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Daniel Louis "Dan" Castellaneta (born October 29, 1957) is an American voice actor, actor and comedian, best known for providing the voice of Homer Simpson and other characters on the FOX animated series The Simpsons. Even if he had done nothing else in his career, veteran actor, writer, and voice-over artist, Dan Castellaneta’s place in pop culture history was well secured, thanks to his singular creation of Homer J. Simpson, the loutish father figure on Fox’s long-running animated comedy “The Simpsons” (1989- ). Castellaneta provided the voice of Homer and numerous other characters on the show, lending his elastic vocal talents to a host of other animated shows and features as well. If the series had not made his face a familiar one in households around the world, it certainly afforded him job security and the ability to express himself in a variety of different forums, including CDs, books, and theater. Castellaneta was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was educated at the Oak Park and River Forest High School and Northern Illinois University. He was raised on the south east side of Oak Park in a modest home on Humphrey Avenue. While at Oak Park and River Forest High School, he played on the baseball team. Years later, Assistant Coach Dick Trout would recall, "Dan was funny but he threw like a girl". After graduation, he went on to work at Chicago's Second City, which he later recalled as "a place that, if you're not good going in you'll come out good. If you're pretty good going in, then you'll come out very good". On The Simpsons, Castellaneta provides the voices for Homer Simpson, Abraham "Grampa" Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Joe Quimby, Hans Moleman, Sideshow Mel, Itchy, Kodos, Arnie Pie, Scott Christian, Squeaky Voiced Teen and other characters. For his work on the series, he won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance. He has also written a few episodes with his wife and appeared as himself on the Simpsons episodes "I Am Furious Yellow", "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife", and "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs". He guest starred in an episode of the U.S. legal drama L.A. Law, in which - employed as a walking, talking Homer Simpson character at a California theme park - he is dismissed for inappropriate (or perhaps all too appropriate) behavior while in costume. (The episode was LA Lawless in 1992.) Up until 1998, Castellaneta was paid $30,000 per episode. Castellaneta and the five other main Simpsons voice actors were then involved in a pay dispute in which Fox threatened to replace them with new actors and went as far as preparing for casting of new voices. However, the issue was soon resolved and from 1998 to 2004, they were given $125,000 per episode. In 2004, the voice actors intentionally skipped several table reads, demanding they be paid $360,000 per episode. The strike was resolved a month later and Castellaneta now earns $250,000 per episode. As of April 20, 2007, Castellaneta has beaten James Arness and Kelsey Grammer for the longest running portrayal of a fictional character on prime-time American television. He has portrayed Homer Simpson on The Tracey Ullman Show and The Simpsons from 1987 onwards, beating the twenty-year record held by Arness and Grammer. He also played Grandpa and the mentally unstable ice cream truck driver known as "The Jolly-Olly Man" (among others) on Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold!, Jonathan in All Grown Up! (as well as parent show, Rugrats), the Things in The Cat in the Hat, and the Robot Devil in Futurama. In 1999 he played the comedic Nordom the anti-Modron in the computer game Planescape: Torment. Castellaneta voiced the lead character in the animated series Earthworm Jim and narrated the movie Super Mario Bros. In 2005, he appeared on Arrested Development as a deadpan incompetent doctor who misdiagnosed Jason Bateman's character (and left tools inside him after surgery, causing him to exclaim "D'oh!") and in the movie The War of the Roses he seeks a divorce at the beginning of the movie.He does not talk in that role. He also appeared in episodes of Frasier, Friends, Scrubs, Married... with Children (in the episode "The Dance Show", Castellaneta played the gay partner of a handsome man Peg dances with every night and he ends up cooking for Al), Yes, Dear, Reba, Everybody Loves Raymond, ALF, That '70s Show,and Stargate SG-1. On February 22, 2000, his first music CD Two Lips was published. It was followed on April 23, 2002 by his first comedy CD, I Am Not Homer, in which he and his wife perform several comedy skits. (For example, on the first track, "AM Therapy", his wife plays a radio-show psychotherapist and he plays several characters who call in for help.) Both CDs were published by Oglio Records. I Am Not Homer is a parody of Leonard Nimoy's first autobiography, I Am Not Spock. Dan is shown doing the Vulcan Salute on the cover with an image of Homer's face between his fingers. Castellaneta portrayed Aaron Spelling in the 2004 NBC film Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels, which followed the true story of how Spelling created the show. Castellaneta was also the voice of Megavolt on Darkwing Duck, Genie in the Aladdin sequel Return of Jafar and on the Aladdin TV series and Dr. Zibaldo in the Talespin episode "The Incredible Shrinking Molly". In the