Hank Azaria Net Worth 2023, Biography, Career, Salary

Hank Azaria is an American actor who has earned around $100 million. He is well-known for providing his voice for over 200 characters in various movies and TV shows. However, he gained notoriety for voicing the character of Apu in The Simpsons. He is considered to be the most popular voice actor in the world and is also the richest voice actor.

Who is Hank Azaria?

Henry Albert Azaria, born in 1964, is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is famous for providing his voice for several characters in the animated TV show The Simpsons, including Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, and Snake Jailbird.

He also used to voice Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Lou, Carl Carlson, and Bumblebee Man. Although he had little experience in voice acting when he first joined the show, he became a regular in its second season, and many of his performances are based on famous actors and characters. Azaria has received several awards for his work, including six Emmy Awards, an Annie Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Hank Azaria Net Worth

Hank Azaria, a famous American actor, has a net worth of around $100 million, according to various sources. He is a radio personality, voice actor, and actor, and has earned almost $110 million throughout his career. For voice acting, he gets almost a quarter of a million dollars per episode, while for acting, he gets almost $200,000 per episode.

Azaria was born in New York and is a stage, film, and television actor, writer, comedian, and producer. He is most famous for his work on “The Simpsons” and his roles in “The Birdcage” and “Huff”. He has won several awards, including six Emmy Awards, among others.

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Hank Azaria Simpsons Salary

Hank Azaria earns a salary of $300,000 per episode of The Simpsons. A season usually has 22 episodes, so he makes around $6.6 million per year.

Hank Azaria Net Worth Growth

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Hank Azaria Biography

Hank Azaria was born on April 25, 1964, in Queens, New York. At the age of 22, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. Azaria shares in his biography that he used to go to 12 auditions every day, and while many people rejected him, some advised him to work in radio as his voice was better than his acting.

He started working on the radio while also taking on small TV roles. He continued working as both an actor and a radio personality. When the directors of The Simpsons were looking for a new voice actor at the end of the 1980s, Azaria was selected and became the main voice actor for the show, and the rest is history.

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Early Life

Early Life and Family Background

Hank Azaria was born as Henry Albert Azaria on April 25, 1964, in Queens, New York City. His parents, Albert Azaria and Ruth Altcheck, were Sephardic Jews, whose families were originally from Thessaloniki and had been expelled from Spain. He had two older sisters, Stephanie and Elise.

Love for Acting

As a child, Azaria enjoyed memorizing scripts and mimicking stand-up routines. He acted in a school play at the age of 16 while attending The Kew-Forest School. His parents were supportive of his passion for acting, as they both loved show business.

Education and Career Path

After completing high school, Azaria enrolled at Tufts University in 1981. He continued acting and starred in productions such as “The Merchant of Venice.” Later, he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts to receive professional training to pursue his acting career.

Hank Azaria’s Early Acting Career

Hank Azaria moved from New York to Los Angeles after signing with talent agent Harry Gold. In 1986, he was cast in a minor role in the television pilot “Joe Bash,” but his part was later cut out. However, this role allowed Azaria to be admitted to the Screen Actors Guild.

Small TV roles and other jobs

Azaria landed small roles in television series like “Family Ties” and “Growing Pains” over the next few years. He also worked as a bartender and did stand-up comedy to make ends meet.

Hank Azaria’s Voice Role in “The Simpsons”

Hank Azaria had a breakthrough in his career when he landed a voice role in the animated pilot, “Hollywood Dog,” which did not get picked up. However, it did connect him with Bonita Pietila, the casting director for the animated series, “The Simpsons.” Pietila asked Azaria to audition for the role of Moe, which he got, leading to many more voice character roles on “The Simpsons.”

Characters portrayed

Azaria was made a permanent member of the cast and provided the voice for several characters such as Superintendent Chalmers, Lou, Professor Frink, Cletus Spuckler, the Sea Captain, and Kirk Van Houten, among many others.

