Not unlike being parodied by Weird Al, being asked to do a voice on The Simpsons is a special milestone in one’s career. If it’s good enough for Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and roughly 500,000 other celebrities, it becomes more shocking when someone doesn’t spring at the chance to visit Springfield. Despite the show’s legendary predictive powers, the program’s plans to get a number of Australian stars aboard fell flat admits longtime Simpsons vet and showrunner Al Jean.
Speaking with the News Corp owned Aussie outlet News.Com.Au, Jean revealed that Hugh Jackman, Chris Hemsworth and Liam Hemsworth all turned down the opportunity to play knifey spoony with the Simpsons.
“We tried to get the Hemsworth brothers but they passed,” said Jean when nudged on the prospect of another episode set Down Under. “We wrote a part for them, but they said no. We also asked Hugh Jackman and he passed as well, so we tried.”
There isn’t an explanation as to why famous Australians said no. It’s not like Hugh Jackman is afraid of looking silly or Chris Hemsworth is lacking in the comic chops department. The Simpsons has proven to be a borderline unkillable entity, so there’s likely loads of time for other opportunities for combo efforts. And if not they can always ring Danny McBride instead.
(Via News.com.au)
