Dan Castellanetta

**Daniel Louis "Dan" Castellaneta** (/ˈdæn ˌkæstələˈnɛtə/; born October 29, 1957) is an American actor, voice actor, comedian and screenwriter. Noted for his long-running role as Homer Simpsonon the animated television series *The Simpsons*, he also voices many other characters on the show, including Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Mel, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby and Hans Moleman.

## Early Life

Daniel Louis Castellaneta was born on October 29, 1957 at Roseland Community Hospital on Chicago's south side and was raised Oak Park, Illinois.[1] [2][3] His parents were Elsie (née Lagorio; 1926–2008) and Louis Castellaneta (1915–2014),[4] an amateur actor who worked for a printing company.[5] He is of Italian descent. Castellaneta became adept at impressions at a young age and his mother enrolled him in an acting class when he was sixteen years old. He would listen to his father's comedy records and do impressions of the artists.[5] He was a "devotee" of the works of many performers, including Alan Arkin and Barbara Harris and directors Mike Nichols and Elaine May.[2] He attended Oak Park and River Forest High School[6] and upon graduation, started attending Northern Illinois University (NIU) in the fall of 1975.[7]

Castellaneta studied art education, with the goal of becoming an art teacher.[5] He became a student teacher and would entertain his students with his impressions.[2][5] Castellaneta was also a regular participant in *The Ron Petke and His Dead Uncle Show*, a radio show at NIU. The show helped Castellaneta hone his skills as a voice-over actor. He recalled "We did parodies and sketches, we would double up on, so you learned to switch between voices. I got my feet wet doing voiceover. The show was just barely audible, but we didn't care. It was the fact that we got a chance to do it and write our own material."[7] He took a play-writing class and auditioned for an improvisational show. A classmate first thought Castellaneta would "fall on his face with improvisation" but soon "was churning out material faster than [they] could make it work."

## Career

### **Early Career**

Castellaneta started acting after his graduation from Northern Illinois University in 1979. He decided that if his career went nowhere he would still have a chance to try something else.[5] He began taking improvisation classes, where he met his future wife Deb Lacusta.[2] Castellaneta started to work at The Second City, an improvisational theatre in Chicago, in 1983 and continued to work there until 1987.[2] During this period, he did voice-over work with his wife for various radio stations.[5] He auditioned for a role in *The Tracey Ullman Show* and his first meeting underwhelmed Tracey Ullman and the other producers. Ullman decided to fly to Chicago to watch Castellaneta perform. His performance that night was about a blind man who tries to become a comedian and Ullman later recalled that although there were flashier performances that night, Castellaneta made her cry. She was impressed and Castellaneta was hired.[2]

### **Further career**

Castellaneta has been a regular cast member in several other television series. In 1991, he played Warren Morris in the short-lived ABC live-action sitcom *Sibs*.[40] Heide Perlman, creator of *Sibs*, wrote the part with Castellaneta in mind.[41] He also provided the voice of the eponymous character in *The Adventures of Dynamo Duck*, Megavolt in *Darkwing Duck*, "Doc" Emmett Brown in *Back to the Future: The Animated Series*,[41]the lead character in *Earthworm Jim*[42] and several characters, including Grandpa Phil and the Jolly Olly Man, the mentally unstable ice cream truck driver, on Nickelodeon's *Hey Arnold!*.[43] He guest starred as The Robot Devil in five episodes of *Futurama*, as well as the film *The Beast with a Billion Backs*.[44]

