An Interview with Maggie Roswell

Four Finger discounted. Hey go on, everybody, Dano here for a very
special episode of four Finger discount. Obviously, this week we are not going
to be doing an episode review. As you can tell from the title of
this podcast, I was lucky enough to be joined by the one and only
Maggie Roswell last week, the voice behind a characters such as Maude Flanders,
Helen Lovejoy, Luan van Houghton, Sherry Bobbins, Miss Hoover, many many
women in the Simpsons universe. We don't only to discuss her voices, but
we also cover things like the nineties Christmas parties with the Simpsons stuff when we
were all still living close to the studio. We discussed the recording process between
comparing it from the nineties when she first started to now, and it's really
really interesting. We even cover things like what microphones they use and what microphone
she prefers to use in their home studio, how she gets the script center
her these days, and it's just it's really really really interesting stuff. Plus,
what I was most excited for was that we finally got to the bottom
of just how and why she quit the show twenty five years ago and how
she came back and the reason she was able to come back. Plus she
gives her thoughts on the death of More Flanners, which is really cool.
It's just great being able to finally hear from her point of view what she
thought about that whole situation and how they it might have been mishandled. And
she kind of agrees as well, misheaded the situation when she left the show
and the unfortunate passing off More Flanners. But before we get into all that,
though, I need to just remind you guys that you know, please,
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So if you love Jaws, it's worth money just that in itself. But
enough shilling. It's time now to sit back and enjoy my conversation with the
legendary Meggie Rosewell. Now he with the one only Maggie Roosewell and Meggie,
how are you doing? How are your holidays? Oh my god, it's
fantastic everything. Actually, these holidays were probably the busiest that I've ever had,
which is really great parties and things and stuff. And I actually skated
on plastic. That's kind of a new thing. I think you can skate
on ice here in Colorado, but for some reason, a new deal is
plastic. So I put these skates on. We went on and said,
it's like Paul your Thane. And so I said to the guy, so,
how often are you guys doing this? And he said, oh,
about fifty people a day And I said really, I said how long did
he stay on the plastic? He said two minutes, So it's like But
then I thought, oh, well, that's kind of a weird thing because
it was at the top of a hotel here in Colorado. So I figured,
okay, they can't have ice at the top of a hotel. But
then I was reading that they're doing it all over the country and places you
know that are warm. Are you kind of go okay, I don't understand,
but okay, be free. Isn't the idea of skating novelty being on
the ice? Isn't that why you do it? That's what I was thinking.
But I was thinking if they had something that you could actually do ice
with, you know, or something that was kind of like ice, then
people in la and all over the place could go skating anytime they wanted to
without being on the inside of an arena. But you know, no,
it was all good. So how are you doing down then? That?
It's always good down under? It's actually been a really cold summer though it's
bizarre. I feel like some of those shifting so I feel like some is
just starting now. Used to start just before Christmas. We usually have like
a I don't know what it is in fahrenheit. We have a thirty degree
celsius day usually on Christmas Day, so it's usually pretty warm. But yeah,
but it rained on Christmas Day and that's never happened in my life.
First time ever it rained on Christmas Day? Was cold? What's going on?
Where are we? What? Global warming? They said, you know,
it's at with us? Where one day and on fourth of July we
were getting hailstones that were bit like golf balls, and then you go,
Okay, don't understand. It's fourth of July. It's supposed to be sunny
and hot dogs and outside, and you know, so yeah, so I
think it's crazy everywhere. And then our summers have been getting hotter than they
ever wore. This is from another planet. And then we just had these
this cold snap that happened, and then I guess another one's coming through.
But they're my favorite. Thing that they're calling what is it there that's going
to hit the West Coast is like it's like a you know, a wave
solution, whatever it is. It's like some sort of thing that's going to
hit California that has never They just kind of came up with these things where
it whirls in and then hits you kind of like a tornado, but it's
not a tornado or hurricane. It's not a hurricane. So I don't know
this. Do the Simpsons crew ever have a Christmas party back in the day,
didn't Did you ever attend a Christmas party? Yeah, we always did,
and it was really really fun. They used to bring in snow for
the Christmas party and when, of course it was in la and it was
on the studio lot, so they brought in snow so the kids could go
sledding. And this was back in the day when they had everybody and like
they had just started, and billions of dollars to do everything. And I
remember they brought in a taffy sculptor that this guy could sculpt anything out of
taffy, and then they they've had incredible parties. Now the parties are getting
less and left of the guy that's thirty six years So you know what,
Apple, when's the last time that you all got to get that? Can
you rete? Because obviously you live fire away from the moll Man Well,
see, I'm far away, but so's everybody else. So hany GAZERI in
New York, and Harry lives in New Orleans, and Julie comes back and
forth, sometimes in California but also in Shelter Island and then sometimes in Michigan.
I think, so she's all over the place and then whenever anybody else
is working. But from what I understand that all of the table reads now
even are just all remote. Everybody's at their house, like the people don't
even come in. All the producers and directors and everything don't necessarily come in
anymore. So it's just kind of everything is as remote as it can possibly
be. But ever since COVID, they just went you know what, why
go back? Yeah, so part of it. Yeah, you know,
I know you set that trend many many moons ago of recording from home.
