Apu has made his vocal return to “The Simpsons.”
Sunday night’s Halloween episode of “The Simpsons” shocked long-time fans when the beloved Kwik-E Mart owner spoke for the first time in nearly a decade. Since 2017, Apu has been seen out and about through Springfield but has not spoken following an outcry that show mainstay Hank Azaria should not be voicing the character because is not of Indian descent. Azaria stepped down from the role in October 2017.
The new actor is Sunil Malhotra who posted about his new gig on Instagram alongside Janina Gavankar who plays Apu’s wife Manjula.
“Bringing Apu back feels like a reclamation,” Malhotra said in the post. “It truly IS his homecoming.”
Gavankar added: “After 22 years of friendship, I know Sunil is the perfect person to bring Apu home.”
Azaria spoke about stepping away from the character in 2020. In an interview with The New York Times, he explained that it “didn’t feel right” to keep playing Apu. Fox later said that white actors would no longer voice nonwhite characters on “The Simpsons.”
“Once I realized that that was the way this character was thought of, I just didn’t want to participate in it anymore,” Azaria said at the time. “It just didn’t feel right.”
The episode on Sunday had some fun with Apu’s years of silence. The whole thing was an “I Know What You Did Last Summer” homage where it was revealed that Apu was the masked killer gutting the people of Springfield.
“I am the man you left for dead,” Apu says. “I am the shame you tried to bury. I am the one you pretended never existed!”
He adds: “You thought you could just get rid of me? That I’d disappear?”
The whole thing eventually ends up being a dream and Apu wakes up in his shop worried that everyone has forgotten him. Homer – who is voiced by Dan Castellaneta – shows up to assure the store owner that nobody in town could ever truly forget him.
