Hank Azaria

Henry Albert "Hank" Azaria (uh-zar-e-uh) (born April 25, 1964) is an American actor, voice actor, producer, and comedian. He voices Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, Jonathan Frink, Snake Jailbird, formerly Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and numerous other characters on The Simpsons. He voices the most characters on the show.
==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 in (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."Azaria, Hank interview with Terry Gross. Fresh Air. National Public Radio, WHYY-FM, Philadelphia, 2004-12-06 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 ' character Hrundi V. Bakshi from the movie .
*As said, Moe is based on Al Pacino.
*Wiggum was initially based on , but Azaria later sped the voice up to sound like .
*Lou is based on .
*Dr. Nick is a bad impression of .
*Wiseguy is based on .
*Snake is based on Azaria's old college roommate.
*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".
*Professor Frink is based on Jerry Lewis's performance in the original Nutty Professor.
*Sea Captain is based on 's portrayal of many pirates.
* Azaria based his performance of Frank Grimes on actor . He counts Grimes as the hardest, most emotional performance he has ever had to give in the history of The Simpsons.
In early 2020, Azaria announced that he was stepping away from the Apu character, primarily because of the stereotypes and bias it perpetuated.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/arts/hank-azaria-simpsons-apu.html Later in the year he would retire from voicing Carl (as well as Bumblebee Man and Lou) for similar reasons.https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/the-simpsons-carl-voice-alex-desert-hank-azaria-1234782691/
==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 (1991-1994), Nat Ostertag in (1995-1999), David in Friends (1994; 2001-2003), Dr. Craig "Huff" Huffstodt in Huff (2004-2006), and as in Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994-1996), as well as winning an Emmy for playing Mitch Albom in the miniseries (1999). He has appeared in numerous movies playing characters such as Albert Freedman in (1994), Alan Marciano in (1995), Agador Spartacus in (1996), Bartok in (1997), Victor "Animal" Palotti in Godzilla (1998) along with Simpsons co-stars Nancy Cartwright and Harry Shearer, Jeff/The Blue Raja in (1999), Hector Gorgonzolas in (2001), Claude in (2004), Kahmunrah, The Thinker, and Abraham Lincoln in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2010) and Gargamel in the 2011 film 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) ===
=== Commentaries (2004-2017) ===
== Hank Azaria's Characters ==
==See also==
*:Category:Characters voiced by Hank Azaria
==Citations==
==External links==
*
*
*
*
*
es:Hank Azaria
fr:Hank Azaria
pl:Hank Azaria
pt:Hank Azaria
ru:Хэнк Азария
sv:Hank Azaria
Category:Cast members
Category:Cast and Crew
Category:Voice-Over Performance Emmy winners
Category:American cast and crew
Category:1964 births
Category:Male Cast and Crew
Category:Voice Actors