Simon thought it was perfect and took Azaria over to the Fox recording studio. Before he had even seen a script, he recorded several lines of dialogue as Moe for the episode "Some Enchanted Evening."^[1][2][3] Azaria didn't 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, til eventually during the second season he was doing numerous voices. At that point, he was given a contract and made a permanent member of the cast and has remained ever since. He has won three Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on the show in the category "Outstanding Voice-Over Performance". He also played Phoebe's boyfriend David on the show Friends, along with many other TV characters.

Azaria also voices Comic Book Guy, Lou, Dr. Nick, Snake Jailbird, Professor Frink, Sea Captain, Wiseguy, Superintendent Chalmers, Cletus, Kirk Van Houten, and others.

Many of his character's voices were loosely based on other people:

• Apu is loosely based on Peter Sellers' character Hrundi V. Bakshi from the movie The Party.^[1]
• As said, Moe is based on Al Pacino.
• Wiggum was initially based on David Brinkley, but Azaria later sped the voice up to sound like Edward G. Robinson.^[4]
• Lou is based on Sylvester Stallone.^[2]
• Dr. Nick is a bad impression of Ricky Ricardo.^[5]
• Wiseguy is based on Charles Bronson.^[2]
• Snake is based on Azaria's old college roommate.^[2]
• Comic Book Guy is based on a student who lived in the room next door to Azaria at college, who went by the name "F".^[2]
• Professor Frink is based on Jerry Lewis's performance in the original Nutty Professor.^[4]
• Sea Captain is based on Robert Newton's portrayal of many pirates.^[4]
• Azaria based his performance of Frank Grimes on actor William H. Macy. He counts Grimes as the hardest, most emotional performance he has ever had to give in the history of The Simpsons.^[6]

In early 2020, Azaria announced that he was stepping away from the Apu character, primarily because of the stereotypes and bias it perpetuated.^[7] Later in the year he would retire from voicing Carl (as well as Bumblebee Man and Lou) for similar reasons.^[8]

Other work[]

Azaria has had an incredibly active career outside The Simpsons during his time on the show. He's had starring or recurring guest roles on various TV shows with characters such as Jay Nichols in Herman's Head (1991-1994), Nat Ostertag in Mad About You (1995-1999), David in Friends (1994; 2001-2003), Dr. Craig "Huff" Huffstodt in Huff (2004-2006), and as Venom/Eddie Brock in Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994-1996), as well as winning an Emmy for playing Mitch Albom in the miniseries Tuesdays with Morrie (1999). He has appeared in numerous movies playing characters such as Albert Freedman in Quiz Show (1994), Alan Marciano in Heat (1995), Agador Spartacus in The Birdcage (1996), Bartok in Anastasia (1997), Victor "Animal" Palotti in Godzilla (1998) along with Simpsons co-stars Nancy Cartwright and Harry Shearer, Jeff/The Blue Raja in Mystery Men (1999), Hector Gorgonzolas in America's Sweethearts (2001), Claude in Along Came Polly (2004), Kahmunrah, The Thinker, and Abraham Lincoln in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2010) and Gargamel in the 2011 film The Smurfs and its sequel The Smurfs 2. He has also played Whit in Run Fatboy Run (2007). More recently, Hank has joined the cast of Ray Donovan (2014-2016) an American television crime drama series playing James Cochran, head of the L.A. division of the FBI. He was in the original Broadway cast of Monty Python's Spamalot, in the year 2005.

Credits[]

Also Starring (1989-1990)[]

Starring (1991-present)[]

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Hank Azaria's Characters[]

See also[]

• Category:Characters voiced by Hank Azaria

Citations[]

External links[]