'Simpsons' Actor Hank Azaria Will No Longer Voice Apu

Gabrielle Bruney

From Esquire

For years, Simpsons fans have raised objections to the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, a racist caricature of South Asian Americans voiced by white actor Hank Azaria. And after playing the part for three decades, Azaria has announced that he’s stepping away from the role.

“I won’t be doing the voice anymore, unless there’s someway to transition it or something,” Azaria told the website SlashFilm Friday. “We all made the decision together. We all agreed on it. We all feel like it’s the right thing and good about it.”

“What [The Simpsons writers are] going to do with the character is their call,” said the actor. “It’s up to them and they haven’t sorted it out yet. All we’ve agreed on is I won’t do the voice anymore.”

With his exaggerated accent, arranged marriage, and singular devotion to his work at Kwik-E-Mart, Springfield's take on 7-Eleven, Apu has long been criticized for perpetuating racist stereotypes. In his 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu, Kondabulu described the character as sounding like “a white guy doing an impression of a white guy making fun of my father.”

After the film’s release sparked increasing discussion of the character's offensiveness, The Simpsons initially addressed the controversy in a particularly ham-fisted and tone-deaf moment from a 2018 episode.

In a scene that found Lisa and Marge reading an old children’s book and discovering it to be racist, Lisa turned to the camera and asked, “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?” She then looked to a portrait of Apu by her bedside, which was signed with the words, “Don’t have a cow.”

“Some things will be dealt with a later date,” said Marge. “If at all,” Lisa replied.

Thankfully, that later date seems to have finally come. Kondabulu tweeted about the news Friday. “I do hope they keep the character & let a very talented writing staff do something interesting with him,” he wrote. “If not to better the show, then to at least spare me some death threats.”

“My documentary ‘The Problem with Apu’ was not made to get rid of a dated cartoon character, but to discuss race, representation & my community (which I love very much)," he added. "It was also about how you can love something (like the Simpsons) & still be critical about aspects of it (Apu).”

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