But how do you think it's impacted the team dynamic of the show, because
you must have loved back in the day when you're all together all the time,
it's the best. And we would play ping pong during the day because
you know with The Simpsons, which doesn't happen on any you know, with
the cartoon shows like that I used to do for Hanna Barbera and things like
that. They all you would come in, you would pick up the script,
you would read through it once and then you'd record in. With the
Simpsons, we would do a table read on Thursday, and then they would
write all through the weekend, and then following Monday would get another script and
then would all sit around on that Monday and from like nine to five we'd
be working because sometimes I do something and they go that doesn't work and then
they come back with some cups or whatever. But that was all, you
know, it was just so much fun. And then even before this,
they had everybody just standing around in a very small studio. Back in the
day we were in at twentieth Century Fox, where we were in this big,
like cavernous team you know, place where you would have an entire recording
or you would shoot a movie. And now they're in like a little kind
of sound room. But even with that, a lot of the people just
go in individually because they're all doing other stuff. Yeah, you kind of
recreate that energy, can you when you're all in the studio together. Kind
of crazy, although we've all been doing the characters for so long that you
can kind of get a hit off of what you do. And especially with
the directors, they can hear if your energy is up or it's not up
or whatever, so that makes a huge difference, you know. So but
it's it's really it's such a trick to keep doing the show. I mean
all this time, I mean I do. I do a podcast with Jim
Cummings, the Disney Voice actor Winnie the Pooh, Tiger Tazzy Devil, and
he always says that because he's a big he's big on improvisation, and he
feels like you can't really improvise when you're all in the same room because it
got bounceslf of each other. Well, you ever want to improvise or did
you ever experience any great improvisation in the Simpsons studio? Oh? Yeah,
yeah all the time, because how are haik is it or not? Hank
Harry Dan Dan Dan good? Isn't Heah? He used to improvise together.
We used to do sales and company in La so we were doing sales in
company forever and then so we used to improvise. So there's little moments you
can do things like you know, I remember, you know, there was
a line where I was like, oh, netty, and then my when
I was doing it, the writer saw that my shoulders up were oh netty,
and then that's what they animated. So that also helped everything, like
be everybody being able to see everything. Plus the fact back in the day
we would have also that, you know, so all the writers will be
sitting around the table and with all the actors as well, so then somebody
like like they never introduced you know, you knew who Conan was because he
looked like an elephant who was six foot five, but everybody else you didn't
know until like, really incredible guys, don't Swartzwelder and John Vetti, you
know who used to write a lot of the things that I did, and
they would you would go and it's John Vitty's showing. You watch one guy
go like this and you go, oh, that must be John. Okay,
But but they're all amazing. You know, it's been I mean really
now what they do is they do the Halloween show and then they have a
big thing at Universal, which is pretty ironic because they do the party at
Universal, although it's a Disney show, so you know, so they had
all the Disney things to do. But that's pretty fun. They didn't have
it this past year because the strike, so there was you know a lot
of things that have shifted between COVID and then the strike and now everybody here
doing all the things that they do. But it still is the best to
be a part of. Do you still get videotapes when you're doing your bits,
when you're recording from home, so they can still watch you do it.
Now it's just sending the audio through watch me do it, But they
don't video it. They're just they're the directors are watching me do it.
And they saying, Okay, try it like this, try it like this
because we're doing a zoom. But other than that, and sometimes they don't,
they go just do three in a row, five in a row,
ten in a row. You know, of these character of the characters.
But it's interesting because there there's a couple of different writers in their new writers
now and Matt Selman kind of does half the group and then you know the
rest of them are it's like two separate groups. Okay, so but the
Matt Selman's crew likes to write more for the characters that you don't see very
often. So I've had a lot of different things for the wyn Van Houghton
and for Miss Hoover that you know, you didn't never knew that it was
gonna kind of unfold like that. So that's really that's been really fun to
kind of see where the characters are going. Yeah, because he likes to
focus on what I call the format bending episodes two, doesn't he He likes
the quirky sort of stories. Matt. Yeah, yes, this that Matt
does. He likes it, you know because for so many years everything was
about the family and stuff, and then he's been kind of you know,
really kind of going on, Okay, what's what else is happening in the
Springfield? Let's look at what else is happening. So so yes, it's
been really it's been a blast also this many years to have to be able
to uncover something new in a character that you didn't even know you know,
it's I mean, it was kind of like when I guess what was it?
Harry Sheer kind of figured out that that his you know, mister Burns
and Smithers, that Smithers was in love with mister Burns, and all of
a sudden he was like, what, wait a minute, what and we
were there started laughing. We went, yeah, Harry, like, where
have you been? Haven't just seen this song? That's the joke? A
joke? I love you man? Which Simpson's cast member. Do you think
you've developed the strongest relationship with over the years, Probably, you know,
I mean Dan and I probably as far as the cast, But it was
so much fun with Nancy and Yardley and again those first years we all bonded.
So we're still like when I go, well, like I went back
I forget which two years ago to the Christmas party and a lot of people
were there and so it was really nice to see everybody. And I bumped
into Hank and we were just like, oh my god, how are you.
So it was you know, as our lives have gone on, we
still haven't forgotten those first years because it was so intense for so long,
because we would do two weeks on in one week off for the entire year.
So you'd start probably in March, and then two weeks on and one
week off all the way through, and then January and February people would be
doing stuff, but you'd still do pickups. And so for me, a
lot of the things when I came to Colorado were that I would be doing
the things that would make it much more current, like when people go,
wow, how did you get that? You know something global warming or this
or what has just ever happened that they just throw it in there, But
they've thrown it in a year later after everything's been animated, and they leave
a little bit of time for them to make it, you know, new
and different and current. You know. So it's been I think that that
has been the most fun to see, although when people say to me,
so what's on for this week? You know, what goes on in this
weekend. I go, I got nothing, it could be anything. And
then to see how the scripts that you read and then how it all is
transformed, whether the writers have transformed it or the animators have you know,
thrown something in. You know, it's just it's really a black because then
we're excited watching the exact same thing as the audience is watching, because you
go, oh wow, I didn't know they were going to do that.
That's really great. Do you still receive the scripts in physical form or they
email to you? Now, No, they're emailed to me, you know,
So I get an email and then you know, go through everything.
See the they just finished the Halloween show for next year, I guess for
this year, twenty twenty four. So then I was able to get the
script see all of that, and then each one, like I can read
all the script and then see just where my characters are and all of that
stuff. So that's been It's really advantageous because if I only got there's a
lot of places that will only give you your scene, and that doesn't help
at all. So it's really great for me to have exactly what's happening and
what we're doing. And so it's it's been nice. It's been really nice.
