Still going strong at 20
Nancy Cartwright is the woman in the animated yellow body of Bart Simpson. On the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons, Nancy spills the beans to Lisa Williams on why she loves voicing the naughtiest member of the world’s most famous cartoon family
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NANCY Cartwright is the boy who never grew up. The 52-year-old is preserved on screen as cartoon character Bart Simpson, who celebrates his family’s 20th anniversary this year yet remains a 10-year-old in his short blue trousers.
“I’m five times Bart’s age and I’m still 10; it’s crazy,” says Nancy.
While Bart is spiky-haired and sharp-tongued, Nancy is warm and glamorous – but she credits Bart with keeping her young.
“It helps me keep youthful because my biggest fans are these little guys and if they see what I look like and I turn around and say: ‘Hi, man, I’m Bart’ in the voice, they’re shocked. It’s awesome, I love it,” she says.
Nancy can’t believe that what started out as short “bumpers” on The Tracey Ullman Show in the US is now a global phenomenon which boasts dozens of characters living in fictional town Springfield.
“Back then, the family was not fleshed out. Bart was the antagonist of the group; Lisa was the sensibility, and the mom was doing the best she could with the dad mostly beating up on Bart. But when we went to the half hour, we started getting the taste of the possibility that this could expand to way more than just what was on Tracey Ullman, because we had a whole half hour now to make these characters real.
“At the time, I wasn’t looking far into the future. I was the lead because Bart was definitely positioned as the star of the show, which I thought was quite cool, but there was no concept of 10 years, 20 years, it was just like ‘I hope we get picked up for another 13 after this’,” she says.
Not only has Bart’s character been fleshed out, but Nancy thinks he seems more of a cheeky tyke than a real villain as times change.
“Twenty years ago, Bart was perceived as worse than he is today and I’m glad Fox has kept a little more control on his behaviour, more than some of the other networks have done with their cartoon characters, even though we now get away with things we couldn’t have done back then,” she says.
It was Bart’s devil-may-care attitude which drew Nancy, who honed her voice talents by doing public speaking while at school, to the role.
She describes her audition.
“They were looking for an eight-year-old child, who was a girl, the famous Lisa Simpson, but I saw the description of Lisa there and her little monologue and next to that was a picture of Bart, and for Bart it said: ‘Ten-year-old school-hating underachiever and proud of it’. Now, between eight-year-old child and what I just said, what would you rather do? So I read for the part and that was it, they hired me on the spot.”
Playing a boy was not a big deal for Nancy, who said she was often mistaken for a boy when growing up.
She explains: “I was about seven when people started making comments about my voice, and being seven and having short hair I had an androgynous quality, so people didn’t know whether I was a boy or a girl. But I just used my voice to make people laugh and, because it made people laugh, it made me happy.”
That casting has led to a 20-year working relationship with the show’s creator, Matt Groening, its executive producers – among them Al Jean and James L. Brooks – and, of course, show stalwarts Dan Castellaneta (who voices Homer), Julie Kavner (Marge) and Yeardley Smith (Lisa).
The Simpsons is now broadcast all over the world and currently stands as the longest-running comedy in television history.
Nancy admits that the job’s great.
Describing her typical day, she says: “It’s kind of done like old radio in a way, where we’re all in a big sound stage; we each have our own music stand in front of us with our script. We do four takes and we’re in at 10am and we’re out by about two in the afternoon – it’s not bad.”
The world needs the Simpsons and their satirical ways, she argues, to help people cope with what she sees as a “downgrade” in society.
“I’m a mom and I’m concerned about our future because, if we have a whole society that’s illiterate, what’s going to happen to my grandkids? That’s a concern, but it’s something that, using satire, The Simpsons absolutely addresses,” she says.
Part of the appeal of the show is its treatment of big topics in a style which talks to and amuses both children and adults.
Did Nancy ever imagine she would be working on something with such universal appeal?
“It wasn’t part of my thinking,” she says.
“It wasn’t part of our culture. I grew up with The Flintstones, so I never thought about cartoons for adults. The only cartoons for adults I knew about were the racy ones.”
But the actress says she’s just as happy voicing cartoons for children, too.
She says: “It was never part of my own ‘standard’ that it had to be an adult cartoon. Even today, I do stuff for Disney or Nickelodeon. I just do it because I like it. Pay me whatever; I just want to do this.”
Now, Nancy has one thing she would like to see happen to Bart, and it’s a wish made by a 52-year-old woman rather than a 10-year-old boy.
“I’d like Bart to meet Hugh Jackman. I don’t know if Bart would necessarily want to meet him, but Nancy Cartwright would,” she says.
A series of three specials, voiced by Ricky Gervais, marking the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons begins on Monday on Sky1. The 21st season of The Simpsons launches on Thursday, January 14, also on Sky1.
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