A secret kept until Sunday night
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon has a voice again. The Kwik-E-Mart proprietor, absent as a speaking character since the October 2017 installment The Serfsons, talked in Sunday's Fox broadcast of The Revengening, a Halloween-themed episode that led into next week's Treehouse of Horror XXXVII. Variety reported exclusively that Sunil Malhotra, whose credits include Grey's Anatomy and The Legend of Korra, supplies the new voice.[S1][S2][S3]
The production was shielded from view. Fox withheld a screener of the episode, and the table read and later stages of production ran under strict rules, with everyone involved bound by nondisclosure agreements. The same broadcast introduced Janina Gavankar, known for The Morning Show, as Apu's wife Manjula.[S1][S4]
Why Apu went quiet
Hank Azaria had played Apu for years, and the character drew sustained criticism as a stereotyped depiction of a South Asian shopkeeper. The 2017 documentary The Problem With Apu, in which comedian Hari Kondabolu examined the character's effect on people of South Asian descent, became the focus of the debate and was screened and discussed inside the show's writers' room. Azaria then said he would stop voicing Apu.[S1]
Speaking on Dax Shepard's podcast Armchair Expert in 2021, Azaria apologized for his part in creating and performing the character and said he sometimes feels he should apologize to every Indian person in the country in person. Afterward the show moved Apu to the background while producers weighed what to do with him, so for years he could occasionally be spotted in Springfield but was never heard.[S1]
A pitch that confronted the history
The idea of reviving Apu in a Halloween episode came from staffer Nick Dahan, the credited writer of The Revengening, and co-executive producer Cesar Mazariegos. Matt Selman, an executive producer, described their pitch as a brilliant route back for the character, one that let the show address the whole controversy. Selman said the team loves Apu and wanted a smart return in the show's own idiom that let him evolve, adding that he is excited by what Malhotra has already done and expects to see more of Apu.[S1]
Malhotra said his agent's call about a Simpsons audition left him certain which part it was for, and the prospect made his stomach sink, though curiosity pulled at him too. He wondered whether the writers' room had changed, whether a return could acknowledge and apologize for past errors, whether he could make the role his own, and whether all of it could land without disappointing fans. He said he was ready to walk away.[S1]
Malhotra said he turned down his first professional job offer 28 years ago because it required playing a stereotypical Hindu man, and that he has refused similar work since, unwilling to be the butt of the joke. As talks advanced he questioned the producers about their plans before committing, and he said his callback was the first of many occasions on which nobody at the show let him down. He asked to meet Selman and Mazariegos, who agreed, and called the result deeply collaborative.[S1]
How the episode revealed him
In The Revengening, a man in a Daft Monk costume, a Daft Punk helmet paired with a monastic robe, is accidentally killed repeatedly by Springfield residents across town. A year on he is still alive and takes revenge on his would-be killers one at a time, finally summoning the townspeople to City Hall, removing his helmet and revealing himself as Apu. Malhotra said the sweetest moment was delivering the character's rage-filled declaration of identity in the studio until the take was right.[S1]
Apu then recounts his history: after surviving dozens of near-fatal encounters he washed up on the Island of Forgotten Garbage, where Dr. Nick, the town's dubious physician, treated him. The doctor, now voiced by Eric Lopez, who had already taken over Bumblebee Man, tells Apu that everything Springfield discards ends up there, himself included, and that arriving there happened for a reason.[S1]