How often do you receive scripts? So when they're working on the shows,
I can imagine it wouldn't be weakly beginning a new script. How often
are you receiving a new script? Well, what they'll do is they'll compile
them. So like just after in January, I think I did three different
shows and then well, no four. So they usually do two or three
shows at a time, like they'll do some pickups and then they'll do two
shows. But what has also been exciting is that writers that are doing this,
one writer Brian Kelly, I just meant another another writer that now they're
having the writers that have written the scripts direct them, because they used to
have different people like Al Jean or whatever would direct. But sometimes I'll just
oversee and then the writer who has actually written it will direct it. And
it's so much fun because you get to hear how he heard it in his
head, you know, and then if you're not getting it to him,
then you can go, Okay, what do you got? Am I not
getting this? What else do you need? But that's really neat, that's
fun. Can you recall any moments where they heard it one way in their
head? But then you did it one way and they went that's better.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that definitely. And then you know
they a guy named Brian Kaufman is one of the line producers. Sometimes he'll
say, hey, did you think of it like this? Or what about
this? And I will do it numerous ways, so they have like eighty
five choices of what to do. But and because our recording studio is so
good, and then we're also using a recording studio called the Keep because my
husband Hal Rail, who's you just saw coming here, he still does.
He's been writing a voiceover book. But you know he did G I,
Joe and Transformers and Muppets and all that, and I that's why you know,
we know all those old cronies that you know that you interview that then
you go, oh god, hi you guys, how are you? The
only time we really see each other from all the animation community is if you
go to a comic con, which I loved all the Australian comic cons Australia,
New Zealand. And now they're not doing as many, or they're not
bringing me. Tell them to bring me more. Daniel from Super and Iva,
I say, bring Maggie back, get back, Yes, exactly because
it is. It was so much fun and I love the people so much.
But it was pretty funny because when I was there and they went,
they'd be signing their name and then say, you know, what's your name
and they go, let's again, Okay, again, it's again, and
they'd be like and and the person next to me would be is Jonathan,
oh right right. But sometimes the accents were so thick that I would just
like, go okay, and you don't want to say too many times Okay,
I don't understand. I'm trying. I'm really trying. How do you
spell your name? And then they go or j o hn oh john Oh,
that's a whole other way to go. Then we have a tendency down
in Australia to blend words, so instead of saying, how's it going,
we'll go as down and just it's just one long sound. And that was
it, And that was so much fun being able to hear the accents.
And I remember when how was on the bus for the first time and he
did something about you know, I think there was and he goes, oh,
I do everything all I can to protect it, and they said all
of a sudden, you know, oh yeah, because it was like the
Crocodile Hunter and the bus driver said, are you making fun of our national
treasure? And he said no, no, oh no, I just loved
him because we did. We love crocodile hun her look at his beauty.
This is great. Yeah. Well, we'll have to get yourself and how
on Jim Show at some point, because yeah, Jim, he talks to
all the greatest voice actors. Well, Jim is one of the greatest voice
actors of all time, you know. Well, and that's it. Jim
coming sat next to me on this last comic con and it was so funny
because my daughter called, he goes, oh, mom, is he saying?
Next to her said yet, she goes, can I talk to him?
And then he did the Winnie the poof for and she was like,
and she's thirty now, but she was like, oh, oh my god,
but I love Jim. Have you ever heard him sing? He's a
killer singer. One of the reasons why we started the show was I thought,
with Jim, no one really appreciates just how much of a talent he
was, how much he voiced, you know, and how lucky's he isn't
incredible singer, but people just don't really seem to realize that, and you
go, he voiced that character and that character, people go, wait a
minute, he voiced all of those characters. Yep, that was old Jim
and that's it. And I think that that was at the time when I
got in, which was I did film and television for forever. So when
I was doing the Tracy Omens Show, then they asked me if I wanted
to do The Simpsons and I was just like, I guess, I don't
know. Well there's this sketch and somebody doesn't want to do it and you
could do it. And I said, why would I want to do it?
And they said, well, it's with Carol King and Clarence Clemmens of
the E Street Band and you'd be doing Leader of the Pack. And I
went, you know, I could do that. So that was really fun
to sing with those guys. But then afterwards they came back and said,
do you want to do this show? And if I hadn't been on that
show doing that at that time, who knows, you know that the rest
was history. But I was just I was really about film and television for
so long. And if you if people go on at Maggie Roswell dot com
or else, really go on YouTube and then use I said to somebody,
Okay, go and put Morgan Mindy, Maggie Roswell, you know, like
all these different shows. But if I have the Maggie Roswell, I guess
channel or whatever. And but you have to kind of scroll down to see
some of the stuff. But my daughter was looking at She goes, Mom,
you were so young. I said, yeah, you know, and
then you get older, I said to But all lot of the film and
television that I did was so much, you know. I did films like
Pretty and Pink and Lost in America and a lot of different things that when
people there were people from here, and I remember I was leaving to go
back to Ala for something and we're getting our nails done. Someone looked up
and said, is that you? I said, why, yes it is,
and they were rich going Pretty in Pink. But I think having done
so many television shows and so much theater and everything for so long that now
being on this show, it's so great because everybody just it is. It's
like you're in this cast that just goes on forever and ever, you know,
And I think that when they said to Matt Grating in London at one
point, well, how long do you think the Simpsons is going to go?
