Dan Castellaneta

Biography

Date of Birth 29 October 1957, Chicago, Illinois, USA Birth Name Daniel Louis Castellaneta Height 5' 10" (1.78 m) Spouse Deb Lacusta (1987 - present) Trade Mark The voice of Homer Simpson. Trivia Former member of Chicago Second City Graduated from the class of 1975 from Oak Park River Forest High School Practices tai-chi. At first, for the voice of Homer Simpson, Dan tried to imitate Walter Matthau, but he had trouble with certain emotional registers and intonations with the voice, so he slightly changed the present voice of Homer beginning at the beginning of the second season of "The Simpsons". Vegetarian Doesn't drink. His voice characterization of Krusty the Clown on Fox-TV's "The Simpsons" was based on Chicago television legend Bob Bell who portrayed WGN-TV's Bozo from 1960-1984. "Castellaneta" is the name of a city in Italy Graduate of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. In 2002, his trademark phrase "d'oh" from "The Simpsons" was considered valid, and added to the Oxford English Dictionary. The phrase "d'oh" appears only as "Annoyed Grunt" in Simpsons scripts. Homer Simpson, voiced by Castellaneta on "The Simpsons" (1989), was ranked #35 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" [20 June 2004 issue]. Played Danny DeVito's client in The War of the Roses (1989), and his brother on The Simpsons. Once asked in an interview what "D'oh!" means. He replied that he thought "D'oh!", the trademark line of his "Simpsons" character Homer, was a euphamism for "damn". According to the producers of The Simpsons, he is so in character when playing Homer Simpson that when he makes a mistake during a line reading it is the type of mistake Homer would make. For example, in the episode "Homer Goes To College," Homer chants "I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T, I mean S-M-A-R-T!" His saying S-M-R-T was not scripted, improvised or even intended to be a joke, it was just a mistake. Has two younger sisters named Paula and Gina and two nephews named Calvin and Cary Popular stand up comedian and voice over actor of numerous cartoons and advertisements. Took over the voice of the Genie from Robin Williams for the "Aladdin" TV show and subsequent movies. However, when Williams made peace with Disney, he took the role back from Castellaneta. Good friends with Tracey Ullman. They did a lot of comedy work together, and it was Ullman that got Dan his most famous role as Homer Simpson. Graduated from the same university as Joan Allen, Justin Mentell, and Matt Ricci. Did some work at a Montreal, Canada radio station in 2004. Explained in 2005 on Bravo channel, that his Homer Simpson voice was also partly based on his father's as well as the late Walter Matthau. According to "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, Dan is the one person he will not sit in with when Dan records voices, because Matt says that he finds Dan so funny when he records voices that he cannot stop himself from laughing, effectively ruining several takes. Is the only member of The Simpsons cast (Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Harry Shearer and Yeardley Smith) who has not had a divorce. Julie Kavner has never been married. With all of the Voice over work he is done it is ironic that he appears as a semi-major character in "War of the Roses" and never uses his voice at all. He is the only main cast member of "The Simpsons" to have written episodes of the show. As a child, Castellaneta would mimic cartoon voices from television. His father was an amateur actor, and Dan would try to do the accents with his father. Up until 1998, was paid $30,000 per Simpsons episode. He and the five other main Simpsons voice actors were then involved in a pay dispute in which Fox threatened to replace them with new actors and went as far as preparing for casting of new voices. However, the issue was soon resolved and from 1998 to 2004, they were given $125,000 per episode. In 2004, the voice actors intentionally skipped several table reads, demanding they be paid $360,000 per episode. The strike was resolved a month later and Castellaneta's salary was increased to $250,000 per episode. Another contract renegotiation in 2008 saw his salary rise to $400,000 per episode. He was also made a consulting producer. Personal Quotes "To many, Homer may appear lazy and a loser, but he's just much misguided. He's boorish, sure, but well meaning and, I guess, the one thing we have in common is the pursuit of lousy diets."