The Simpsons star Hank Azaria now says he REGRETS playing Apu’s character

The Simpsons star Hank Azaria said he regrets playing his character Apu, despite previously admitting he deliberately made the Indian Kwik-e-Mart owner’s accent as offensive as possible.

The American actor, 59, who is white, started voicing Apu in 1989, although the character has been phased out in recent years.

Azaria – who also voices Moe Szylak, Chief Wiggum and Comic Book Guy – was asked by the creators if he was capable of doing an Indian voice and making it as offensive as possible.

“They immediately said, ‘Can you sing an Indian voice and how offensive can you be?'” he claimed in 2007. When he pointed out that the accent was stereotypical, he was told it was “alright.”

Ten years later, Indian comedian Hari Kondabolu called out the actor in his documentary The Problem With Apu. Kondabolu asked others of Indian descent if they had been called Apu before and everyone in the small group raised their hands.

Dana Gould told Kondabolu in his documentary that there are “accents that by their very nature sound funny to white Americans,” which the comedian labeled “racist.”

Now Azaria has admitted that he regrets playing the character.

Ten years later, Indian comedian Hari Kondabolu (left) scolded the actor in his documentary, The Problem With Apu, in which he scolded the white actor for creating an Indian stereotype. The documentary forced Azaria to realize that he had done “damage” through his character

He started on the show in his early twenties, playing Moe the bartender and also contributing as the voice of Chief Wiggum.

“And then that week or the next week there was an Apu line and it was just written as a clerk. And the producer — the director I was working with at the time said, “Can you speak an Indian accent?” And I said, “Well, I can try to do my version of an Indian accent,” and that was it,” Azaria, whose Jewish family rules from Greece, told NPR’s Code switch podcast.

“The only real Indian accent I had context for, other than guys who worked at the 7-Eleven I was around in LA, was Peter Sellers in The Party,” he continued. “It was a tribute to that, you know, one of my heroes.”

Kondabolu had approached Azaria to star in his documentary, which he declined, but at the time the Apu actor didn’t even know if his impersonation was offensive at all.

“That’s all in Hari’s documentary and what he — and his routine and what he talks about. And other things he talks about too – I was like, ‘Is that real?'” he said of the outcry over a white man playing an Indian character. “I wasn’t sure.”

Azaria (pictured in 2007) admitted he only realized how many people were attacking Apu after ‘I looked at the doctor’ and said the character was just the ‘tip of the iceberg’

The filmmaker pointed out that he was criticized for the documentary, but he was not the only person of Indian descent who objected to it.

“That’s funny, even after the documentary, people are still saying that because a guy had a problem with it, he wanted to do something with his career, so he put this out there. I’m like, if you’ve seen the documentary, it wasn’t just me. Like, I have Aziz, Hasan Minhaj…”

Azaria admitted that he only realized how many people disagreed with Apu after “I looked at the doctor,” saying the character was just the “tip of the iceberg.”

‘It symbolizes a much greater dynamic. If I looked at the doctor, I at least thought, “Oh, I admire all these artists. A character I’ve done – I hindered them? I caused them pain? I actually actively made their path more difficult? That sucks.’

“That was one of the first things that really hit me and made me say, ‘Okay, that’s real. That would be real.'”

Kondabolu even said that if he had “heard Hank Azaria do that voice at a party, I would have scared the hell out of him.”

Now he said he is grateful to the comedian for prompting him to discuss the topic, saying, “I am so thankful that I — for Hari, you who push — dragged and pushed me… into this conversation ‘

The comedian said he was “upset” when Azaria refused to be part of his documentary, but the Simpsons actor said he was “afraid” to appear in it.

“I was really freaking out,” he said on the NPR podcast. “I don’t know if I would have felt safe having the conversation in private, let alone rolling it up, you know, we’re going to record it.”

Now he said he’s grateful to the comedian for getting him to talk about the subject, saying, “I’m so thankful that I — for Hari, you who push — dragged and pushed me… in this conversation.’

“It means a lot to you to say that,” Kondabolu replied.

While Azaria admitted that the film “still personally found me so embarrassing,” he understood that it was “a drop in the ocean compared to what [Kondabolu]’ went on.

“Through my role in Apu and what I’ve created in the Hollywood posts … I’ve helped create a pretty marginalizing, inhumane stereotype,” he said.