When news broke that Harry Shearer, the voice of almost two dozen characters on The Simpsons, including Ned Flanders and Mr Burns, was going to leave the show, some thought it was a prank. Could the Simpsons survive without him?

“All I can say is, it wasn’t a stunt,” said Shearer.

He and attorneys for The Simpsons tweeted back and forth about contract negotiations for days; the parties reached an agreement two months later. “There were real issues that had to be resolved and they were,” Shearer added.

The real danger to me in working in this business is if you become tired of or contemptuous of the audience – it shows Harry Shearer

This month the venerated American actor will host a BBC radio documentary to mark the levee-break that devastated New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. It’s just one of several projects the actor has taken on outside The Simpsons, creating the juggling act between two sides of his professional life that almost caused a rupture in the long-running show.

Shearer has created a universe of side projects, works he has fought to pursue parallel to his career voicing 21 characters in the fictional town of Springfield. He hosts a weekly radio show, works on sketch comedy, keeps an eye on politicians and talking heads and often voices his opinion on his adopted home of New Orleans as it rebuilds.



Shearer announced to fans that he’d quit almost two months before he and the show’s producers reached an agreement. At first, many assumed that Shearer was asking for more cash. The deal he negotiated reportedly nets him $300,000 an episode, but the actor said the disagreement centred on creative freedom – specifically, his ability to develop outside work. (Producers said they were befuddled, and that he’d always been able to pursue those projects.)

“The real danger to me in working in this business is if you become tired of or contemptuous of the audience, it shows,” said Shearer, who explained his desire to not become bound to only one role. “If you give the audience a bunch of different things, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the reasons [they remember you].”

Shearer is contractually prevented from talking specifics of the negotiations, but at the time the conflict took place, he said it arose when producers didn’t realise the importance of those projects to the actor.



Harry Shearer as Mr Burns Guardian

“I wanted what we’ve always had: the freedom to do other work,” Shearer tweeted.

Shearer grew up in Los Angeles, working as a child actor. He bought a home in New Orleans just one year after hurricane Katrina devastated the city. His work with the BBC marks his second documentary on the subject in 10 years. Aside from documentaries, Shearer’s projects have ranged from viral videos featuring Dan Rather to skits on his YouTube channel to a weekly public radio program, Le Show. And he’s no less ambitious about forthcoming work.

“I have a television project which is a – to use a Trump word, a Trump phrase – ‘would incredibly revolutionize television sketch comedy’,” he said in an unsolicited imitation of the Republican presidential candidate’s voice.

Shearer talks of the weird, candid, and unscripted human behavior that is an inspiration for his comedy. “I love to see what real human behavior looks like,” said Shearer. “I’ve always envisioned my job as just observing and noting that, and for the purposes of my work, just cutting out the boring parts.”

Perhaps that’s why politics is so appealing to the actor. He’s caught up on current events and puts the moment he called New Orleans home as the day he changed his voter registration.

“I’m drawn to these larger-than-life characters that politics throws up,” said Shearer. “You know, power draws certain kinds of personalities. We’re told that you can judge certain things about human personality with the number of folds in the cortex – these are people with incredibly folded cortex.”

Shearer has kept a close eye on the Republican presidential field, and examined past American presidents for inspiration. His work for Sky has included donning a fake schnoz and lip-synching President Richard Nixon to actual recordings of the commander-in-chief, recordings best known as “the Nixon tapes”.

Donald Trump, one of the many politicians Shearer finds interesting. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images

And Shearer is interested in Trump, not only as a satirist but because the candidate seems genuine in his boorishness.

It just is startling to people, because they’re so unused to seeing real behavior in the public sphere Harry Shearer on Donald Trump

“He’s a blowhard, he’s an egomaniac, he’s a fabulist about his own wealth, but you know he’s unashamed about it, and he’s untrammelled, and he’s unplanned, and he’s not premeditated,” said Shearer.

“It just is startling to people, because they’re so unused to seeing real behavior in the public sphere. Everything is planned, and everything is mediated, and modulated, and to see actual human behaviour in the public space is just startling.”

Despite the deep association his legacy will have with The Simpsons, he does not view his career as monolithic, and said his desire to branch out stems from a need to respect his audience.

“I’m lucky that I can walk down the street and maybe one person will recognise me from The Simpsons, and another person will recognise me from Spinal Tap, and it’s always surprising,” said Shearer.

“I always thought as a kid, if you – and the reason that I sort of stayed away from doing one character on a sitcom is – if you’re doing one thing all the time, the audience is going to come up to you and say the one thing all the time.

“It sounds more like a plan than it was, but there’s some reason to it.”