And he said, well, we're closer to the end than we are
to the beginning. And then of course it had in London Times the next
day Matt Grating says, Simpsons is ending. So he said, that's not
what I said. So now when they say how long you think it'll go,
it goes forever, just forever. And I said, good, I
like that go forever. Well said in the past, you don't want to
be the guy that cancels the Simpsons. You don't want that to be your
history, do you No, you don't want to be that guy. Well,
you know, also with AI, it's pretty scary because essentially, you
know, Fox and Disney have enough on all of our voices to just keep
doing the show. That's it. And that is the part that is so
frightening about it, and why the actors had gone on strike and why I
think the animation people are going to go into strike. But you know,
you can't really put your arms around AI. So I always say to people
it's kind of, you know, like you're like you're trying to put your
hand in front of a moving train. It's not going to happen, jump
on the train or not. But to be so frightened of it by not
doing anything with it. I'm just hoping that, like, here's the common
cold, because if it can go through all the things and figure out what,
you know, what the care for the common cold is, you go
okay, or it's currying cancer. Okay Ai, that's good. But I
think in our next election you'll see a lot of scary things. They had
something where they had a robo call from Biden that was not true and it's
but it sounded exactly like him. So it was like it was all these
different things that they can do and the deep fakes that they can do,
which is the really scary part. I don't think people are going to believe
anything they say on the internet anymore. But I think it's going to be
a case of unless you see in the flesh and the person is speaking in
front of you, you're just not going to believe it anymore. You're not
gonna believe it. And why would you you know, you'd go yeah,
sure, okay, fine, you know you don't know if it's true you
thought so. With AI, obviously they were everyone went on strike. There's
that fear of being replaced by AI. But you just sort of start touching
on it. Then, do you think there's a way of blending AI into
what you do to sort of continue on your legacy? Just say, for
example, you eventually retire, would you be okay with them to AI your
voice as a character? Would you prefer they replace your character with another actress?
Well, I think it would be great to put it with another actress.
They tried at one point when I put on the tenth here and came
back on the thirteenth to replace me with someone. But even with that,
I think what they will find with AI is there's a stiltedness about AI.
You can kind of tell when you're hearing some no matter what you do,
it's kind of like there's a human nature part that just goes that's wrong,
you know. So you you get the feeling that there's something not right here.
And I think they'll keep AI going for a while and then go,
well, you can't give it nuance and that you know right now? I
know with a lot of it, they can make it happy, make it
sad, you know, make it edited, but for the nuances for how
people really speak, it's just it's hard. I think it would be really
hard, So I would. I know a lot of people that are getting
their voices patented. I think who was it, Robert Downey Jr. Just
patented his voice so that they can't do an AI for it. So I
mean, I think the other thing that people are doing is trying to get
to where you can't. If you do it, you'll be sued like there's
nobody's business. So that's about the only thing I think that you could possibly
do. You know, but that's a standout when you watch the new as
Simpsons is that some of the voices don't quite sound the same, which is
understandable. You know, everyone gets older, you know, the voices get
bit shredded. Has the idea of AI ever been thrown out in the Simpsons
world and Simpsons? I think I think for Matt he would be completely freaked
out. And what you might be hearing is not so much the people sounding
like the people, but a lot of people in different studios. You know,
we were in the same studio, we were using the same mic,
so all the people in different studios and trying to put all those and blend
them together, you know. And there's a point during the pandemic, you
know, Hell and I had a recording studio, but a lot of people
had to go in their closet and record. So that's going to be a
whole different sound than what's going to come from recording studio. So I think
that in itself is whacky and bizarre, you know. So, But but
I think it's it's coming. I mean, it's coming, it's here.
Actually, it's not even coming, it's here, it's here. I'm not
a real person, I'm ai what what what macrophone do you prefer to use?
Do you have a microphone of choice that you have to use? Use
Annoyman for just because of the depth of my voice. I think with Senheiser
with women a lot of the time, although on Simpsons they did it and
I don't know how they quite made it well. Women can sound a lot
sibilant, the essays on you know, if you get the Sendheiser. But
it's a beautiful mic to use. It's just I think the Noyman has all
the depth of especially a lot of the voice that I used to do all
the money voices and ads and all that kind of stuff that it really it
kind of plays your voice better, you know, I mean, it really
is. I think for some people's voices really helps a lot. So that's
what we use in there for Simpsons as Noymans. So the Simpsons original studios
had Sennhi's, Is that what you're saying. I think senn Heiser's. Yeah.
I don't think that they were in now, but you know, I
would have to remember, and that would be hard. You mentioned earlier pretty
in Pink Losson in America, all your movies, but I want to touch
on some of your guest appearances on shows like Happy Days and Mesh. I'm
a mass tragic. I love Mesh and you play Sister to get It described
me in the atmosphere on set of Mesh. What was it like being on
set for Mash? Well, that was insane because Mash was at that time
the biggest show ever, Like, there was nothing bigger than Mash. And
they had and I had been doing Love American Style American Style and that was
my first job, and then they wanted me to do Mash, which is
a couple of lines, and so my agent said, well, it's just
a little couple of lines, but you know, you should be on Mash
because it's the biggest show. So they I went for the audition and they
said to me, and of course I went to Catholic school, so being
a nun, how great would that be? So I went in and they
said, can you drive a stick shift? And I said sure, you
know, no I figured how hard hit. So we are in We're in
the show. I'm doing my scene and I'm supposed to drive up in a
jeep and I get him the jeep and they have this woman get in with
me and and they have adopted this Korean boy. And so then the mother.
I bring the mother. She said she came to me looking for her
son. I took a chance. That was my big lines. Those are
my big lines. But so she, you know, gets the kid and
they get in the car. So the whole cast is standing there and it's
just like the great Stad moment. And so they say, okay, you
say your lines, get back in the car and then drive out. So
I put it in gear. Where's kind of was in gear, It just
was holding it. So and I drive and the you know, I'm driving
here and the camera's here and the cast is here, and so I'm driving
and I see the cast face like this, and I actually hit with the
mirror the camera to the side. I like clipped the man. So I
was like okay, and still they drive out and then they have this Waki
taki, Maggie, could you come back? And I went because I don't
know how to back up and turn around, so somebody had to come back
up and turned around for me. But I just about killed the mash cast
on my first one of my second jobs, so that was good. So
Treppa didn't actually the show. You just read, Yeah, you just have
to, you know, you just go if I if I can't be the
lead, I just got to run over. But if sweet and Alan Alder
came up to me, and I mean he's so huge and he just said,
hi, my name's Alan Alda and I go, no, here's fantastic.