The real-life inspiration for character voices

Azaria has stated that he generally looks to real-life inspiration to create the character voices. In addition to Al Pacino, he has based voices off of Jerry Lewis, Sylvester Stallone, Charles Bronson, and William H. Macy.

Awards and recognition

Azaria’s body of work on “The Simpsons” earned him much praise and recognition. He has been nominated for six Emmy Awards in the category of Outstanding Voice-Over Performance and won the award in 1998, 2001, 2003, and 2015.

Controversy over voicing Apu

Azaria has experienced some controversy over his work on the show, namely for providing the voice to the character Apu, an Indian man. He formally announced he would no longer voice the character in 2020.

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Hank Azaria’s Film Career

Henry Albert Azaria has also worked on numerous live-action films. His first major film appearance was in the 1990 film, “Pretty Woman,” where he played a police detective. Azaria also had a role in the 1994 film, “Quiz Show,” which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1996, he played a supporting role in “The Birdcage,” which earned him a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role.

Azaria continued to book film roles throughout the late 1990s, appearing in “Heat,” “Grosse Pointe Blank,” and “Great Expectations.” He also starred in the 1998 adaptation of “Godzilla,” which ultimately failed. However, the following year, he appeared as author and journalist Mitch Albom in the television film adaptation of “Tuesdays with Morrie,” winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. Other films Azaria has worked on include “Run Fatboy Run,” “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian,” and “Love & Other Drugs.”

Hank Azaria’s Voice Roles

Aside from “The Simpsons,” Azaria has taken on a number of other voice roles. He voiced the character of Venom in “Spider-Man: The Animated Series,” the character of Bartok in the 1997 feature film, “Anastasia,” and has done voices in “Happy Feet Two,” “Hop,” and “Bordertown.”

Personal Life and Relationships

In the early 1990s, Azaria was in a relationship with actress Julie Warner. He began a relationship with actress Helen Hunt in 1994 and they married in 1999, but they separated after a year and were divorced in 2000. Azaria then began dating former actress Katie Wright in 2007 and they married later that year. The couple has a son named Hal, born in 2009. They have a dog named Truman and two rescue cats, Mookie and Wilson. Azaria is the godfather of Oliver Platt’s son, George.

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Residences

Azaria and his family have lived in several different homes. They previously lived in a four-bedroom house in Pacific Palisades, which Azaria bought from his Simpsons co-star Dan Castellaneta in 2011. Several weeks earlier, Azaria had sold his home in Bel Air. Azaria previously owned a loft in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood, which he bought in 2005 and sold in 2013. In 2013, the family began renting a home on 80th Street in Manhattan, with plans to make a final decision on where to live in two years.

Hobbies and Interests

Azaria is a regular poker player and has appeared twice on Celebrity Poker Showdown. He is a supporter of the Democratic Party and enjoys the music of Elvis Costello. He has stated that he would have been a therapist if he were not an actor.

Charitable Work

Azaria co-founded the educational support charity, “Determined to Succeed.” On May 22, 2016, he was awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) from Tufts University.

Hank Azaria’s Real Estate Ventures

Hank Azaria is known for his work in acting, but he has also been active in the real estate market. Over the years, he has bought and sold several properties in New York.

Properties in New York

In 2005, Azaria purchased a 4,000-square-foot apartment in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City for $4.625 million. He sold the apartment in 2014 to actress Meg Ryan for $8 million. Ryan sold the same unit in 2017 for $9.9 million.

In May 2014, Azaria paid $9.225 million for a 3-bedroom apartment with 63 feet of Central Park view frontage located at 75 Central Park West. The unit was previously two separate apartments and has a direct private elevator.

Properties in Westchester

In 2004, Azaria bought a 5,000-square-foot home on 4 acres in the Westchester, NY town of Bedford Corners for $2.112 million. He listed this home for sale in March 2021 for $3.25 million.

A few months before listing the Bedford Corners home, Azaria paid $3.1 million for a home in the nearby town of Mamaroneck.

Frequently Asked Questions