A Conversation With Hank Azaria

Neil deGrasse Tyson chats with Captain Kirk, Sylvester Stallone, Woody Allen, Johnny Carson, Carl Sagan, Chief Wiggum, Moe Szyslak and Apu – a.k.a. Hank Azaria. Read more and listen to the full track: http://www.startalkradio.net/show/a-conversation-with-hank-azaria/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. The following show features my interview with the actor Hank Azaria. It's possible that many of you may know him better for his voice than for anything else he's done.

• 0:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This one man has provided the voices for a broad range of characters on the animated Fox series The Simpsons. His talent for mimicry and accents has also been central to many of his other roles in movies and television. In the first part of this interview, I establish Hank's geek cred. Of course, we don't only invite geeks to be on StarTalk, but we do love to celebrate them every chance we get. And as you'll hear, Hank Azaria turns out to be a card-carrying member, and his passion for the Star Trek TV series even helped him develop his remarkable voice skills. Do you have what people might call geek credentials?

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gimme, gimme some.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm a Star Trek freak.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  To the point where, I mean, I grew up watching.

• 1:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That counts. That's enough. You could stop there and you're in the club. But, but if you've got more...

• 1:34Speaker 01

  No, I have more specifics than that. Well, first of all, I remember like loving it as a child as this...

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you old enough to have seen the first run, first...

• 1:40Speaker 01

  No, I, you know, I was born in 64. I think it premiered in 66.

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a little late.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  But it was already in reruns by the time I was six, seven, you know, especially on WPIX in New York.

• 1:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  And I remember like loving it as this intense kind of science fiction adventure. And by the time I was about 15... Realizing that in many ways was hilarious. Then it became like, you know, by the 19th time I saw certain episodes and certain like Shatner overacting moments.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, then you're reminded why the show got canceled for some of those episodes. Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  And then in college, it continued and we actually, those were the early days of computers. The only thing we really used the computer for was to codify all the Star Trek episodes.

• 2:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'd have like the actual title, our title, funny moments we liked, cool things about the, yeah, that's pretty geeky.

• 2:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's geeky. Okay. So you're born and raised in New York?

• 2:35Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Public schools?

• 2:36Speaker 01

  No, I went to-

• 2:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you don't sound like a private school guy. You sound like you hung out in the streets. So.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Well, I grew up in Queens, so you can't avoid the streets. But I went, you know what happened? My, my sisters are older than I am and they went to public schools and for ourselves. And one day my sister came home covered in coleslaw. There was a big brawl in the lunchroom.

• 2:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not a food fight, but a brawl?

• 3:00Speaker 01

  A brawl that she got in the middle of. She came home hysterical crying, covered in coleslaw. And my parents like, that's it. That's it for public schools.

• 3:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No public school for you?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  So I went to Montessori schools as a little guy.

• 3:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  And then I went to a prep school in Queens called Q Forest for grade seven through 12.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So do any memorable teachers there?

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Well, I had some great teachers.

• 3:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause I, I do a poll and I say, how many great teachers can you list in your life? And nobody has more than two or three at most, four.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And typically if one of those great teachers was a science teacher, then they become a scientist. That's, I found that interesting.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. See, I don't think I had a great science teacher. I loved science as I did. I had some pretty good ones. I had an amazing English teacher in high school, a great history teacher in high school. Um, I remember in Montessori, I had one or two particularly gifted teachers that I remember very fondly. In college, I had an incredible European literature teacher.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Listen to you, European literature, excuse me.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  A guy named Saul Gittman at Tufts University taught European literature and Yiddish literature. And they were amazing classes. People would take them just to hear him talk.

• 4:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought Yiddish was more spoken than written. I guess not.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  It's guys like Shalom Aleichem, who wrote the Tevye stories originally that became

• 4:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Filler on the Roof.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  And Shalom Ash, and then into the modern tradition of like Bernard Malmutter and Philip Roth.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you read Yiddish?

• 4:31Speaker 01

  No, I read all the translated stuff.

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Translated, okay.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  I can't speak, I can't read.

• 4:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you know any other languages?

• 4:36Speaker 01

  I don't, I

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're just American?

• 4:38Speaker 01

  I'm a Sephardic Jew, which is a Spanish Jew. My parents are both fluent in Spanish. And for about a minute in high school, when we went to Spain for a month, I was fluent, but when I came back, and it's all gone. I can do accents, but I'm not so good with language.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I was wondering, yeah, because if you're good with voices, maybe having known multiple languages works the tongue and the lips, but you got there from a whole other way.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  I can sound like I know the language, but I don't really know the language. My wife is linguistically very gifted.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  She speaks Italian fluently and she can pick up a language really fast.

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Polyglot, I guess, when they call those folks.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  If you want to be all technical about it.

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me ask you, most people, I think, when they think of acting in life, they don't necessarily think of being a voice actor, right? What came first for you?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  First for me came acting. I don't know many people who set out to be a voice actor only.

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you went to Tufts?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  I did.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you major in acting there?

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yes, I majored in drama there, and there certainly was no voiceover there. We did plays. College theater is a lot of classics and experimental stuff that's very difficult to sit through.

• 5:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they're really training ground for you, and it's painful for the audience, is that what you're saying?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely, with rare exception. Well, you've got people of varying talents, you know, and learning and usually the very academic approach, like there's some very intellectual concept behind the production that may not translate so much into actual enjoyable visceral theater.

