In a wide-ranging chat with
Dax Shepard on his sobriety and his career,
Hank Azaria opened up about the controversy surrounding his former
Simpsons character Apu.
Azaria, who is white, voiced hard-working Indian Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon for decades until stepping down from voicing him in 2020.
The controversy began after Indian comic
Hari Kondabolu‘s 2017 documentary
The Problem with Apu, which blamed the character for years of racist bullying.
“I really didn’t know any better,” Azaria told Shepard’s podcast
Armchair Expert. “I didn’t think about it. I was unaware of how much relative advantage I had received in this country as a white kid from Queens.”