early 1980s, Castellaneta briefly appeared as Detective Farblonget, an absent-minded private investigator, on the local Chicago Jewish children's show, Beyond the Magic Door. Castellaneta guest starred as Joe Spencer in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Citizen Joe". This was a humorous indirect connection between The Simpsons and Stargate, as Castellaneta voices Homer and The Simpsons is Jack O'Neill's (Stargate's main character) favorite TV show. Homer is apparently very important to Jack (in "Beneath the Surface" O'Neill's memory is erased but he still remembers a bald man in a short-sleeved shirt, which turns out to be Homer, not Jack's commanding officer). The connection is deepened further by the fact that Castellaneta, along with his wife, wrote the Simpsons episode "Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore", which guest-starred Richard Dean Anderson, the actor who plays O'Neill on Stargate SG-1 and Angus MacGyver on MacGyver. Castellaneta cameoed on a third season episode of Veronica Mars as a sociology professor, conducting an experiment on Logan and Wallace. Castellaneta has a role in the Will Smith drama The Pursuit of Happyness, in which he asks Will Smith for a donut. Castellaneta also voices Batman villain Scarface in the animated series, The Batman. Dan also appeared in an episode of Friends as the janitor at the zoo where Ross goes to look for Marcel. He is currently in the comedy The Bicycle Men at The King's Head Theatre in London. He is married to writer Deb Lacusta and lives in Los Angeles where he occasionally performs alongside the branch of The Second City. Former member of Chicago Second City. Graduated from the class of 1975 from Oak Park River Forest High School. Practices tai-chi. At first, for the voice of Homer Simpson, Dan tried to imitate Walter Matthau, but he had trouble with certain emotional registers and intonations with the voice, so he slightly changed the present voice of Homer beginning at the beginning of the second season of "The Simpsons". Vegetarian. Doesn't drink. His voice characterization of Krusty the Clown on Fox-TV's "The Simpsons" was based on Chicago television legend Bob Bell who portrayed WGN-TV's Bozo from 1960-1984. "Castellaneta" is the name of a city in Italy. Graduate of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. In 2002, his trademark phrase "d'oh" from "The Simpsons" was considered valid, and added to the Oxford English Dictionary. The phrase "d'oh" appears only as "Annoyed Grunt" in Simpsons scripts. Homer Simpson, voiced by Castellaneta on "The Simpsons" (1989), was ranked #35 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" 20 June 2004 issue. Played Danny DeVito's client in The War of the Roses (1989), and his brother on The Simpsons. Once asked in an interview what "D'oh!" means. He replied that he thought "D'oh!", the trademark line of his "Simpsons" character Homer, was a euphamism for "damn". According to the producers of The Simpsons, he is so in character when playing Homer Simpson that when he makes a mistake during a line reading it is the type of mistake Homer would make. For example, in the episode "Homer Goes To College," Homer chants "I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T, I mean S-M-A-R-T!" His saying S-M-R-T was not scripted, improvised or even intended to be a joke, it was just a mistake. Has two younger sisters named Paula and Gina and two nephews named Calvin and Cary. Popular stand up comedian and voice over actor of numerous cartoons and advertisements. Took over the voice of the Genie from Robin Williams for the "Aladdin" TV show and subsequent movies. However, when Williams made peace with Disney, he took the role back from Castellaneta. Good friends with Tracey Ullman. They did a lot of comedy work together, and it was Ullman that got Dan his most famous role as Homer Simpson. Graduated from the same university as Joan Allen, Justin Mentell, and Matt Ricci. Did some work at a Montreal, Canada radio station in 2004. Explained in 2005 on Bravo channel, that his Homer Simpson voice was also partly based on his father's as well as the late Walter Matthau. According to "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, Dan is the one person he will not sit in with when Dan records voices, because Matt says that he finds Dan so funny when he records voices that he cannot stop himself from laughing, effectively ruining several takes. In 2000, Castellaneta released the CD, Two Lips, a homage/parody of the Beatles’ most popular songs. It was followed by a comedy album, I Am Not Homer, in 2003, which also featured Lacusta’s vocal and comedy talents. He also found time in his busy schedule to make frequent returns to the stage, including a stint off-Broadway in “The Alchemist” and a one-man show, “Where Did Vincent Van Gogh?” which he performed in Los Angeles and at the Aspen Comedy Festival. In 2006, Castellaneta and his “Simpsons” castmates began work on the long-awaited feature film version of the series (2007) while they continued voicing their characters for the series. Since Castellaneta voiced about 10 characters for the TV program – including fan favorites Barney Gumble, Mayor Quimby, and Groundskeeper Willie he found himself logging upwards of 20 recording sessions at a time a considerable leap from the five or six per year that most voice talent face over the course of a single year. |
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