• 6:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So did your teacher say? That guy Hank, he'll go far.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  I certainly got a lot of the roles. I was there at a great time. I'm an Oliver Platt, you know that actor?

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  We both went to Tufts together and did a lot of theater together there. He was great. I had a lot to learn then. I was very raw. He was like, as good as he is now, he was that good then. I learned a lot from him. I found him very inspiring back.

• 6:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, when did your voice become an actor?

• 6:32Speaker 01

  I was always a mimic, growing up, as long as I can remember.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you could imitate people off the bat?

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Captain Kirk, for example.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But while you were watching it in reruns that early, were you imitating him at the time?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yes. I was trying to. I was always trying to record.

• 6:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you wanted to sort of have playful mockery of it, or because you wanted to be Captain Kirk?

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Both.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really?

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely both. When you find that you can sort of actually really sound like your heroes, I can actually get Captain Kirk's rhythm, you feel great about it.

• 7:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I guess, right, because we all have heroes, but we have no access to their talents.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you had extra psychic value to your imitations?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Well, I hear myself being able to do it and I would delight myself with it, like how that actually sounded like.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  You know, I mean Rocky came out when I was like nine, maybe? You know, to be able to really sound like that, you know, hey, yo, well, I'm standing here. I was like, wow, I can, I can make that noise. That's awesome. But I didn't.

• 7:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Sylvester Stone's voice is a noise?

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I always say that now, because I've been doing it for so long and it's a career, it feels to me just like noises I'm making.

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, whatever you hear, you can just create it on the spot, essentially?

• 7:58Speaker 01

  I found as a kid that I could pretty much instantly mimic something. And then I found later on, there were certain impressions that I couldn't get, but I would work on them for a week or two and I would get them. Like Woody Allen, for example.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  You know, somebody that I worked on, I couldn't get it right away. But he was a hero, you know, a hero of mine, so I tried. Johnny Carson is another one that I couldn't do right away. But I worked on it and it came. Because it was important to me. I loved these guys so much, I really wanted to get the impression.

• 8:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, now you gotta do Carl Sagan, now that you're sitting here.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  You know, I never really worked up a-

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't tell me that! You're here on StarTalk-

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Millions and billions of, what was it, stars?

• 8:51Speaker 01

  The journey through, that's how I remember it anyway. Very deliberate, measured, kind of wrapped himself around the words. I'd need a few minutes to actually hear him to get it right, but it was sort of like that.

• 9:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was into the syllables of the words he pronounced.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Since we're talking scientifically, this is what I wonder. You know what goes along with being able to mimic? And I only realize this like in the last decade or so. As more and more celebrities do voiceovers, but you don't know it's them, probably doing a car commercial, I can instantly pick out a voice. I'll say, "Okay, that's Kiefer Sutherland," or "That's Scott Glenn," or "That's Jeff Bridges." And I think it must be connected to the ability to mimic somehow. Voices that most people, you would say, "Yeah, it sounds familiar, but I don't know who that is." And also, if I've heard somebody once, I'll remember what their voice sounds like a long time afterwards.

• 9:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so now, the radio audience would know this, but when you were imitating Woody Allen, you were going through the body gestures of it. So I was surprised when you see the behind-the-scenes voiceover-ing of these animated features. You see the actors gesturing behind the microphone. I'm saying, "Nobody's looking at that." So I wonder, how important is your body when you're only doing voiceover?

• 10:18Speaker 01

  You're as fully engaged as when you're acting.

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to be.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  You do. You have to put your whole body into it. That's what's so tiring about it. Look, it is easier than showing up on a set and getting into hair and makeup and wardrobe and shooting a 16-hour shoot day just to get two pages' worth of dialogue on film, which is what you do in a movie or a TV show. It's easier than that, but it's so concentrated. I can only do about three, four hours of voiceover recording before I collapse. Because your whole body is in it.

• 10:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your whole body, mind, and soul.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  You have to gesture and pretend you're really acting that out in order to make it sound real. Like if you're supposed to be sounding like you're lifting a heavy object, you have to kind of go, "All right, let's get that up there," you know?

• 11:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Or if you're supposed to sound like you're running, the easiest thing to do is just jog in place and say the lines.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I presume it's hard to imitate someone who doesn't have obvious, unusual vocal intonations.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So imitation is like an illustrator trying to draw caricature of something. They're gonna find your nose or your eyebrows or something that they have to exaggerate.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So is it really true you can't imitate someone who's got nothing interesting in their voice?

• 11:31Speaker 01

  I mean, I guess you can, but it's very, very difficult. In the same way that like, it's easier to do a pronounced British accent, you know, a Cockney accent, than it is to do a subtle one. It's much harder. You know, and even that is probably too much. It's really difficult to do a subtle accent. It's very hard to do somebody who's got a subtle vocal quality. I can do a broad stroke impression immediately to get something really good. Like I've had to do accents. My French accent wasn't very good when I first.

• 12:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe something like.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  I was rolling along in Poli where I played a French guy. And to work at it, at first I couldn't do it too well. But I worked on it and it came out all right.

• 12:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oui oui. So at what point do they choose you to do a French accent or just get some French actor?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, that's kind of my gig now in Hollywood. I'm known as the accent guy. So people think of me for that, yeah.

• 12:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they'll go to you before they'll get draw de pas de?

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Not necessarily, no. I mean, if they want the real deal, they'll do that. Especially for comedy. Naked foreigners for some reason, so he's not wearing too much and speaks in an accent.

