'Simpsons' star Hank Azaria now decries character Apu as 'dehumanizing' stereotype

Actor Hank Azaria declared that he regrets playing the Simpsons character Apu on NPR’s podcast "Code Switch."

Apu was a recurring Indian-American character on "The Simpsons," an internationally famous cartoon that has been running since 1989. Apu, while appearing to be sidelined now, ran the Kwik-E-Mart convenience store. Azaria, who described his ancestry as "Sephardic Jews from Greece," was publicly called out in 2017 when comedian Hari Kondabolu, of Indian descent, condemned how south-Asian characters like Apu have been portrayed in a documentary called, "The Problem With Apu."

Azaria opened up about his regret for voicing the character on a recent episode of NPR’s podcast "Code Switch," where he spoke with Kondabolu directly.

"The only really Indian accent that I had context for, apart from guys who worked at the 7-Eleven that I was near in LA, was Peter Sellers in ‘The Party,’" he admitted. "It was an homage to that, you know, one of my heroes."

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Adding to the issue, Sellers, a white man, starred as Hrundi V. Bakshi in brownface in that 1968 film.

While he was initially skeptical in 2017 that the character was harmful, he said that after he watched Kondabolu’s "The Problem With Apu," he realized that he had "hindered" and made the "path harder" for performers that he admires.

But after years of self-reflection and digging into the controversy, Azaria admitted that he now finds his casting "embarrassing" and acknowledged how his character fed into "the broader dehumanization of Desi people in the United States."

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He later added, "I helped to create a pretty marginalizing, dehumanizing stereotype."

Kondabolu relayed stories of his work at the Queens District Attorney’s Hate Crimes Bureau during college after 9/11. He often read reports involving Apu and his catchphrase, "Thank you, come again."

NPR host Gene Denby also noted Azaria’s "journey" as he attends seminars from the "Soul Focused Group" on "race and power and privilege," relaying that Azaria expressed the place felt safe for him to be a "beginner on race stuff."

Azaria expressed his gratitude to Kondabolu for "dragging me and pushing me into this conversation."

Kondabolu said that while it was meaningful that Azaria thanked him personally, he expressed his frustration that he had not been mentioned earlier as his source of inspiration, "there’s this history of White folks talking about what they’ve learned and sharing the knowledge without giving credit to the people of color that actually got them there. This is every person of color who has put in work."

Adriana Diaz of The New York Post contributed to this report.

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