And when I did Happy Days in the Verga, truly, I had
done a Happy Days and I did one show and actually that was kind of
wacky because I was supposed to be with Henry and this other girl was supposed
to be with Chachi and so I'm with the Fawns, except I'm five seven
and he at that time he's five six. I don't know whatever it is,
but he's just shorter than me. So then they said, well,
why don't you guys switch? So then they at the very end were kissing
them and I'm thinking, ooh, I'm kissing Chachi. He's like, this
is bad. He's a little boy. This is wrong. And then they
decided not to use that one. But then they had me come back and
I ended up selling the Cunningham's house at the very end, very end of
the series. And then with with la Verne and Shirley, I, you
know, played Lenny of Lenny and Squiggy's girlfriend. I was a college girl.
So that was really a sweet episode. And Michael McKeon and I are
you know, probably if they had put us in a series together, it
would have run for a billion years because Michael and I just had this incredible
I don't know that thing. You know, there's a couple of people that
you go, okay, you know these two people have that thing. He
was one of them, and we just we clicked. Then that was really
really sweet and such a nice show to do. So but I did all
of those all those crazy shows, and you know, I at that at
that time, you know, you go, it'll never stop, I swear,
and then you start as people get older in the business. That's why
I always tell the kids that, especially women that are in the book business,
I go, you should be doing voiceover because that has taken me over
that time. And now, you know, going from I'm twenty or nineteen
years old when I started to seventy one years old now and then being able
to do all these characters still is pretty insane, you know. And because
on The Simpsons we get to do the boys. Man, oh, don't
be a buttead board because our voices never changed, So you're not gonna have
like a kid that the voice is gonna change. But yeah, so it's
it's good, it's fun. How did you change your acting approach when you
went from on camera to off camera with voice acting? Did you change your
approach or is it just you just pretended you were still on camera. No,
it's definitely a big change because I you know, I told I tell
people when you're doing voiceover, like if if I saw a line and it
said the cat ran down the street, and you go, oh, the
cat ran down the street, and then they say, Okay, could you
do that again? But a little smile in your voice. Oh the cat
ran down the street? Okay, now could you do it again? And
could you do it little higher? Rich the cat ran down the street?
Oh okay, now can we do it again? And all these different levels,
and then you realize that like not only how you approached copy, which
is very different, you know, for animation you have to have so much
energy, which luckily I have a lot of energy anyways, but you have
to have so much energy for animation, which is very different than when you're
doing film and television. And if you're too big, then they go,
could you know, bring it down a little, But in animation they go
the bigger the better. You usually turned down the Simpsons Gate, didn't you,
Oh the Tracyellman, leader of the pack spot, Well, I almost
did because they it was it was, you know, they they were going
to do that, and then they call my agent and then I would well,
you know, I don't know, I mean, should I do it?
And they were just saying, yeah, it's just a sketch. But
it was because of those people that I did the sketch. And I thought,
oh my god, thank God that I did that, because I never
would have done the show. I mean, Bonnie only saw me on that
show and then saw what I was doing and then said, why didn't you
audition for this? And at that time, they're still when I went into
anim and when I went into voiceover, I was in LA, and I
remember I started to do voiceover. The first commercial I did was for Jack
in the Box and it said and all I said was white meat. And
so right after that, all of a sudden, these residuals started rolling in
and I went, this is the greatest thing ever. I've got to do
voiceover. And then I started doing more voiceover, not as much in LA,
but a lot more in New York. Then I came back to LA
and said, look, you guys, you know I'm doing a lot in
New York. I should be doing a lot here, you know, so
changing agencies, doing all that so you can have a good voice agent.
And then once I started doing more voiceover, but there was still only a
handful of people, like people would say to me, oh, you know,
it's a really tough business to get into, you know, don't get
your helps up because it's just too hard. But now things have shifted so
much because even now they use algorithms a lot of times, like they will
say Maggie Roswell and then they'll someone looks it up. Well, she's seventy
one. So there's no way that I could to a forty year old voice.
My voice sounds like in the forties, maybe early fifties, thirties,
you know, but you're not going to have me, do you know?
I could do seventy one, But for them, a seventy one year old
woman sounds a little more like a grandmother, and I could probably do a
grandmother's voice. But even so, like you go, well, so I
can't do anything else, which is where it's rough, because you know,
you can do everything. I mean, we do little boys and this and
that. Luckily on the show they have had everybody because of the culture now
of having you know, a poo be an Indian and a who's wife like
I had played missus Uppool for a little while, you know, all of
those things. I played doctor Hippot's wife. But now they have an African
American woman that plays doctor Hibbert's wife, which all makes sense as you go
along in the in the picture. At that time, we were just doing
everything because there were only seven people that were in the cast, and so
we just say, okay, you do that, and you do that,
and you do that, you know so. And at the time they also
paid, you know, three voices for one price, so you do the
three voices, on the fourth voice you get something else. But all of
that, again has shifted so much. For what we know is the voice
business. And what I knew was the voice business, which was totally different
than a lot of people. And did you see that I had snowball too.
Here, wait a minute, Snowball too. Just for you? Was
was the idea of a non Indian voicing a pood that? Were they were
those questions that were raised in the nineties or was it just just part of
the job. Just did it? I just did it now I and I
did Bumblebee's wife in Spanish, you know all of that. So that no,
there was just like, okay, do that? Can you do that?