• 12:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a category.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a very small niche, but it seems to be my niche.

• 12:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you prefer inventing characters out of whole cloth? Or do you rather base them on people and life experiences that you've had?

• 12:52Speaker 01

  You know, for me, there's no difference. I'm always sort of starting with what feels like a mimicry, an impression to me, even if it starts to get really far afield from what that person's actually like. It kind of starts with, you know, like when I did this, I did this role in The Birdcage. I played a very flamboyantly gay character, Latin, a Guatemalan. And I worked on a Guatemalan accent pretty hard. And he talked like this. He was very-

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so Birdcage was La Caja Fue, wasn't it?

• 13:18Speaker 01

  La Caja Fue.

• 13:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  The American version was The Birdcage. It was a Romulan-

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You were in that movie?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  I what?

• 13:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta go back now, because I wouldn't know what you looked like.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  I played the houseboy, this very sweet guy, talks like this, and a Latin guy. And he's, you know, very mothering and sweet to everybody. And I realized a couple of weeks into shooting that I sound exactly like my grandmother. I sounded almost exactly like-

• 13:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, because you're Spanish.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, my, she was a very sweet Spanish lady. And she was very loving and nurturing and, "Oh, baby, I love you." And having that image of her in my mind, it helped me be feminine and maternal. It would have saved me a lot of time building that character.

• 14:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Forgive me, I did not see the sequel to Night at the Museum, which was The Smithsonian.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The original was, took place here.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are interviewing you in my office at the Hayden Plant Stadium at the American Museum of Natural History. So what, so what character were you? Forgive me for not knowing.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  I played a Khomun Ra, an Egyptian pharaoh who came back to life. And I used the voice of Boris Karloff as an inspiration. And when I say inspiration, I mean I ripped it off.

• 14:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because that's what Pharaoh spoke like.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Well.

• 14:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're sure.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  You know, we were playing around. You talk about, I mean, we were playing around with like, what should he sound like?

• 14:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What the hell should he sound like?

• 14:46Speaker 01

  And I first had this sort of just upper crust English accent I was using. We did the table read and they had the studio, actually. Sometimes they have good ideas. He said, you know, can't the voice be a little sillier? And we were like, all right. So I went for a wardrobe and makeup test and which usually doesn't involve sound. They just want to see what you look like. But we threw a mic on there and I just threw out a bunch of voices. And as a joke, because Boris Karloff was the original mummy. I said, what about, you know, Boris Karloff, father mummy? Maybe this would be good.

• 15:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With a lisp?

• 15:23Speaker 01

  And I was, yeah, well, he didn't really lift, he a little bit lift.

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A mummy with a lisp?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  I exaggerated it. And it just made everybody laugh. They're like, that's the one. I'm like, really? That's out there, but okay. Let's give it a whirl. But it actually worked because Boris Karloff could be, he was a great actor, actually. He could be really menacing. He was the villain in that. So it worked pretty well.

• 15:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, if you know this, we to this day have, this sounds like a cheap ad, but we, we have night at the museum for kids, for parents and kids. So.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Oh, you do?

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you spend the night in the Hall of Ocean Life and but before then they turn out the lights in the dinosaur hall.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you go with a flashlight and you go fossil hunting.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  How, how old are the kids?

• 16:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think they're targeting.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Freak my son out a little.

• 16:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like fifth through eighth grade kind of thing. And I just learned, because I don't run these things, they now have night at the museum for grownups.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't be younger than 21.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  I can go in character and freak people out.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  They're dressed as an Egyptian. I am Khmer moon rock. I am half gone. Once removed on my mother's side. Rightful ruler of Egypt. Future ruler of, well, everything else. Now, I have loft for men. So I am in need of some new generals to join me in my little plan of conquering this world. Ivan the terrible.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Napoleon Bonaparte and young Al Capone. Some of the most despicable, the most feared leaders in all of history. Gentlemen. It is just, just fantastic to meet you.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  A black hole?

• 17:37Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, can we call it that?

• 17:39Speaker 04

  Yes, it's the preferred term. And most scientists believe that what enters a black hole never comes out. But some think they may be a gateway to other universes.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Hey, can it open a pencil bag for me? Help a brother out, BH. Woohoo! Ow!

• 17:54Speaker 04

  Guys, stop throwing things in the hole! The more you throw in, the bigger and more dangerous it becomes.

• 18:01Speaker 05

  Come on, you can't look at that infinitely dense little guy and not want to feed it something.

• 18:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. For this show, we're featuring my interview with the actor Hank Azaria. In this segment, we start off by discussing The Simpsons. His work on this long-running animated series has earned him three Academy Awards. This hugely popular show is not only a platform for his amazing voice talent, but the show often plays with science topics and concepts.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How many voices are you in The Simpsons?

• 18:38Speaker 01

  I'm 20 or 30 regular-running characters.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What? 20 to 30?

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, of guys you'll pretty much see.

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're delineated and you can nail them each time?

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Of cour- yeah, those definitely. Since I created those, those are easy.

• 18:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got 'em.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, those are simple.

• 18:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And this, you haven't been investigated for schizophrenia or anything? Is there some word that psychologists have for you?

