  Hank Azaria. (WENN.COM file photo) |
LOS ANGELES -- Hank Azaria knows voices.
He should as one of the principal voice actors on The Simpsons for over 20 years -- voicing the characters of Moe Szyslak, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy and numerous others -- and the winner of three Emmys for his work on the Fox show.
"Who would ever have thought?" said Azaria of his two decades on The Simpsons.
"(Someone) said, 'You ever thought the show would last 23 years?' I'm like, 'When we started Fox was a fledgling network. You didn't think the network was going to last. You really didn't. Let alone the show.' So it's completely surreal."
Now, thanks to his latest role, Azaria also knows latex.
In order to play the evil, smurf-chasing wizard Gargamel in the new live action-animated family comedy The Smurfs, opening Friday, Azaria was initially required to sit in the makeup chair for up to four hours at a time with a fake nose, ears, eyebrows, hair, and buck teeth.
Eventually, he just shaved his head to make it easier on himself and got his transformation down to a cool hour and 45 minutes.
"As a vocally oriented character actor it's fun to actually turn into somebody else literally," he told reporters recently.
Especially somebody he didn't particularly like.
Azaria said while he was a fan of the '80s Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon version of The Smurfs, Gargamel -- whose sidekick is a cat named Azreal -- wasn't his favourite.
"I loved The Smurfs, I never liked Gargamel. I love Paul Winchell very much who did the voice but it was like the one character he ever did that was not particularly funny or was kind of one-note so I always wanted to sort of retool him and make him funnier," said Azaria. "And to me the idea that he's basically married to a cat was funny and should be played up."
Still, Azaria initially got his characterization wrong.
"You know that I actually attempted to play Gargamel at first kind of laid back? I thought it would be funnier if he was just as angry but sarcastic rather than furious. But you can not play Gargamel and not lose your mind when you see a smurf. I tried it and the director was like, 'What was that?' "
And playing Gargamel meant Azaria had to hang out with an actual cat. A lot.
"I couldn't decide which was worse -- when the cat was there; when the cat was not there. They had two cats that looked exactly alike; one was high energy, and one was low energy. And so depending on what the cat needed to do they would trot out one or the other. Cats, as you may know from life, don't care so they are impossible to train almost."
So for the cat's animated expressions in the films, they used, well, actual animation.
"I don't dislike cats, but I prefer dogs," said Azaria, adding, "No cats were harmed in the making of The Smurfs."
Hank Azaria is a Free Agent
LOS ANGELES -- Hank Azaria, whose last regular TV gig was from 2004 to 2006 on the Showtime series Huff, will return to network television this fall on NBC's new show, Free Agents, opposite Kathryn Hahn.
It's a romantic comedy based on a British Channel 4 series of the same name about the attraction between two PR executives working together after his marriage has fallen apart, and her fiance has died.
John Enbom (Party Down) has adapted all of the scripts for the U.S. version.
"My inclination was not to go back to network television for a variety of reasons (schedule, lack of cursing, he elaborates later). And so I haven't done it in a long time. But this was so good that I actually really annoyingly couldn't say no. I actually got kind of upset like, 'I think I might have to do this thing. It's too good. I can't ignore it.' You never know when a gem's going to come from. The script was so good. I was like, 'Oh, I have to do this.' I'm still really ambivalent. I'm very excited to do the show 'cause I love everybody and I'm very happy with how it came out but I'm so dreading the tsunami of work heading my way. It really gets tiresome. And I'm going to miss my (two-year-old) son."
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