Meeting Dan Castellaneta was always going to be weird. When the hotel door
opens and the man who plays Homer Simpson appears, it’s clearly impossible
for him to look like Homer, talk like Homer or be washing down doughnuts
with endless cans of beer – but hope springs eternal. Face to face with
Castellaneta, however, that hope is softly dashed. It’s like telling a child
there’s no Father Christmas, or realising your date won’t be calling back.
The real Mr C is a slight, gently spoken man with fine, angular features.
Like Clark Kent to Superman, he is mild-mannered, dapper and polite. Indeed,
all he shares with his cartoon alter ego is a smattering of male-pattern
baldness. When I spill some water, he doesn’t even say “Doh!” He reaches for
a napkin and helps me mop it up while we make polite small talk.
“Being Homer can be a blessing and a curse,” he nods when the vast, yellow
elephant in the room can no longer be ignored. “We did the movie and they
wanted me to go to Australia and do the public appearances. I thought – why?
It’s not going to help my career on camera, and it’s not going to help Homer
get more movie roles, so all it would do is blow my anonymity. I can walk
down the street without being bothered, despite starring on primetime TV all
over the world. It’s a double-edged sword, though. Homer is an international
movie star, but I don’t get inundated with roles. I have to audition like
everybody else.”
Although he also voices Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper
Willie, Mayor Quimby and, as they say in showbiz, many more, it’s Homer who
defines Castellaneta. Plenty of his nonSimpsons screen work has been
Homer-related. In a cameo in the recent film The Pursuit of Happyness, he
asks Will Smith for a doughnut; in the sit-com Arrested Development he’s an
incompetent doctor who cries “Doh!” after leaving instruments in a patient.
In April, he became the actor with the longest-running character on American
television, overtaking the previous 20-year record held by Kelsey Grammer
for Frasier.
Doesn’t this make him resentful? Doesn’t he ever want to tear at Homer’s
fatuous grin and scream, “Give that fame to me!”? After all, he started out
with all the dreams every actor has. Growing up in Chicago, he joined the
city’s celebrated Second City theatre company and played a variety of improv
and scripted roles for four years. Tracey Ullman saw him in an improv show,
he was cast in her sketch series and was also asked to do voices for a weird
cartoon she was having around the ad breaks. Last thing he expected was that
the one-minute toons would make his living.
“I didn’t even think that four or five years into the show,” he says with a
wry grin. “Then The Simpsons just kept going, and now it’s my bread and
butter. But I didn’t know that was going to be my big gig.” He pauses, looks
at me, then decides to make one thing clear. “Look, although I’ve talked
about some frustration with The Simpsons, I think it’s the greatest job in
the world. I’ve always loved cartoons; it has satirical writing; I get to
play every role I’ve wanted to play; plus, financially it’s allowed me to do
other things, like theatre, without worrying about pay – and to do
interviews if it will promote these smaller things.”
In this case, “these smaller things” means his London theatrical debut, a
curious blend of sketches, music and theatre called The Bicycle Men, which
will be at the King’s Head pub theatre in Islington.
Castellaneta plays Steve, a hapless American tourist cycling through France,
who winds up trapped in a village when his bicycle breaks down. He is
insulted constantly, in that curious French passive-aggressive way.
Looking for somewhere to stay, he’s told to try the youth hostel but warned
that he does look “very, very old”. He hands over his bike in the repair
shop, and they say it will take six months. “I can’t wait six months!” he
cries. “Okay, tomorrow,” they shrug. But, of course, tomorrow never quite
comes. Outside, the puppet show plays scenes from his life, and shop-window
mannequins attack him in a homicidal rage. It’s as if Kafka wrote Groundhog
Day.
“The guys who created it are friends from the LA improv scene,” he explains.
“Most of the Second City guys I performed with are in LA now. These three
came up with the show at a regular Sunday-night slot and toured it to LA,
New York and Chicago, but one of them couldn’t make the London run.”
Indeed, improv with his Second City friends is where he spends most of his
nonSimpsons work time. He’s performed with his Bicycle Men buddies – Joe
Liss, Mark Nutter and John Rubano – in shows such as Harold, where the gang
improvise dialogue over old Harold Lloyd silent movies. He even sees the
writing and playing instructions for Homer Simpson – “Do him like a dog
trapped in a man’s body” – as similar to a classic improv comedy game.
“Because we start with the voice track on The Simpsons, we can improvise lines
and pauses, and the animators get inspired by watching us in the recording,”
he explains. “They sit and watch our faces to get a feel of what to animate.
In fact, it’s much closer to improv than most of the TV, stage and film work
I’ve done, which is strange, considering it’s a toon.”
Outside this, he’s using his wordplay skills to develop a writing career. With
his wife, he’s penned a couple of Simpsons episodes, and the two are now
finishing a comedy musical based on the Spanish-American war of 1898.
Seriously.
“We wanted to draw comparisons between what happened then and what’s happening
now,” he grins. “That war started with the explosion of the battleship Maine
in Havana harbour, which the press whipped up into antiSpanish hysteria. We
invaded Cuba and gave it independence, then stationed soldiers in the
Philippines, where we ended up in a five-year battle against insurgents.
But, yes, for people to come and watch this, it has to be really funny and
broad and satirical.”
And in his desire for satire he parts company with the fat, lazy Springfield
guy for good. You would never hear Homer say, “I’m more or less a leftie.
The Simpsons is immensely satirical – although its major thrust is that it’s
written by guys who hate television, and this is their way of getting back
at it. But also, at times, they make political statements, and I’m of that
bent. After all, there’s so much fodder for it in America right now – you
just pick it up, it’s like gold.” Homer’s critique, of course, would be –
well, you know.
The Bicycle Men, King’s Head, N1, from Nov 6; www.kingsheadtheatre.org