• 19:01Speaker 01

  As much as I often joke, like, "Oh, there's a lot of voices in my head," or different personalities, that's never an issue. Besides the voice thing, I do consider myself a character actor and I consider it a compliment. People have said I tend to disappear in roles and this and that, vocally and otherwise. And I think that is true psychologically in me, like I tend to get very into whatever it is I'm doing to an extent where I'm almost like, am I the same person that I was three months ago before I was doing this? That's happened to me sometimes, but I've never-

• 19:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that's a good thing for an actor.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  I suppose so, but sometimes the line gets a little blurred. In not such a good way, I'm like huh, I can remember being a teenager. When you don't have these things sorted out and I fit in with so many different peer groups. I could hang with the tough kids because I could kind of talk like, yo, what's up dude?

• 19:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why I didn't have you in a prep school growing up, that's why.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Yes, but then with the nerdy kids, I'd be happy to talk Star Trek and that accent was gone. And then as a teenager, you sort of wonder who you really are, almost to like a weird degree. Then you kind of realize, oh, I can just kind of be a bit of a chameleon. And I found a way to do that professionally, which was a nice outlet for it. But I never like get weird like. Am I Chief Wiggum? I never like think I'm Chief Wiggum or something. I never like wig out like-

• 20:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm trying to investigate here. That's the whole point of this interview.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  No, that's never happened.

• 20:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've been paid by the American Psychological Society to-

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Sometimes I feel close to Moe. Sometimes I do. Because he's, I feel he's from Queens, he's got a New York accent. And I used to bartend, I used to bartend. And I feel like if I didn't get The Simpsons, I'd probably still be a bartender.

• 20:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so were you there from the beginning?

• 20:45Speaker 01

  From the beginning of the half hour version.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it started as a 15 minute.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  It was a little tiny like minute or two.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, it was only a couple of minutes?

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what, the Tracy Oldman Show?

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, so how quickly after that? It goes a half hour and then they find you?

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Actually, they had hired somebody else to do the voice of Moe. And I thought for years they weren't happy with his work. But I found out not long ago from Matt Groening. That his work was fine, he was an abrasive personality. They just didn't like, poor guy, I mean, he made a, I owe him a debt of gratitude, but they just didn't like him. They were very meticulous in the first few years, but we'd have to do a lot of takes. And I guess he got frustrated and I guess he was the voice of G.I. Joe. And he went, you know, when I do G.I. Joe, we never do this meta.

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, there it is.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so it was like, okay, well, we'll see ya, G.I. Joe.

• 21:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Keep being G.I. Joe. So I have to ask you a crass question. If you're 20 to 30 characters on The Simpsons, do you get- Like twenty to thirty separate character paychecks for that?

• 21:46Speaker 01

  No, I wish. I'm not paid like by the yard.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm wondering, yeah, yeah.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  No, they get the whole thing. They get my time. They're paid for my ti- I'm paid for my time.

• 21:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a package. It's you.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give me this voice in this minute, the other voice the next minute.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  There are some epis- I don't think there's ever been an episode where I've done less than like five. And there's some I've done like thirty or something.

• 22:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  And I've done, by the way, more voices than that. There's just twenty or thirty ones that appear very regularly over the twenty-five years.

• 22:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's the, who's the convenience store guy? Is that you?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  That's Apu. That is me, yes. Apuna Sapima Petalan is his name. And he is a proud Indian. And he works, this is a little-known fact, he works twenty-four hours a day.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Very difficult schedule.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a twenty-four-hour convenience store.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  He is there twenty-four hours a day. And he works twenty-four hours a day. And he has eight children now. So it's very difficult for him.

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, so when you're in the sound studio, what kind of stuff do they make you do? In other words, when we think of actors getting into character, that takes a little psychological effort and they get into character and then you can draw from it. But you're so many characters. Do you ever have to go back and forth from one to another?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  You mean like talking to each other?

• 23:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  All the time.

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gotta be hard.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  It was a little hard at the first couple of years. I've had a lot of practice at this now. Um, but now it really, especially with characters you're so familiar with. You know, for Apu to talk to Mo. Hey, shut up, Apu. Why don't you be quiet yourself? Because I don't feel like being quiet. Somebody is a little bit feisty today. Oh, feisty. That's what is that, an American word you learned? For me, you know, once I have the voice, the whole like character falls in, so. I don't know why that is.

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Intonations and word selection.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  To hear what a scientist, like. Police chief Wiggum talks like this, and you notice I have to put him at the side of my mouth. I don't know why. And he's really dumb, Police Chief Wiggum. And somehow, if I talk like this, I just feel a lot stupider than I am.

• 23:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you're saying is, so you, the voice creates the psychological state of the character.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  For me, it does. The whole body and psyche will follow if I click into a voice.

• 24:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's not, it's not gonna work if words get swapped. That would be more common with one character than another, or phrasings or anything, so.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, otherwise you'd fail at your job.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. So, and I don't know, it just, for me, once, it's like a shortcut with acting, like, because actors will sort of build characters from the ground up. How does he walk? What was his history like? What traumatized him? What does he really want? If I can find the voice that works, like, a lot of that will just get filled in all of a sudden.

• 24:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because when you were imitating Woody Allen, you got that meek posturing and there.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  You have to, you know, yes, you have to clear your throat a lot, too. Because, you know, he, what he does.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Um, The Simpsons is legendary for many reasons, including the frequent reference to science and math.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and maybe frequent is not the right word. When there are such references, they are real and meaningful.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who, who was that primarily? Who's putting that in there?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  There's been a few guys over the years, but you know, most of these guys, a lot of them, many of them have been there from the beginning. They're Harvard guys and they're really, really smart. And to a lot of these guys, who is it specifically? I know that, I'm pretty sure George Meyer used to put in a few of those. I'm not sure who on the current staff we really can, we have to thank.