Yes? I can? And in fact, how had been on The
Simpsons when Hank Kazaria was doing the bird cage then he did a poo and
snake and bus driver and something else, you know, so, and so
he was doing it but done the sloop pick up. So it was that's
just what we all did. But who knew. And now it's kind of
it's really everything shifted as it should to the next part, so you have
to kind of ready for the next part. Did you say haw a voice
the Pooh when he was a standon for hang? Is that what you just
said? Yeah, yeah, didn't we do that? Well I did not
know that. Yes, we did Pooh and Wigham and and I think snake,
Yeah, a pool and Wigham and Snake. So and I'm sure had
he been in La now he'd be doing much more of those things. But
now they have some of the casts that comes in and you know, it's
all of that stuff. You go, okay, well cut it what it
should it? Should we have stayed there, should we have done whatever,
But we're really glad that we're here, really glad that we're here. Yeah,
well, we just touched on earlier. You got the gig Bonnie gave
you the she cast you for the Simpsons. I want you to take me
back to that first day working at the Simpsons. Describe the energy, the
vibe of the room, what you were thinking going in there. Tell me
about that first Can you remember the first day? Yes, it was wild,
because it was like, I said, this huge soundstage, and you
know, I had a buffer because I'd worked with Dan Cassanetta, so that
was amazing, so we already knew each other. And then Yardley was so
great. But it was funny because I've just seen Yardley in a play and
she was she played British and I thought she was a British girl with the
name like Yardley Smith. And I said, you're American. She goes yeah,
and I said, oh, sorry, I saw you in your play.
Fantastic. You just looked like a brick to me. I had no
idea, and she was just so good. And then how knew Nancy from
the voiceover world, and then I knew Nancy kind of from that. But
it's like it's you know, so you kind of get in there and you
know everybody, but you don't. You're standing up in front of the microphones,
and for all of us we stood. I think Harry she is the
only person that can sit and keep that energy up. And then Hey or
Dan when he does is he's in plexiglass, so it's here and here so
that his voice doesn't boom to everyone else in the room. But Harry Shearer
could actually be listening to something, looking at a script to get to do
his thing, look back down and why read the newspaper? I mean he
was he multitasked like no one I've ever seen. It was amazing. Yeah,
I've spoken to Harry once before. Many people say now that he he
sort of hasn't lost that energy, but you know he sort of just The
Simpsons is a is a job? Now do you do you still say the
Simpsons as a job or is it just part of your life? Is it?
Is it? It's really part of my life. It's I'm still excited
to do it. I'm still so happy that, you know, after I
you know, after I quit, and then you know, they asked me
to come back because they had these these little characters that they put into an
environment and the toy company and said, well, if Maggie's voice isn't in
there, if the voice chip isn't in there, then we're gonna not buy
those characters. So then they said, hey, do you want to come
back on the show. So for me even coming back, that was amazing,
But it was also getting our insurance and all of that stuff while we
were here. But as it's wild because even like, we just went to
Portugal, and what I didn't realize is in Portugal they used to use That's
how they learned English. Was the Simpsons. Now a lot of places it
wasn't ever in Portuguese. It was only in English. So the people only
knew me as the person, you know, and so that is really a
trip to me. Is that that that they knew my voice. Like if
I go to Mexico, you know, I say in Spanish, okay,
this, I'm the person that does it. Or Italy or any of the
places that I've gone to. They love that I'm on the Simpsons and that
I was the original voice on the Simpsons. But then they have their person.
But what I think will be interesting to see and this is something who
knows that when they do the Simpsons all over the world, now that they
have AI being able to do everybody's you know, all these languages, if
they'll just have us do it and it will be translated into a thousand languages,
and the person in France and Spanish and all those people lose their work
because they're not as integral to the parts of what they want to do.
That still remains to be seen. If you know, if Jim Brooks and
Matt Granny go you know, no, we don't want that, or yes,
this makes it much easier. So it's so that's hard to say.
It's kind of a bad look, but you can say from a business perspective,
it would be probably more wis eruption, wouldn't it. Yeah, very,
but it's yeah, it would be bad. Bye. I don't think
they're going to be the first to do it. I think everybody, as
you see in every movie, when you see all the people that have been
doing those characters, and then you say, and here's the British version,
here's this version, here's this version, here's this version, and then you
know the Chinese version, and then you go, well they just say by
some and so AI blah blah blah, that does the voices, and then
that's it, and that will be I mean, because unless I don't know,
if we sign a contract that we say that, I don't think there's
anything they can say that you can't say you can you can't use someone else
to do my voice, or you can't use AI for my voice if you're
doing it in Spanish or Portuguese or wherever. You know, so ill don't
know, it's interesting what you's brought up there where you said that everyone's just
waiting for someone to do it. It's almost like everyone's going so they want
to, but they don't want to be the first. Yeah, they don't
want to be the second. That's the first person does it, then you're
gonna go okay, well yeah, and it is the dam is broken and
everything it's it's definitely the wild West. Definitely the Wild West again, and
it is in voiceover itself anyways, and that's shifted. But because also back
in the day, you know, I did film and television and commercials and
industrials and theater and you know, voiceover in all of that. That that
kind of made what I was going to do for a living. But now,
if you're a kid and you're getting into the business, there's not that
many commercials, and if they do, then want to use a star a
lot of the time, or they'll use somebody from the radio station where they're
already paying. And then you know, industrials, some of them they'll use
people. But then you start to see all those places have been cut down
for income for actors, and so you can't like I was, you know,
I would get classes and everything to people to do voiceover. But then
you go, well, you know, it's very different than when I started,
and when I was doing it. I mean, we were kind of
in the heyday because not only were we in the heyday of film and television,
but where the residuals were amazing. And then now everything is shifted to
streaming. So shifting to streaming also has changed our pay structure. You know,
so all the actors that pay structure and what used to be, you
would, you know, get your pay and then they would run it the
first time and you would get the exact pay for the first time, and
then it would go down from there. But now you get paid and it
goes to streaming, and it can be like we'll run a million times and
good luck on them, you know. So I just don't know, not
a whole lot that you can say about it or you can do about it.
