Know the voice -- but can't place the face? Don't have a cow!
CNN News, March 5, 2000
Meet Nancy Cartwright. She's the 39-year-old mother of two who is the voice of that spikey-haired dickens, Bart Simpson, 10, on Fox-TV's beloved "The Simpsons."
Now the blonde, 5-foot-1 Midwesterner has added another character to her caboodle of cheeky animated kid voices: 13-year-old blue-eye-shadowed Megan on NBC's irreverent "God, the Devil and Bob" (which debuts Thursday, March 9, before moving to its regular Tuesday-evening air date). On this first -- and decidedly adult -- animated sitcom from executive producers Carsey-Werner ("Roseanne," "Cosby"), James Garner is the voice of God. He wears sunglasses, swigs beer and smacks his lips over Pop-Tarts. Alan Cumming ("Cabaret" Tony winner) voices the smarmy Devil, a role originally won -- and begun -- by Robert Downey Jr., before he was sentenced to jail. French Stewart gives voice to Bob Alman, young suburban husband and Megan's dad, whom God has chosen to save the world. He parties, swears and downloads porn from the Internet. Let's just say the Devil is tempting Bob -- nonstop, big time.
A San Fernando Valley, Calif., resident who looks more like Everymom than a Hollywood actress, Cartwright made her mark as the voice of fourth-grade terror Bart Simpson. But she has in fact balanced dual voice-over and on-camera careers for some 20 years. Now she delights in voicing Megan, Bob's rebellious pubescent daughter, who's surly to her parents, lies to her friends and lives for the day that she begins to menstruate for the first time.
"Megan's a pistol, a real spitfire," says Cartwright, who, besides Bart, voices five other male dudes on the decade-old "Simpsons": Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum, Todd Flanders, Kearney and Data Base. Cartwright is an upbeat, energetic woman who talks nonstop. But she reveals not a bit of Bart or Megan sassiness -- nor that of Lu, a 12-year-old know-it-all princess she does on yet another animated series, "Mike, Lu and Og," seen on The Cartoon Network.
"Most people have voices in their heads," says Cartwright, in her naturally high-pitched tone. "I take the voices and become the characters. Just because you don't see my body, doesn't mean I'm not acting." For "God," Cartwright showed up to audition for Megan's kid brother Andy but found the "13-year-old hormone-raging teen-age girl so much more interesting and challenging," she recalls. She gave the director her best shot -- and presto! -- Megan she became.
Oddly, it was reminiscent of when Cartwright landed her Bart Simpson gig. She came to read for sis Lisa. "But when I saw the script, I said, 'Oh, God, I want to do (the boy) Bart! I've (ital) got (unital) this!' " True -- she'd provided exactly the same voice for two earlier characters, Dusty, on "My Little Pony" and Flat Freddie Fender for "Galaxy High." The "Simpsons" show Emmy winner has voiced hundreds of characters on scads of other series and has been heard on Butterfinger and Century 21 commercials. On-camera, Cartwright has co-starred in feature films, TV movies and has appeared on-stage in her own one-woman show. She was Harry Shearer's secretary in "Godzilla," guest-starred on "Cheers," "Empty Nest" and "Baywatch Nights" and played a recurring character on "Fame." "But I never had any intention to do on-camera work. That all happened by accident," she insists.
In 1982 Cartwright won kudos for playing the title role in the CBS biopic "Marian Rose White." "It's what really got me into the industry," she notes. Cartwright portrayed a legally blind girl railroaded into an institution for the retarded, where she was kept for 30 years. She snapped up the part over dozens of actresses including Amanda Plummer and Mare Winningham. To the audition, Cartwright wore a wacky lobster-shaped cap that Jonathan Winters, with whom she'd studied comedy improvisation, gave her.
The Kettering, Ohio, native, had been acting in children's theater since age 12, later supplied the voice of an imaginary lifeguard on local radio, and worked on commercials. Encouraged to parlay her voice talents into a career, she managed to strike up a long-distance phone friendship with the legendary Daws Butler, Hollywood's voice of Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. Cartwright eventually relocated to Los Angeles, enrolled at UCLA to study theater and started private classes with Butler. Her goal: to become a voice-over actress. But when she began performing in college plays, then appeared in one after it moved on to a Hollywood stage, her career path took an unexpected turn.
"I ended up getting an agent, and all of a sudden I was doing on-camera stuff. So I just rolled with it," she recalls. "The next thing I know, ABC signed me to a development deal and paid me $25,000. It was cool!" When this TV work didn't come to fruition, the actress turned to her first focus: voice work (though she continued to be cast in on-camera projects as well). Through Daws Butler introductions, she was signed to her first animated series, voicing Gloria on the 1980-'82 "Richie Rich."
"I was balancing two careers -- on-camera and voice-over," she says. "Then the opportunity came to do 'The Simpsons.' " The animated sitcom about an outlandishly dysfunctional American family began simply as a 60-second spot on "The Tracey Ullman Show." Who knew it would become a colossal hit series and make Bart "eat my shorts" Simpson Cartwright's signature role? No sooner had she taken the job than she married and delivered two children in two years. Clearly, she was having it all. But "the next thing I knew, a lot of time had gone by; and even though I'd established myself quite well as Bart, artistically the challenge wasn't there," she says. "I felt like I wasn't running my career anymore. So I needed to come up with another game." That turned out to be "In Search of Fellini," Cartwright's one-woman show, along with her own company, Happy House Productions Inc., to develop features and TV shows. In the works are the live-action film "Gathering the Jones," along with animated movies and series, such as "Geek House," plus an Internet network for animated fare.
In the meantime, Cartwright can't stop getting hired to voice characters. Working with James Garner on "God, the Devil and Bob" was "amazing," she says. "As soon as he opens his mouth, this voice of authority comes out, yet he's so laid-back and smooth. He's been there and done it -- you can just trust in him."
And doing "The Simpsons" remains a blast. "It's the best job," says Cartwright, who, with fellow cast members, gets paid six figures per episode, reporting to work from March through Thanksgiving. "The Thursday table-reads (initial run-throughs) are invigorating. It's just as exciting now as it was in the beginning, because the scripts are still top-notch and always surprising. On Mondays we record. (But) that's pretty standard since we've been doing it long enough to know our characters."
Could be that Cartwright's kids, with writer-producer husband Warren Murphy, will follow in Mom's acting footsteps: "I really think Lucy (10) may be like Meryl Streep one day!" enthuses Cartwright. "My son (8) is a little goofball. He does funny voices and everything bigger than life."
A Scientologist who takes courses at the controversial religious group's L.A. Celebrity Centre (other followers include John Travolta and Jenna Elfman), Cartwright claims that the Church keeps her "focused in an industry that tends to kick actors around. You have to find something. For me, I found it through Scientology. And I'm raising my kids in the philosophy." Ever up for a new challenge, Cartwright dreams of one day portraying on-screen murdering meanies. But, alas, she was just cast in a comedy feature, "Ghost of a Chance." "It would be great to play dark roles," she says. "But here I am doing another comedy! I guess people must think I'm funny."