• 25:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One of my favorite episodes was, was it The Simpsons in 3D or something?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a grid that opens up in the, and it's one of these black hole. The black hole starts forming in the grid. And, and Homer is sliding down and he says, "Oh, I knew I should have read that book by that wheelchair guy." Because he doesn't know what's going on.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 25:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's a, there's a, there's a street sign that has Euler's equation on it, which is a profound, almost spiritual expression of mathematics.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  E to the power i pi equals negative one. That was on a street sign. You don't just pull that out of your ass. Somebody did some homework for that episode.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Well, Al Jean, who's been running this show for years, I'm sure he's had a lot to do with many of these. And he's an interesting guy because more than anybody I've ever met, any more than any other comedy writer I've ever met, comedy is like math to him. It's this like, the script becomes this equation that he's figured out that pays off in the right places and sort of works as it is on paper. As a result, sometimes it's a little bit frustrating for us voice actors who want to deviate from that a little bit. Like we'll improvise something and it'll like snap him out as if you've changed the line of the equation.

• 26:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Camus with the equation.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so he'll have to sort of wrap his brain around it.

• 26:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I never thought of it that way because what is a joke but an equation with an equal sign at the end?

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Pretty much. It certainly is to Al, you know? And he's almost a savant like that with the comedy.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But otherwise, how much latitude do you have if you say, well, my character wouldn't say it that way, he'd say it this other way? Do they give you that space? I mean, you're an old timer now for, you know?

• 27:12Speaker 01

  You know?

• 27:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They gotta give you some space.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yes, but I always try to give them a couple exactly as written and then I do a couple where I play around with them.

• 27:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then they can decide.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, they let them decide in editing. But it's up to, it's kind of dealer's choice. Different showrunners, some of them really embrace all the different stuff and people, Al is more like, no, this is how I worked it out. So as long as it's good, I don't. By the way, did I ever tell you the story of, you know, when?

• 27:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is only the second time we've met, so the answer is probably no.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  I might have told you it at the airport when I saw you about, I think I might did, but I'll tell again here.

• 27:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what we met at the airport. This is our third time together. We met on the street.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I was my own bit. You come, you did my show. You stuck a camera in my face. What's it like being a dad? Like, what?

• 27:54Speaker 01

  You gave us such great, did you see any of those?

• 27:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I did. No, it was great. It was great.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  I told you about when Stephen Hawking visited us? I told you about this, didn't I?

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  I guess he was a fan of the show.

• 28:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  And he was gonna come to our table read. And we were all very-

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just so I know what that is.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  That's when we read the script for the first time.

• 28:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you feel it and shake it out?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Mostly it's for the writers. They hear it and they'll do their rewrite based on how it just sounded. We do that on a Thursday and we record the show on a Monday. They'll rewrite on Friday and then we'll... So it's their tradition. We've been doing them for a long time. Now, we usually get about fifty to a hundred people watching them because it's kind of an event. It's fun. So Stephen Hawking was coming, so we're all very, very excited by this. And he's late. Ten minutes late, twenty minutes-

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's not late. Time has just not-

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Well, here's what-

• 28:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's on time. The rest of the universe-

• 28:44Speaker 01

  That's where I'm headed here.

• 28:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  So he's significantly late. And there's this Hollywood thing where, when important people are late in Hollywood, first you don't mention it, and then, after about twenty minutes in hushed tones, the like, "Well, what do you want? Should we start? What should happen?" So that debate kind of starts in the room like, "Well, do we start? Do we just go? I mean..." And it's kind of going back and forth. And Harry Shearer is reading his newspaper, and without looking up from his newspaper, he just chimes in, "Does the man have no concept of time?"

• 29:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is great!

• 29:20Speaker 01

  A good one. I think it might be the funniest line I've ever heard anybody say-

• 29:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ever.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  About anything, yeah.

• 29:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ever.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  "Does the man have no concept of time?"

• 29:32Speaker 01

  But he appeared in the show.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Stephen Hawking, actually. I think maybe just one episode.

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so, uh, the list of scientists, which apparently doesn't include me.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Really, I can't believe we haven't-

• 29:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't want to sound jealous or anything.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 29:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I just thought I'd let someone on the cast know.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  I will. I'll put in a word.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that's fine. No, it's too late. Too late.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  It's not too late. Hardly too late.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, you only think of me now that I've done Cosmos, okay? What kind of bard I needed to get noticed by you guys. So, you've had Stephen Jay Gould-

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When he was in an episode. I think it adds a certain fun credibility.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  There's a lot of really mathematical and science Easter eggs, I guess, as they call them, as they put in the show.

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  There was even, there was an interesting article about that recently, about how there's a lot for math geeks to hang on to.

• 30:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, also, I remember an episode where, was it, Homer discovers a comet?

• 30:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I might have the details wrong, and it's named after him. But then they find out that the comet is headed towards Earth, and so then they blame him.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  I don't even remember this one.

• 30:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's one of these mob scenes with torches and, and they burn down the observatory. And it's what, what in a statement of people's sense of the cause and effect of things.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, the whole mob mentality theme is a big one in The Simpsons. Just how the psychology of mobs and how they can turn and how easily influenced they are. That's one of their, their really good social satire things that they do.

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, you were in a show called Huff?

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you played a psychiatrist?

• 31:02Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 31:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  That was about eight, nine years ago.

• 31:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh. How did that go?

