In watching Inside the Actor’s Studio, which featured the cast of The Simpsons, I noticed that Julie Kavner (voice of Marge Simpson and the other Bouvier women) was not shown while she performed the voices of her characters, and she left rather quickly after her part was done. Is there a particular reason behind this, or was she perhaps ill at the time of taping?
The story goes that Kavner doesn’t want to be seen performing the voices. And she left because of Lipton’s drill sargent act of barking characters at the actors to perform. Kavner got sick of it, went to the bathroom and never came back.
Isn’t there some contractual requirement that the actors not “do” the voices outside the studio? I can remember seeing Kavner on Letterman, and she wouldn’t face the camera while speaking as Marge.
Also, Dan Castellanata (aka Homer, among other characters) appeared on an episode of L.A. Law as a guy who wore a Homer costume at a theme park and was fired for taking the mask off in public. In the episode, the “Homer” voice is heard a few times but never when Castellanata was on camera, with one exception. Videotape of the incident that got Castellanata’s character fired was shown: him in costume, interacting with kids by speaking in the Homer voice (I understand speaking is something costumed theme-part actors never do), then getting queasy and falling to his knees to throw up, removing the mask to do so. You only see his face at this point, and he wasn’t exactly talking.
Castellanata also appeared as the last patient on the one hour season premiere of “Fraiser.” Whenever I see him, I always think of his appearance as the gay guy on “Married With Children.”
In her book Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart) explains that the people who do the voices do not own the characters. Groening’s company does. It states in their contracts they can only do the voices for the shows and approved promotions.
I could’ve sworn I saw Harry Shearer doing several of his voices on a talk show recently.
Wow, and here I thought myself a Simpsons fan–so much I did not know. Thank you all for such quick and knowledgable replies. What interesting situations.
She is about a pain in the ass, the public knows it’s her doing the voices, what’s with all the mystery?
Thanks for the OP. I had been wondering about her appearance on Actors Studio also.
It didn’t seem like Lipton was ‘barking’ any orders, nor were the actors immediately pressed to do their voices. They were all there to do them certainly, because the show was all about the Simpsons, plus they were in front of fellow actors and students, so the story that Julie ducked out because of irritation doesn’t sound quite right. But you never know how quirky some people are. I do remember how strange it was that they wouldn’t show her on camera doing the voice, though.
I’ve seen Shearer do momentary riffs about Apu, Moe and Chief Wiggum. Maybe the Gracie guys are only fussy about the four primary characters (not counting Maggie, for obvious reasons).
I saw the Actor’s Studio thing as well and I don’t quite get what the deal is with Julie Kavner. The others all seemed to be really good sports and it was genuinely enjoyable to watch the people behind the voices being able to morph into different characters. (It was a hoot when “Bart” was funny phone calling “Moe”). I definitely did not get the impression that Lipton was barking orders, rather, he seemed to be positively pissing himself over the brilliance of the Simpsons and thoroughly enjoying the experience.
Hank Azaria does those voices, actually, which I’ve heard him do before too. I think it was on an episode of The Daily Show.
There’s no restriction I’ve heard of forbidding the actors from doing their voices on camera. But I’ve read that Kavner has to twist up her face to get Marge’s voice right and apparently she doesn’t like to be watched while doing it.
I could swear that I heard Harry Shearer discussing the taping of this program on his radio show. As I remember, he said that the reason Julie Kavner left was that she really did need to use the bathroom, and James Lipton kept insisting she stay. Eventually, she just left and didn’t return.
I think Harry Shearer also said that the interview went on for hours, and although the others may have seemed to be good sports about it, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Essentially, James Lipton came off as something of a tyrant. (I’ve also heard that the “audience” for Inside the Actor’s Studio consists of students from James Lipton’s film course, so they have an incentive to seem enthusiastic.) So if my recollection is at all close, Julie Kavner wasn’t the rude one here.
Does anyone else remember Harry Shearer talking about this?
I think so. Was he on “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross? That’s basically the story I heard on that show several months ago.
Conan O’ Brien had both Harry Shearer and Dan Castellanata on together one night a while back, and they both did several voices. I’m pretty sure Homer was in there, and I know Dan did Grandpa, too. Harry was riffing on Tom Browkaw among others, IIRC.
I think you’re right that they described the taping of the Inside the Actor’s Studio show on Fresh Air, not on Le Show.
I heard Castellaneta on NPR back in 2000 talking about his upcoming stage role in “The Alchemist” (which must have been totally great). During the interview he did Homer’s voice a couple of times. Granted, it was radio and not TV, but he still did the voice. It’s kind of creepy to hear Homer’s voice suddenly come into the conversation: Link. (There’s a RealAudio link on that page.)
I saw that, too. They did a couple of impromptu exchanges between different characters that went on for several minutes at least. I’m pretty sure the camera was on them at the time.
The strangest thing to me on the Bravo interview was hearing Bart’s voice come out of Cartwright’s mouth. It just cracks me up.
That was the best episode of ITAS that I’ve ever seen. I laughed so much that it hurt to breathe for two days afterward.
I also noticed that Julie Kavner disappeared halfway through the show, and wondered why there was no comment on it. I pretty much assumed that she had a scheduling conflict and had to leave early, which is understandable seeing as how she was not the sole guest.
As far as her having hangups about people watching her perform the Marge voice, it’s understandable. Walt Disney (according to legend) hating anyone watching while he recorded the voice for Mickey Mouse. I think only one film exists of him “in performance”. The fact that Julie was not shown on camera while Marge spoke indicates to me that her discomfort was discussed in advance and the editors respected her wishes. It’s even possible that the audience was specifically asked to look away.
Cartwright is a professional voice actor, so she would likely not have any hangups over getting into character.
Shearer wouldn’t either since he does so many voices.
I saw a Museum of TV and Radio seminar where Shearer and Cartwright (along with Groening and some other production people) were participating.
Cartwright explained her preparation process and how she would color code the different voices she has to do (almost all the kids) and how she would practice shifting gears to do different voices.
Shearer said he would look at the script when he walked in and just get to it. He said he decided to open the envelope the script came in before walking in to the studio so people would think he had actually spent some time preparing.