Years after the release of the documentary The problem with Apu In 2017, director Harry Kondapolo Talk at length with Hank Azaria In a new conversation about Simpsons a personality. Since the first season of the long-running animated sitcom, Azaria has voiced the role of Apu, the manager of the local Kwik-E-Mart. Kondabolu’s documentary criticized the show’s portrayal of Apu, and this included the casting of a white actor to voice the South Asian character. Azaria has since retired from voicing the role, limiting Apu to background appearances in the years since.
For the recent edition of the Code Switch podcast (per NPR), Azaria recalled how he landed the role in the first place. join The Simpsons Originally portrayed by Moe the bartender, from there, he was given other characters to portray, and at some point early on, Apu came into the picture. The actor also explained the inspiration behind his Apu accent.
“The first voice I did was Moe the bartender. And then the next week I went back and did the voice of Chief Wiggum. And then that week or the next week, there was Apu’s line, and it just got written as an employee, and the producer, the director that I was working on, said With him at the time, can you speak an Indian accent? And I said, yeah, I could try and I did my version of the Hindi accent and that was the only really Indian accent that he had context to, apart from the guys who worked at the 7-Eleven that I was near in Los Angeles, Peter Sellers was in it the party. It was mostly a tribute to this one, one of my heroes.”
The couple also talked about how Azaria did not appear in the 2017 document himself to talk about the situation. Kondapolo says he “thought” Azaria would decline an interview, as he did, but it still annoys the director, since he didn’t “get that choice” when it came to how South Asians were portrayed in Hollywood. Azaria admits that he was very afraid at the time to confront Kondabolu because of his portrayal of Apu.
“I was scared. I was really freaked out. You’re a comedian. And some of your ‘gotcha’ stuff. I nibbled into it, as it should. It’s hilarious and makes good points. But being on the other end of that really scared me. At the time, I didn’t feel Safe to have the conversation in private, much less to record it.”
Hank Azaria is no longer Abu… does the character return?
Azaria jokes that he’s glad he was finally “drawn into” the conversation, as it helped both of them hash things out and move on better. Kondabolu mentions how Azaria apologized and explained things privately to the director, though it still “meaned a lot” for the actor to say those things publicly. Kondapolo also praises Azaria for the way he has grown since then in “incredible ways”, and Azaria offers another apology for not facing controversy sooner.
“I apologize for not saying it earlier. It put me in a bind because it is still embarrassing for me to refer to the document, even though all I feel personally is a drop in the ocean compared to what your community has to deal with.”
While Azaria was late to apologise, he walked away from the role of Apu very quickly as soon as he saw it The problem with Apu How his image affected the lives of the people of South Asia. Since 2017, Apu has not had any new dialogue, nor has any new voice actor been named for the character. He’s been relegated to the background, so he’s still around in Springfield, but it’s still unclear if Apu will be brought back into the spotlight with a new voice actor.