• 31:06Speaker 01

  That was great. I, I loved that show. It was hard to do because it was about a lot of difficult emotional things.

• 31:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause what I always wonder, you have an ensemble of actors and many of them are playing, let's just call them for the moment, regular people.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Husband, wife, and then there's some actor that has to now play a learned person in the midst of that group.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they go to that, they go to that learned person to get something explained. That had, it's a different role in a group of actors, right?

• 31:35Speaker 01

  It is, and it was often a little more boring.

• 31:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, cause you don't get to emote like everybody else does.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  I would be sort of, you know, I spent, we would see a lot of his, uh, sessions as a psychiatrist and I'd be sitting there going, my lines would be, mm-hmm.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Well, why did you feel that way? While people were doing these astonishing monologues, these emotional monologues. We're like, uh huh, okay. Well, I'll see you next time. But a lot of the show was about how, that show was a lot about, really about addiction, actually. Everybody in that show was addicted to something. Even though it didn't purport to be that, that's really what it was about. And it was definitely about how a guy who could have, know what was good for everybody else and fixed their lives, had no clue when it came to his own life.

• 32:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's, that's a common fact from what I read. Yeah.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Had a big blind spot for his own co-dependencies and addictions and whatnot.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you were in Futurama?

• 32:34Speaker 01

  I was played Zoidberg's uncle. The voice was kinda like this, and it was like an old Jewish comedian, which was sort of based on Georgie Jessel. Remember Georgie Jessel?

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, easy. Why would you know him? But he was a comedian from like the 50s, 60s. Who talked like this, Georgie Jessel.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're in a series of animated shows that have huge geek following.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you must be sort of a demigod at Comic Con.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  You know, I've never gone and I'm dying to go and I'm a big comic book geek and sci fi geek.

• 33:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've never been to Comic Con?

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Never been, I'm dying to go.

• 33:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They opened one up in New York.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would venture to say that I will definitely go to that.

• 33:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because as you know, the geek following is probably the most loyal following. And they'll hold you to stuff. They're not just blindly loyal fans. If you're not true to a character or you step out of it in a way, they'll be on your thing.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Well, that's like Comic Book Guy, the role I play on The Simpsons. He will often bust people on, excuse me, in episode eight F O nine, you had a white dog and yet in episode four F twelve, the dog was tan. How to explain this discrepancy? That's Comic Book Guy.

• 33:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they'll exist, you know. So in your Comic Con universe geek credentials, you also voiced something in Spider-Man? What was that?

• 34:01Speaker 01

  I was Eddie Brock who talked, he was another New Yorker. Eddie Brock kind of talked like this. And then Venom, he became Venom who.

• 34:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was he a nemesis of Spider-Man?

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Venom, yeah, he's a pretty cool nemesis. Remember when Spider-Man got that black suit for a while?

• 34:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  That was actually an alien symbiote. He just found the suit and it enhanced his powers. But he found that he was losing control of himself and the alien was kind of taking over. And making him do bad things and he couldn't get rid of it, like it wouldn't leave him. And he got it off him by sort of somehow it glommed on Eddie Brock. And it kind of combined with who you really were. So when he was Spider-Man, Peter Parker was a good guy, that he was only kind of.

• 34:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It added aspects of his personality profile.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  It was making Peter Parker do stuff he didn't like, but it wasn't horrible. But Eddie Brock was kind of a bad dude.

• 34:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To begin with.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yes. And he also had not a very strong will, so the alien completely took him over and was this awful character named Venom.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that was you.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  That was me.

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in your resume, is it like, is it sectioned by awful reprehensible characters, lovable characters? What does your resume look like?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  I play a little wide range. It's upon request.

• 35:16Speaker 06

  Your theory of a donut-shaped universe is intriguing, Homer. I may have to steal it.

• 35:23Speaker 05

  Wow, I can't believe someone I never heard of is hanging out with a guy like me.

• 35:28Speaker 07

  Alright, it's closing time. Who's paying the tab?

• 35:30Speaker 05

  I am.

• 35:31Speaker 06

  I didn't say that.

• 35:33Speaker 05

  Yes, I did. So.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  I hate this, but I have to go. I can't miss my flight.

• 36:05Speaker 08

  Are you sure? I'll bet there's another flight to Manskinland.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  July.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Por si alista, por chisti, muy merde, ni si, stoka.

• 36:19Speaker 08

  It's really beautiful. What does it mean?

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Please clean my beakers.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  I don't get out of the lab much.

• 36:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. We've been featuring my interview with the actor Hank Azaria. In this final segment, we have a free-ranging discussion about his roles in the movie Godzilla, the TV show Friends, and his new animated series on Fox. We also bring it back to Star Trek to answer the age-old geek question: Kirk or Picard? Forgive me, I was never a fan of the show Friends. Okay, I forgive you. It wasn't popular up in the hood, you know. Okay. It wasn't one of those kind of shows. I can understand that. But you were a recurring character. I was. And you played a scientist. I did. Yeah. David the Scientist guy, that's what they called him.

• 37:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That doesn't have the same ring as Bill Nye, the Science Guy. No. That's like a lame imitation of that, right? So, did you have to do any homework for that to... I did not. I applaud your honesty in front of this audience.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  I was required to be funny and be believably geeky.

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  And that's about as far as the science went.

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you had enough natural geek in you to uh.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Very easy. I put on glasses.

