Hank Azaria

A Tony Award nominee and four-time Emmy Award winner, Hank Azaria is a multifaceted performer in film, television and on the stage, as well as a respected director and comedian.

Azaria appeared in the film Love and Other Drugs, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, and in Year One, opposite Jack Black and Michael Cera. He also starred in the box-office hit Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which grossed more than $415 million worldwide.

In 1997, Azaria played the scene-stealing Guatemalan housekeeper Agador Spartacus in Mike Nichols’ The Birdcage. The role catapulted Azaria’s film career and earned him a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, and he shared a win for Outstanding Performance by a Cast with the film’s ensemble. He had previously won critical acclaim as television producer Albert Freedman in the 1994 Academy Award®-nominated film Quiz Show.

Some of Azaria’s notable film credits include Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla; the 1998 adaptation of “Great Expectations,” opposite Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow; Tim Robbins’ Cradle Will Rock; Woody Allen’s Celebrity; America’s Sweethearts, with Julia Roberts and Billy Crystal; and Shattered Glass, with Peter Sarsgaard and Hayden Christensen. His additional film credits include Along Came Polly, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Grosse Pointe Blank, Heat, Now and Then and Pretty Woman.

Azaria is also well known for his portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Craig “Huff” Huffstodt on the critically acclaimed Showtime series Huff. The show ran for two seasons, from 2004 to 2006, and garnered seven Emmy nominations in 2005, including a nomination for Azaria for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He earned a SAG Award nomination that same year. Azaria served as an executive producer on the series and directed an episode during the show’s second season. He also earned Emmy Award nominations for his notable recurring guest-starring roles on Friends and Mad About You.

In 1999, Azaria starred as Mitch Albom, alongside the legendary Jack Lemmon, in the television film Tuesdays With Morrie, and took home the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. His other made-for-television films include the Jon Avnet-directed Uprising and the 2005 film Fail Safe, directed by Stephen Frears.

As a vocal artist, Azaria is noted and highly regarded as one of the best, with more than 20 years as one of the principal voice actors on the animated television series The Simpsons. Azaria brings to life a list of characters too numerous to mention, though he may be best known as the voices of Moe Szyslak, Apu, Police Chief Wiggum and Comic Book Guy. He has been nominated for five Emmy Awards and has won three for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his work on The Simpsons, and he brought many of his beloved characters to the big screen in 2007’s The Simpsons Movie. His additional voice-over work includes multiple appearances as Venom/Eddie Brock, from 1994 to 1996, on the animated series Spider-Man, and as Bartok in the animated feature Anastasia.

In the theater, Azaria has appeared in several productions including a 2003 production of David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago, opposite Matthew Perry and Minnie Driver, on London’s West End. In 2005, Azaria originated the role of Sir Lancelot in Spamalot, the musical-comedy adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The show was a huge success and earned 14 Tony Award nominations, including one for Azaria for Best Actor in a Musical. In 2007, he returned to Broadway and starred as RCA head David Sarnoff in Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention.

As a filmmaker, Azaria wrote, directed and produced the 2004 short film Nobody’s Perfect, which won the Film Discovery Jury Award for Best Short at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival and the award for Best Narrative Short at the Ojai Film Festival.

Illumination Entertainment