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Talking Lisa Simpson with Yeardley Smith
December 20, 2007

Tuesday, December 18, a certain family with a bright-yellow complexion made their mark in Manhattan. As part of Fox Home Entertainment’s publicity push to announced the arrival of The Simpsons Movie on DVD, a slew of events involving Homer, Marge, Lisa and Bart were devised, including the quartet of Simpsons ice skating in Bryant Park, Homer “Prometheus” statue taking center stage at Rockefeller Center, 10,000 donuts being distributed in curious passers-by, and the Empire State Building being illuminated Simpsons yellow at nightfall! Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson since the family's’ TV inception some 20 years, was on hand for the festivities, and I had a chance to speak with her.

 

VB: As the voice of Lisa Simpson, you’ve been doing interviews about The Simpsons for nearly 20 years. What are you most tired of being asked?

SMITH: Probably the question, ‘What’s your favorite episode?’ That’s the one. First of all, it’s impossible and you end up defaulting to an answer that you’ve given so much because there are now so many episodes! It’s

easier, I guess. It’s not that they’re not my favorite, but I should watch all DVDs of all the seasons that are out and pick out some new favorites. 

VB: Working as you do, week in and week out, do the episodes begin to blur together?

SMITH: Oh, yes. Completely. I can’t discern one from the other after a while. When you’re doing ADR - there are at least two phases in that process, which can take four to six months, where we re-record dialogue and get more detailed. I have a very good memory for that stuff, but I can’t remember the most minute details like others can. Dan Castellaneta, he remembers everything.

VB: What were the freshest aspects of your job while making The Simpsons Movie?

SMITH: Well, we had better microphones! There was a different feeling. We had the luxury of time and therefore we were able to pay more attention to detail and James L. Brooks directed us. He’s a real taskmaster! At the very, very beginning, he used to come in and direct some episodes – he hasn’t done that in a long time. The TV show is such a well-oiled machine plus we have the 22-minute time constraint, so it’s quite a different process then making the movie, which was much more labor intensive. The movie also gave us the opportunity to put some of the heart back into the show—sometimes, we just don’t have the time to get that involved in the television show.

Check back next week for the second part of my chat with Yeardley Smith!

 

Posted by Laurence Lerman on December 20, 2007 | Comments (0)