Yea. I was going to ask you that, because it's hard to
sort of get the numbers specifically when it's on a streaming like when Simpsons went
to Disney Plus. When I was growing up, you just watched it on
the local TV station and they rerun episodes over and over. So was your
pay your payment impacted greatly. Yeah, yeah, because of the residuals of
everything, and because you know, now they can run it on Fox,
but they had FXX that was running at twenty four to seven and that was
the whole thing into itself. And then now going to Disney Plus, they
can do it the next day on Disney Plus and that is a whole different
pay structure, drastically different, certainly not what it was here. And if
they don't run it on network TV again, then it will be the streaming
structure, which is very much like foreign residuals. So it's you know,
it's all of that has changed everything. And luckily for me because you know,
having pensions and everything and Social Security and all that kind of stuff besides
money coming in from the residuals that they have. I'm really lucky, I
mean incredibly blessed and lucky. But a lot of the kids starting out in
the business, will they see pensions, I don't know, you know,
And it's very like when I was doing film and television, you would get
top of the show like that was it. You know, you're going to
get paid top of the show thirty five hundred or four grand or whatever.
Now they don't have top of the show. And when you're doing a series,
a streaming series, the leads, the stars are getting this and everybody
else is not. And I remember when we did the Comic Con and we
saw the people from Game of Thrones and Game of Thrones people didn't get any
residuals like here's your pay, good luck on that, that's it, And
that was also a business model that then they looked here and went, hey,
this is really good, okay, perfect, you know will why don't
we try this? So you know it's it shifted so much that again,
like with AI, can't put your arms around it, and you can't push
your arms as much around streaming. And there's very horrid for them to say,
well they've run it forty five thousand times, and as far as screen
actors will goes, they go, well, they'll tell us how much they've
run it. That the producers are going to tell you how much they've run
it. Okay, if I just believe that, yeah, okay, good
luck on that our new times had changed. Where in Australia we have where
you al it's called cable, it's called foxtail here and he came in the
mid to late nineties and Bart Simpson was the mascot. He had the catchphrase.
It was all based around Bart and the Simpsons. You could have given
them their own station, you know. The Simpsons been a station on They're
called Fox eight. They do marathons to the Simpsons all the time, YadA,
YadA, YadA. And then last year they cease their contract with the
Simps, so the Simpsons were taken off Foxtail and that's when you knew things
had change because Foxtail was the Simpsons. Everyone who grew up in Australia in
the nineties, that's how we watch the Simpsons. And they go, no
more citionens on the on Fox Tale. It's now all on Disney Plus.
We went, ah, that's kind of sad. Even though I didn't necessarily
watch it on Foxtail all the time, it was just nice knowing that it
was still there. But now that's gone, let's see, that's it.
I think that that in that change for people and do people want to go
in and go to Disney Plus and look what it is and you know,
and when Rupert Murdot first had everything with Fox also Fox at the time when
they first did, it hadn't been a cable network like back in the day
when they were going you know, there was NBCABC, CBS, and Fox
was considered like a streaming, a second tier only because then it didn't have
to pay what they paid on network television. But then that all shifted,
and so it's just, you know, it just I mean, the cycle
just keeps going and you just keep watching it and hoping for the best.
I know, I sound like an old man shaking my face at the cloud,
but I miss those days when you could just turn the TV and there'd
be a Simpsons on. You didn't go through and pick it out, because
when I'm going through and trying to pick an episode, I can never pick
one. I'm just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. But you would just turn
the TV on there'd be a Simpsons on, and you sat down and you
just watched it, and you watched it and that was it the end.
I missed miss thase days because I've got two small kids, three year old
and a five year old, and they're spoiled for choice, and I don't
think they have any idea how lucky they are. Oh yeah, exactly,
Oh my god. And that's what I think. But anyways, can you
remember the first line that you remember recording for the Simpsons? Oh no,
what was the first line? I don't do you was your first character that
appeared on the show, wasn't she? That was the thing, is when
I was doing my Flanders. And that's the other thing. A lot of
people don't even know my because she died, so that is that's weird for
like a whole crew of people to go, well, I did want Flanders
to go, oh who was that? Ned Flanders wife? Oh? Okay,
yeah, and you go no. But I don't remember. What I
do remember is that one line that then they changed into a whole character was
when they had Rush with Greatness and they had and she was painting a picture
of mister Burns and then she painted the picture of Ringo or did all that
stuff. So then mister Burns is there and this woman walks up and says
he's bad, but he'll die. And that was it. And they came
to me and they said, could you do that for a character? Could
you just make her? So that's how Miss Hoover was born. He's bad,
but he'll die. That's the one that I can remember. Doing it.
But oh my gosh, when I first had because all my characters,
when I did mod Flanders and when I did hed Enough Joy, I already
had to create them because they were already created. You know. You already
had Ned Flanders and you already had Reverend love Joy. So those were That
was a trick for me to be able to have to play off of those
two people. Here's a woman from the Midwest. He's very sweet, and
here's a woman that you never want to get in it, you know,
and a catfight with like I think she was the original Housewives of Springfield.
Yes, now with mord right. So I was a child when she was
killed off the show. I've heard conflicting stories on why this all happened.
Let's just get it all officially on the record here, correct me, stop
me when I'm wrong. So it's nineteen ninety nine. You're having to fly
to Ala to record your lines. It is costing you a fortune in flights,
so you decide to request that Fox increase your pay from around two grand
to about six thousand. Ballpark aroundt there, and it's just so it covers
the cost of travel so you can get there and do your job. Properly.
They refuse, and I've read they only offered you one hundred and fifty
dollars extra something along those lines. It wasn't much, no no for me.
They said what do you want to do? And I said, I'm
not going to do the show anymore. So it was the wild thing is
is that they do have something somewhere that said you know, and then they
fired her. Now I quit the show because I realized I was flying myself
back and forth. I was also doing another pilot for Fox where I was
getting paid an inordinate amount of money for this pilot. And if that series
had gone, so I went, I don't get it. So hearing beginning
paid this, I'm getting paid a lot of money to do this, you
know, Venus on the hard Drive, which was another series or a pilot,
And I said, what you know, it's both Fox. Why aren't
we doing that? And so they said, oh, we can't afford this,
and there's and I knew that they were making money hand of profess.
