The Simpsons’ Hank Azaria Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions | WIRED

Key Takeaways

how can you possibly be this talented does your handsomeness get in the way of you like your everyday life i can't think of any other questions people would want to ask me i don't know [Music] i really hope this is being recorded because if it isn't i've just gone insane [Music] hi i'm hank azaria and apparently i'm doing the wired auto complete interview so here we go first thing how to pronounce hank's area it's hank's area it's self-explanatory although some people in my family say azaria i discovered the azaria people insist they're right but they are wrong and i you know i have the mic here so i win how how tall is hank this area i am six feet tall exactly although with age it's like i'm like five eleven and three quarters now how old is hank's area very getting very personal the card is like actually upsetting me i'm i'll be 57 uh in uh in april as of april 25th 2021. i can barely wait to see how insulting this next one's going to be ah no not how many characters does hank's area voice well on the simpsons alone i mean over a hundred over the years but like 30 or so running characters that appear consistently and then you know too many to count in other venues the arlington does hank is area we're really uh this is like a journey into grammar here does hank is there a drink well i you know i drink like water and stuff to live and survive sure i do not drink alcoholic beverages i've retired from that about uh oh 14 years ago this next summer i was forced into retirement um the thanks area sing yes i mean i have to sing on the simpsons all the time i sang on broadway i would like to point out that i believe in the history of broadway musicals i'm the person nominated for a tony with the least musical talent ever in the history of broadway so they pay me to sing every once in a while which they really shouldn't i would be very disappointed if i showed up at broadway theater and i was the one singing but you know what do i know what do they know does hank's area speak spanish no my parent i grew up in a spanish-speaking household i understood spanish until i was a teenager and then i i lost a lot of it but uh my both my parents are fluent in spanish okay does hank thought this this question killed me not literally does hager have parkinson's disease what a disturbing question no no i also don't have to fill the record no berry berry no scurvy no legionnaires disease i don't know i'm hoping that this is because in in the last season of my show brockmire my character had parkinson's and i i'd like to think i did a convincing handshake but i don't know don't have parkinson's but thanks for asking now what hank is area can i just answer what haggis area what the hanka's area is going on here i think that should be a new way of expressing ourselves what has anxiety have been in that's a long that's a that's a long uh i've been at this for 35 years so you got to google that one for the birdcage the simpsons i was recently on ray donovan i just finished my show brockmire was on friends uh i was in spamalot on broadway i've done a lot of stuff kids what i think is area doing now i just finished my show brockmire and now i have a podcast the jim brockmeyer podcast where i interview the great and near great in the world of sports and entertainment got charles barkley and ben stiller and don cheadle and joe buck and colin coward and dan patrick joining us i'm also producer got many things in development mom if you're watching this i've been i've been busy stuff get off my keys what is my ethnicity very nice question i'm an american jewish fellow my family is are sephardic jews meaning they were originally from spain i mean like back in the 15th century and that's why my family's spanish-speaking because that the uh all sephardic jews speaks a dialect of spanish called latino which is a fascinating dialect it's spanish phonetic spanish written in hebrew characters hebrew letters how about that and my family went to greece for a long time i am jewish by way of spain by way of greece when the hank is there this is like a strange uh newspaper articles you need the who what where when why how right this is like doing this to myself so i can't wait to see what the when was hank azarian nominated for an oscar i remember this very well that was the 12th of never it has never happened i should have been nominated like 56 times but boy that that's flattering that that was if that's googled a lot people also have assumed that i've hosted snl but i never did so if lauren if you're watching this give me a break please throw me threw me a freaking boom uh when did hank azaria join the simpsons uh the first year that it was a half hour show which was back in 1988 boy i was 24 but i auditioned for it originally i think i was 22. the very first one was mo that's what i auditioned with and then follow her quickly by chief chief with him this is my first two characters oh the way i stopped voicing appu i really haven't uttered a sound as apoo in about five or six years i only announced that i was not doing that a couple years ago although oppo has appeared visually on the show he hasn't uttered a word in five or six years but there's a whole nother long story that i'm sure you can google if you like now kids we move on to where hank's area much like where's waldo where is hank's area in frame right here congratulations you've won where is hank's are you from i am from new york specifically queens specifically forest hills new york a lot of great uh people from forest hills you got paul simon david caruso ray romano from my hometown we actually ray romano's mom was my music teacher in forest hills how about that all right we got where does hank's area live no my actual dress i'm not giving it to you but i moved back to uh new york about six years ago it's our final board kids it's kind of said who hank is area who has hank is there a dated my goodness we're getting personal a lot of people a lot of people in show business i don't know i don't think i should out them there was a while there i have to be honest where if i turned on the tv i saw a lot of people i dated at one time or another i don't know whether i'm proud or ashamed of that somewhere in between and i've dated many uh civilians as well i once dated a um a medical examiner one state a woman who did autopsies how about that one uh who do you think they're playing friends i played david the scientist guy who was in love with phoebe i got beaten out uh by the very handsome uh paul rudd which i actually was sad about i really wanted to end up with phoebe i found out like everybody else and i read the script i'm like ah i don't end up with phoebe but you know i think she made the right choice he went on to be ant-man and i went on to be gargamel so you know i played david the scientist guy on friends but i auditioned to be joey and uh spoiler alert i didn't get it i thought the show was so good i was right about that that i asked to come back and i said i gotta go back and try it again and they let me very kindly and then they very quickly threw me out again but then they were nice enough to offer me david the scientist guy who's necessarily his wife my lovely wife katie uh katie wright katie is area now we have uh we have an almost 12 year old son hal i like to call her a recovering actress a former actress katie was a really uh really good actress she did she worked a lot she played susan day in the partridge family movie and she was on a spin-off of beverly hills 90210 or melrose place i think it was called malibu shores my favorite of hers though is she did a mentos commercial that you can still catch on youtube all right i think i think i've uh i think i did it i guess i would ask those questions if i were googling myself i'm still disturbed by the parkinson's question no as far as i know i'm disease-free so thanks for asking