• 37:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, a little studious look.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, uh, I don't know if I'm alone in saying that in the 1998 Godzilla, I really liked your role. Because it felt like you were just trying to get the shot, you know, and you were the cameraman. The news cameraman.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Yes, that was a tough movie on a lot of levels. It didn't come out as well as we wanted it to. Uh, it didn't do as well as we wanted it to. It became the symbol of like what was wrong with Hollywood at that moment. These kind of overblown budgets that didn't deliver and were just kind of rehashing stuff that had already been done in a way not as well. It was tough for me because I thought that, you know, these guys had just done Independence Day, which was a huge, huge success. And we were all in that cast hoping for the same kind of success and it actually had kind of more of a negative impact. But yes.

• 38:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I enjoyed, I enjoyed.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  I'm glad you liked it.

• 38:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  I heard the newer one was better.

• 38:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I haven't seen that yet.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  I haven't seen it either with Bryan Cranston. But yeah, that said, the other thing about that was we shot that for about five months. And Roland Emmerich directed it and he's a German guy and he came to me one day and he said, so we got a great idea, we're going to do everything in the rain. Always going to be raining, the creature is going to look better in the rain, it's going to be beautiful. I'm like, great. And.

• 39:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now that you mention it, I don't ever see the sun at all.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Pouring. The problem with that.

• 39:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dark and dank.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  I told her, at the time I was, I wasn't married to her yet, but I was going out with Helen Hunt, who was a pro, had done everything under the sun as an actress already. And I told her that and she was like.

• 39:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can I boast?

• 39:20Speaker 01

  What?

• 39:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She came to this office.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And sat in that chair.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah?

• 39:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Did she do the job?

• 39:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I coached her, no, before StarTalk, longer, in the early 90s. And, uh, late 90s, and I coached her on how to be the wife of an astrophysicist in a play that she was starring in, in Broadway.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 39:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was called Lifetime's Three.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it had John Turturro in it and Data was in it.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Oh, Brent Spiner.

• 39:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brent Spiner.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  He's in this season of Ray Donovan. He plays a shrink.

• 39:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. All right.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  This season of Ray.

• 39:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I had all three of them in this office and I'm telling them about how to be an astrophysicist. That was just fun.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  That is fun.

• 39:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was a little charming moment. Okay, but go on. So you were dating her?

• 39:59Speaker 01

  We were dating at the time and I told her that it's gonna be all in the rain and she was like, oh no, that's terrible. I'm like, it won't be so bad. She's like, okay, I hope not. And...

• 40:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She's thinking, you idiot.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Well, every exterior pouring down and Hollywood rain isn't, it's like a deluge. So the camera will see it. It was so miserable. We all got sick like multiple times. We had to wear wet suits.

• 40:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, it's an interesting point because in a baseball game, when it starts to rain, the camera doesn't pick up the rain.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Often doesn't.

• 40:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  It has to be lit correctly.

• 40:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's gotta lit in the right way from behind. It's gotta glow.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  It's gotta be pretty thick.

• 40:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. I hadn't thought that through.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so...

• 40:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You had a wet suit under your clothing.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  That would be soaked through, the wet suit would be soaked through by lunchtime. You had to change wet suits.

• 40:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Okay, and the hardest part was...

• 40:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then Helen broke up with you because you were an idiot.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Well, not long after that. I got soggy. She was like, enough with you. It was terrible. Three weeks of night shooting in the rain in downtown LA. And we'd be suffering through this going, okay, it's gonna be worth it, but when it comes out, and it wasn't.

• 41:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, my favorite rain line, I don't remember if you were in the car, but they're trying to drive uptown.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they get on the on-ramp to the FDR Drive and they say, let's take the FDR Drive. And meanwhile Godzilla is bearing down on the city and she says, everyone knows you're not supposed to drive on the FDR in the rain.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  It had its moments.

• 41:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it was like, that was a very New York urban joke.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's, you don't drive on the FDR when it's raining because there's no shoulder, it's slippery, one accident takes out the stuff forever. So, but back to Star Trek briefly. So I've gotta ask you, Kirk or Picard?

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Boy, you know, I would have always said Kirk and then about... Nine, ten years ago, I binge watched all of Next Generation and really loved it. And now it's, it's a tough call for me. I think I have to go Kirk. Push comes to shove, I gotta go Kirk.

• 42:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm Kirk too. Not that I don't love me some Picard.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's great.

• 42:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who doesn't love Picard? But Kirk had a certain seat of the pants.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, Picard doesn't fight. I mean.

• 42:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, was he never in a fight?

• 42:14Speaker 01

  I don't think ever.

• 42:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, my God!

• 42:16Speaker 01

  I don't think one time that he ever socked an alien in the jaw.

• 42:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Kirk was, Kirk fought the Gorn.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 42:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can fight lizard, lizard aliens.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  We still love the Gorn. Ben Stiller's a buddy of mine. He is the proud owner of the Gorn head.

• 42:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  The actual Gorn.

• 42:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the head is out there.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Ben dragged me once to like, uh, auction of all these crazy things. He's a huge Star Trek fan and collector.

• 42:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait a minute. That wouldn't have been the Christie's auction, but about ten years ago, seven years ago. I was at that auction.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Oh, you were there?

• 42:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't buy anything. That was expensive.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  It was.

• 42:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They had the foam phaser that would be on the hip of the stunt people so that when they fell, they wouldn't be impaled by the real phaser.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That went for a hundred and fifty dollars.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I said, no, I can't, you know, I'm done here. I'll just watch.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  I don't know what he paid for the Gorn head, but I think it was a lot.

