Hank Azaria Retires As Voice Of APU on The Simpsons

In an interview with SlashFilm at the annual TCA press tour, Hank Azaria revealed that he’s hanging up his Squishee machine. Although Azaria’s discussed laying the character aside for over two years now, this is the first confirmation he was actually doing so. Moreover, not only is Azaria no longer voicing the role, he’s not sure anyone else will either

Voice actor Hank Azaria told Stephen Colbert he would be willing to step aside as the voice, but subsequent to that, Al Jean and Matt Groening have preferred not to talk about Apu in interviews with /Film. After a panel for the final season of his IFC series Brockmire, Azaria himself answered /Film’s question about Apu.

There have been rumors about what The Simpsons would do about Apu, but none were substantiated. Producer Adi Shankar said sources told him the show would phase out Apu, but showrunner Jean denied that. Groening told /Film Azaria never mentioned wanting to stop doing the caricature voice while he was promoting his Netflix series Disenchantment. However, Azaria has confirmed he will not do the voice anymore.

“All we know there is I won’t be doing the voice anymore, unless there’s someway to transition it or something,” Azaria said.

“What they’re going to do with the character is their call. It’s up to [Al Jean and Matt Groening] and they haven’t sorted it out yet. All we’ve agreed on is I won’t do the voice anymore. We all made the decision together. We all agreed on it. We all feel like it’s the right thing and good about it.”