Castellaneta has also made guest appearances in a number of television series episodes. In 1992, he guest-starred in an episode of the legal drama *L.A. Law*, as a Homer Simpson meetable character at a California amusement park who is dismissed for inappropriate behavior while in costume.[45] In 2005, he appeared in the episode "Sword of Destiny" in *Arrested Development* as Dr. Stein, a deadpan incompetent doctor.[46] In 2005, Castellaneta guest-starred as Joe Spencer in the *Stargate SG-1* season eight episode "Citizen Joe".[47] He also appeared in episodes of *ALF*, *Campus Ladies*, *Castle*, *Entourage*, *Everybody Loves Raymond*, *Frasier*, *Friends*, *Greek*, *How I Met Your Mother*,[48] *Mad About You*, *Married... with Children*, *Murphy Brown*, *NYPD Blue*, *Parks and Recreation*, *Reba*, *Reno 911!*, *That '70s Show*, *Veronica Mars*, *Hot in Cleveland*, *Yes, Dear*,[49] and *Desperate Housewives*.[50]

He appeared as the Genie in the *Aladdin* sequel *The Return of Jafar* and on the 1994 *Aladdin* television series. The Genie had been voiced by Robin Williams in *Aladdin*, and Castellaneta described replacing him as "sort of like stepping into *Hamlet* after Laurence Olivier did it, how can you win?" He also provided Genie's voice in the *Kingdom Hearts* video game series[10] for both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II (with archived audio used for Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and its remake as well as for the later HD collections HD 1.5 Remix and HD 2.5 Remix). Castellaneta portrayed Aaron Spelling in the 2004 NBC film *Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels*, which followed the true story of how Spelling created the show. Other films in which Castellaneta has appeared include *Nothing in Common*, *Say Anything...*, *Super Mario Bros.*, *The Client*, *Space Jam*, *My Giant*, *The Simpsons Movie*, *Rugrats in Paris: The Movie*, *Recess: School's Out*, *Hey Arnold!: The Movie*, *The Cat in the Hat* and *The Pursuit of Happyness*.[49] In 2000, he won an Annie Award for his portrayal of the Postman in the animated Christmas television special *Olive, the Other Reindeer*.[51] In 2006, he appeared in Jeff Garlin's independent film *I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With* along with several other Second City alumni.[52]

On February 22, 2000, his first music CD *Two Lips* was published.[53] It was followed on April 23, 2002 by his first comedy CD, *I Am Not Homer*, in which he and his wife perform several comedy skits. The majority of the sketches had been written and performed before the CD was recorded, and Castellaneta thought that it would be a good idea to preserve them "since [he and Lacusta] don't perform them much anymore."[54] Some came from their sketch series on a local radio station in Chicago and had to be lengthened from the "two-minute bits" that they were originally, while several others were stage sketches performed in a comedy club in Santa Monica.[55] Additionally, "Citizen Kane", a sketch in which two people discuss the film *Citizen Kane* with different meanings, was something the pair had performed at an art gallery.[55]Castellaneta noted that "we already knew that these skits were funny, [but] some of them we polished and tightened."[55] The skits were principally written by improvising from a basic point, transcribing the results and then editing them to the finished scene.[55] Castellaneta chose the title *I Am Not Homer* as a parody of Leonard Nimoy's famous first autobiography *I Am Not Spock*, as well as to show that most of the comedy featured "is not the typical Homer comedy."[54]

Alongside his television and film work, Castellaneta has appeared in a number of theatrical productions. In 1992, he starred in *Deb & Dan's Show* alongside his wife.[56] In 1995, Castellaneta started writing *Where Did Vincent van Gogh?*, a one man play in which he portrays a dozen different characters, including artist Vincent van Gogh.[57] He first officially performed the play at the ACME Comedy Theatre in Los Angeles in 1999.[10] In 2007, he appeared in *The Bicycle Men* at The King's Head Theatre in London.[58]

Castellaneta hosted the final of New York comedy show Thrills and Spills on 31 December 2015. The final was held in Montgomery, Alabama.

## Personal Life

Castellaneta lives in Los Angeles with his wife Deb Lacusta. He is a vegetarian, teetotaler and exercises regularly (despite being known for voicing very opposite type characters in *The Simpsons*).[12]

Castellaneta practises T'ai Chi.[59]

His mother Elsie Castellaneta died in January 2008 aged 81.[60] His father died at age 99 on August 15, 2014; both had "Simpsons" episodes dedicated to their memories.