• 43:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a, that's a great sentence. What did the Gorn head go for?

• 43:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you said you'd take Kirk over Picard?

• 43:20Speaker 01

  I would.

• 43:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know what? I'd take Kirk over Picard.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Why?

• 43:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One reason.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Why?

• 43:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One reason. There was an episode, forgive me for not remembering the name of the episode.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  I bet I know it.

• 43:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where he is threatening some Klingon vessel and their deflector shields are damaged.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Enterprise and their, their photon torpedo can't shoot. There's something wrong and they actually can't defend themselves.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so Kirk tells them, "If you don't back the hell up," I'm paraphrasing, of course, but if you don't care how, "we will do something, okay? And we will knock you out of the water." And...

• 44:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got all the details wrong, but the sense of this is accurate.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  I know all the details.

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Spock says, "Captain, this is no time for a game of chess." And he says, "Spock, it's not chess. It's poker."

• 44:14Speaker 01

  It's poker.

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, "Holy, that's my man, right there." Making executive decision.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Is called the Korbinite maneuver. And that's the device that he claims to have onboard is Korbinite. Which is a self-destruct mechanism that would take out space all around the Enterprise. Including the ship that was threatening them. The Korbinite maneuver. Is the title of that episode.

• 44:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. And since there was no such thing as a Korbinite.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 44:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He just made it up.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Totally made it up, it was a bluff.

• 44:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the other folks don't know it.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Spock doesn't know anything about bluffing.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, I thought that was just a brilliant move.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  It was great.

• 45:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to be Kirk.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  I remember, great ep, uh, they, at one point, the aliens, it wasn't the Klingons, I think it was...

• 45:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Romulans?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  It might, no, it was a one-time alien, like a Folians, I think.

• 45:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One-time aliens?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Yes, it was, they only made a one-time appearance. And, uh, oh, it was that, you know what? It ended up being, remember they got visual contact and it was that really scary alien?

• 45:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  And then when they finally went onboard, it was that little kid.

• 45:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Which happened, was Ron Howard's little brother.

• 45:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was the same episode. That was the same episode.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  It turns out that they aren't these scary aliens, it was just, they were actually faking too. I think that's the, that's the same episode. And, um, they, uh, at one point, he says, "Please show us proof that you have this Korbinite device." And they're gonna, and Uhura's gonna answer, he goes, "Uh, wait, let him sweat it out a little bit." Doesn't answer right away, you know, that's all poker. And then he just clicks on it and goes, "Request an eye." And he cuts off.

• 46:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hits the button.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  That's the same as me saying, come on, let me see your whole cards. I'm saying, no.

• 46:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's poker.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Poker, that's life.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Captain Kirk.

• 46:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's next for you?

• 46:15Speaker 01

  I'm working on this, I just finished the season of Ray Donovan on Showtime, which just started airing.

• 46:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you are Showtime property at this point? I mean, these are your, these are your big gigs.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I've done two, so I guess I'm part of the family.

• 46:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, it's got good ads. I mean, the ads are out.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do. I love cable series. I think, I love them because they, I like, this is a crime show. I love crime fiction and these shows, they, they last, they're able to be so realistic and they go for so long and they get so into the character. They're like reading a book almost. You feel like you, you just read a good novel.

• 46:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  And I got a new cartoon coming on Fox called Border Town.

• 46:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you don't have enough cartoons to your credit.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  They came and I said, all right, sure. Why not? This is Seth MacFarlane and a guy named Mark Henteman. These guys did Family Guy for a long time.

• 47:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As you know, Seth was executive producer on Cosmos.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  I did know that. I did see that.

• 47:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he, not many people know this because we didn't make a big deal of it. In our first episode, when we had Giordano Bruno, one of our heroes of our storytelling, Seth was the voice.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 47:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Giordano Bruno. Oh, yeah. Very sensitive read. I mean, it was great. And, and that's the same person who does Peter Griffin, right? Or, or, or Stewie. So, so we were, we were delighted to see that range.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  He's amazing. He's pretty amazing.

• 47:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this cartoon is what you say?

• 47:34Speaker 01

  It's called Border Town.

• 47:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what role is Seth having it?

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Seth is just executive producing.

• 47:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's executive producing.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  He's really just shepherding it.

• 47:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And where's it gonna air?

• 47:42Speaker 01

  On Fox.

• 47:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  On Fox, uh huh.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Uh, it'll be on probably next spring.

• 47:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. Simpsons is a Fox.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  It is, as is Family Guy. And so pretty, pretty out there. Dare I say, this character I play is the most racist character since, I think Archie Bunker.

• 48:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  I think I can say that with confidence.

• 48:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is he lovably racist?

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Not particularly. I mean, he's funny. Mm-hmm. But I mean, like Archie Bunker, he's meant to be, or like Colbert. He's meant to be so extreme that he's a fool. That he's a caricature. Exactly. Mm-hmm. And is supposed to point out, you know, what's awful and ridiculous about this guy. Mm-hmm. But he, it's, it's, you know how Family Guy doesn't really pull any punches? Well, I think they get away with it because they have other characters that critique it in the same show. That's exactly like. So that, that's, that's how you clean your hands on that. Very much the same in this show. Yeah, okay, interesting. But it's funny. Yeah, good luck with that. Thank you.

• 48:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hank, thanks.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Thank you, it was a pleasure.

• 48:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, and as always, I urge you until next time to keep looking up.