So I was really good, Okay, that's it. I'm not doing it
anymore. So and I remember hanging up the phone and crying and then I
thought, okay, well that's really good. And you know, people from
the show like Hank a Series said, oh, you're my hero. Yeah,
I'm a hero without a job. But if and they said, on
on Entertainment Tonight, Maggie Roswell's no longer doing the show because she's too tired
to fly from her home in Denver, color. So that was one of
those ones that I went, oh, really okay, because I'm so I
need just some you know, some geriityl or something and they'll give me enough
energy to go and do it. But and I think that that it was
really a dragon sad and I kind of was clear that I probably wouldn't get
it, you know, that they wouldn't come back and go, okay,
fine, we're going to do this. But when they did try to replace
me, and then they killed Maud and I remember seeing Ian Maxtone on the
lot and I just said, oh my god, and they will you know.
Pam Hayden called me and said, well, did you hear what they
did? And I said, well, she said, well they killed you.
I said what and she said. They were sitting there and everybody was
doing the table reading. A lot of people don't hadn't read through the script.
And they go blah blah blah blah blah, and then Maud's hit by
T shirt canon and dies, and she said the whole room went and then
everybody's like oh, and they just totally freaked out because they didn't know.
And then when they had the show where you know, they had the you
know stones that said mad Flanders and all the different people that have died on
The Simpsons, and it was mind blowing because I thought, oh my god,
this is really horrible. But then in the years that I wasn't on
there, my characters were seen but not heard. So if they did a
thing in the town, they would just see a bunch of people and my
characters would still be in it. So I didn't know how it would resolve
itself. But I'm so glad that they ended up doing the thing with those
characters because now I'm back on and I'm happy. So it worked out well.
It really did, because I've just always wondered, how do you build
up the carriage to quit the number one show on television? You know,
it's still a time, but was it? You just didn't think that's how
you made that decision. It just happened. I really thought about it,
and I thought, you know that I felt that my characters have value,
and I thought that they can't pay more for those characters. And then especially,
I mean, it was very gratifying when they couldn't find anybody to do
the characters. And Ian said when I saw him a lot, he said.
I said, Ian, you had to kill me, and he goes,
well, you know, we tried to find people to replace your characters,
but your characters are really hard to replace. I said, yeah,
it's only as if I could do them. So it was, you know,
on one hand, it was for an ego thing that I just went,
Okay, you know, I'm just gonna have to suck it up and
do it. But it wasn't like by accident. I definitely said, you
know what, now I think I feel like these characters are more and they
were and now I'm back. You don't think there's any spot there from them
doing killing off Moud. I know they say to you, oh, we
couldn't find the replace you, but did they have to choose your character at
that time? Well? And the sad thing is, which I think on
the writing perspective, is that Maud Flanders and probably Lisa and sometimes Julie Kavner's
character. You know there's a vulnerability, but Maud had a vulnerability that nobody
else has. I mean, if you look at all the characters on the
show, nobody's vulnerable. And so I think in a way, they shot
themselves in the foot by killing her off, because she was kind of a
voice of reason and a voice of sweetness, and her her religious beliefs and
her being a mother and all of that stuff. She if you look at
all the characters they've created, have never had something so sweet, and so
I think that that you know, for them, then went oh, wouldn't
this be funny, and then later went oh, huh. So they have
had me come back as ghosts and all sorts of things are flashbacks, and
even in flashbacks, they had one where I was a little bit surly,
like the Thanksgiving show where I was a little bit surly, But and Matd
really was never like that. She was just like she was sweet. She
left, her husband, left her kids. It was great. Well,
what the Sayson eighteen now going through in chological order and again sense the negativity
coming into the show just feels like everybody's upset and angry, and this characters
never used to be that way, but it sort of it crept its way
into the into the writing. I'm not sure why, but yeah, it
managed to do that. Yeah, and then you know, and sometimes I
mean it was different producers that produced at times, but there are some key
shows now where you see because us that you can get little moments of the
sweetness and especially between Bart and Lisa and stuff that they used to have Mike
Reese and Al Jean would really do some incredible, you know characters and and
you know, John Vittie and those guys that would really write some real warmths.
But now I think that the way that the world is, there's part
of it that they just go well, I don't know if that's how it
creeps in, but I still think, you know, reading the scripts that
we're doing now, I think that maybe it's be coming back the other way,
because just the ones we've done seem to be going back like back in
the day, you know, better sweeter. I do think season thirty four
was a real turn in the positive direction. Yeah, so that's that's I
think it changed. All right, Well, will you tell everybody to tell
people down in Australia that I really want we really want to do the comic
cons again. I'll make it my mission. You'll see you at super and
over this year. I'll make it my mission. Okay, And then you
know I do those cameos. So I wanted to say he wants me to
do those characters for cameos, I would love to do them. Yep.
I'll chuck the link for that in the description of this podcast. So if
you want Maggie for cameo, check out the link for this description of this
and you'll be able to find it there. Okay, Well, it was
so great to talk into you again, and it was wonderful. Yes,
it was loveing to have you on and all the best with twenty twenty four.
Thank you, Maggie. I'll talk to you later, all right,
guys, how fun was that? I told you it was a good conversation.
I forgot to mention the AI stuff as well. I forgot how great
that was. But of course I was just mostly excited to hear her thoughts
on the Maud Flanders death situation, which was great. I forget you can
I get a cameo from Maggie as one of her many characters from the Simpsons
via the link in the description of this pod, and if you want to
get access to over one hundred hours of exclusive content from yours truly and all
the others here at the Forthing your discat network, you can support us on
Patreon. But for now, thank you so much for checking out the show.
Rate and reviewers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify review find this show. But
until next week, I'm and have a great and safe week, and I'll
see you then. Hm.