[IMG:L]Even after 18 years, some people are still surprised to learn the voice of Bart Simpson is a woman. Nancy Cartwright, a voice actor going back to Hanna-Barbera days, began voicing Bart when she was 30. After two years of shorts on The Tracy Ullman Show, and 18 years on Fox as The Simpsons, Cartwright can still sound like a 10-year-old boy. When she demonstrates sound effects, or even when she drops a “man” in casual conversation.
Now, Cartwright brings Bart to life for the big screen for The Simpsons Movie. From naked skateboarding to Alaskan avalanches, Bart proves his “eat my shorts” attitude is alive and well.
Hollywood.com: The movie allowed a lot more emotional moments for the character. How did you approach those with Bart?
Nancy Cartwright: I’ll tell you what, I actually really love it because it really challenges us as artists. When you go back in time, when you go back when we were on The Tracy Ullman Show, it was not quite one note, but Bart and Lisa were pretty angry. Generally speaking, they were pretty angry but when it moved to the half hour, there was a lot more room to develop, flesh out these animated characters. Of course, when you take it the next step further, turning it into an hour and a half movie, there’s even more opportunity to make them more believable. The writers are some of the best in the industry obviously and the guys at the top, Jim [Brooks] and Al Jean and Matt Groening, have kept such a standard that I believe they keep on producing that high quality.
HW: Jim told us they did Marge’s videotaped confession over 100 times. Did you have any 100 take scenes?
NC: Wow, over 100 times? I think the most I did it was 30. Around 30 times and that’s different from the TV show. We only do four takes on the TV show. It’s a different game and when you’re talking about a huge 40 x 70 foot screen or something – you might want to correct that, I don’t really know what the dimensions are – but it’s huge. The sound systems are way more sensitive than a home entertainment system, so they want to make sure that they’re getting the best that they can and I don’t [blame them]. Whatever they want, man, I’m there for my job and I love it and I’ll do as many takes as you want. Plus, it’s also kind of fun. When you have one expression and you end up saying it 20 or 30 times, I like to surprise myself. When I’m getting direction from, say, Jim Brooks, and he wants me to do it 20 or 30 times, it’s like I get a second wind on number 11, on number 12 and I start to surprise myself about how different it can be. It ends up being something really funny and challenging for him to make the decision, which one is he going to use.
[IMG:R]HW: What was the 30 take scene?
NC: The skateboard scene. It’s early on in the movie.
HW: But he doesn’t even say anything while he’s riding the skateboard!
NC: No, he doesn’t, but they had me going, huh, ooh, ugh, whoa and flying my head to visualize. All I have is a written script of where he’s going and try doing that. That’s an aerobic workout, baby .
HW: It took 18 years to get here. Had this movie come earlier, would you have been in a different place to do it?
NC: I kind of love that it’s now because you know what it does? It catapults it into a whole new life. It puts another life underneath it. It just makes me feel, gives me more certainty that the TV show will continue and we can do them both simultaneously. They’re not in competition with one another so why not? Just let the whole thing ride.
HW: How did Bart’s story change during the development of the film?
NC: I honestly can’t tell you because I haven’t seen it. I just show up and do rewrites so I’m going to be entertained too to find out. I know at the beginning, the distribution of characters was different than what it ended up. It was heavier for some characters and not so heavy for others. What they did was spread out the focus to include most of the cast.
HW: How hard was it doing both the movie and the show at the same time?
NC: Not hard at all because it doesn’t take that long. They would book us for about four hours at a shot for the movie and same with the TV show. Like one time a week. It’s still less than a regular full time job.
HW: Was it hard to go back to the TV schedule after all the time you had on the movie?
NC: No, two different mediums and equally as fun, challenging. It’s like the difference between acting on stage and acting in front of a camera. It’s a slight adjustment. That’s all.
HW: Bart remains 10 throughout the series, but has he evolved over 18 years?
NC: As a 10-year-old, evolved? I would say no.
HW: Is that nice to keep things so consistent?
NC: Yeah, that’s the success of the show. There is a consistency there but at the same time, you can make Bart the brother to the president of the United States or make him a retired construction worker that’s thumbing for a ride home, or bring him back to his birth day, literally his birth day. That’s the cool thing about animation.
[IMG:L]HW: Is there more voice work than ever with all the animated shows these days?
NC: I think so, yeah. I just wrapped up Kim Possible. I’m Rufus the Naked Mole Rat. I’m in the middle of doing another show for Disney called The Replacements which is hilarious. I love it. I love [my character] Todd Daring. It’s a great cast, I’m having a lot of fun on that. The writing is excellent. It’s so, so fun. It’s a blast. Daran Norris, Candi Milo, Kath Soucie, Jeff Bennett. These are actors that you probably don’t know their names, and the guy that plays C.A.R. is David McCallum from Man From U.N.C.L.E. He’s the voice of car, totally delightful. Great guy, fun to work with. But the sessions are insane. They’re so funny and we get a little out of control, it’s so fun.
