Hank Azaria opens up about voicing ‘dehumanizing’ Apu on ‘The Simpsons’

Hank Azaria, 59, opened up about voicing “The Simpsons” Apu Nahasapeemapetilon as a white man on the newest episode of NPR’s podcast “Code Switch.”

Apu is a recurring Indian-American character within the present who runs the Kwik-E-Mart comfort retailer, which regularly retains him from his spouse and eight youngsters.

Azaria was first publicly referred to as out in 2017 when comic Hari Kondabolu, who’s of Indian descent, expressed his anger over the character and Hollywood’s decadeslong depictions of South Asians within the documentary “The Drawback With Apu.”

Azaria, who not voices Apu, and Kondabolu, 40, lastly sat down and had their first public dialog to deal with the controversy in a podcast episode titled “The Fallout of a Callout.”

Kondabolu described Azaria’s voicing of Apu as “a white man doing an impression of a white man making enjoyable of my father.”

“If I noticed Hank Azaria do this voice at a celebration, I’d kick the s–t out of him,” he stated.

Each Azaria and Kondabolu didn’t instantly reply to The Put up’s requests for remark.

In 1989, Azaria was in his 20s when he first began voicing characters on the prime-time cartoon present. He recounted how he grew to become the voice of Apu after one of many producers casually requested if he would attempt an Indian accent.

“The one actually Indian accent that I had context for, other than guys who labored on the 7-Eleven that I used to be close to in LA, was Peter Sellers in ‘The Get together,’ ” he admitted. “It was an homage to that, you understand, certainly one of my heroes.”

Including to the difficulty, Sellers, a white man, starred as Hrundi V. Bakshi in brownface in that 1968 movie.

The favored voice actor acknowledged that he didn’t consider Apu was really dangerous when criticism first bubbled up. However after he watched Kondabolu’s “The Problem With Apu,” he realized that he had “hindered” and made the “path more durable” for performers that he admires.

He additionally confessed that he was “afraid” to speak to Kondabolu concerning the subject and dodged his requests to be part of the documentary.

“I used to be actually freaked out,” Azaria instructed Kondabolu. “You realize, you’re a comic, and a few of your stuff is gotcha, you understand, and has chunk to it, as nicely it ought to. It’s hilarious and it makes good factors. Being on the opposite finish of that basically, actually scared me, you understand?

“I don’t know if I’d have felt protected to have the dialog privately, not to mention roll them, you understand, we’re going to document it,” Azaria stated.

However after years of self-reflection and digging into the controversy, Azaria admitted that he now finds his casting “embarrassing” and acknowledged how his character fed into “the broader dehumanization of Desi individuals in the US.”

He claimed that he didn’t perceive the extent of the difficulty till he realized that “Apu had turn out to be a slur.” He had heard a few Center Japanese man who was referred to as Apu as he was being attacked in his retailer.

“I helped to create a reasonably marginalizing, dehumanizing stereotype,” he conceded.

This was one thing that Kondabolu was already conscious of. Kondabolu had labored on the Queens District Legal professional’s Hate Crimes Bureau throughout faculty after 9/11. He usually learn experiences involving Apu and his catchphrase, “Thanks, come once more.”

The candid dialog between the 2 comedians introduced the subject to a full circle second after a lot of Kondabolu’s documentary centered round this want to talk with Azaria.

Though the latest “Code Swap” episode was the primary public dialog between Azaria and Kondabolu, it wasn’t the primary time that the white comic has apologized for his earlier function.

Azaria addressed the controversy surrounding his taking part in the character on “The Late Present With Stephen Colbert” in 2018.

“It’s come to my consideration increasingly over the previous couple years,” he stated.

“The concept anybody younger or outdated, previous or current, being bullied based mostly on Apu actually makes me unhappy,” he continued. “It actually was not my intention. I wished to carry pleasure and laughter to individuals.”

Since Azaria stopped voicing the character, Apu has been largely sidelined from the longtime present.