Daniel Louis Castellaneta was born in 1957 at Roseland Community Hospital on Chicago’s south side and was raised in River Forest and Oak Park, Illinois. He is of Italian descent, born to Elsie Lagorio and Louis Castellaneta.
Castellaneta became adept at impressions at a young age and his mother enrolled him in an acting class when he was sixteen years old. He would listen to his father’s comedy records and do impressions of the artists. Upon graduating high school, he started attending Northern Illinois University (NIU) in the fall of 1975.
Castellaneta studied art education, with the goal of becoming an art teacher. He became a student teacher and would entertain his students with his impressions. Castellaneta started acting after his graduation from Northern Illinois University in 1979. He began taking improvisation classes, where he met his future wife Deb Lacusta. He started to work at The Second City, an improvisational theatre in Chicago, in 1983 and continued to work there until 1987. During this period, he did voice-over work with his wife for various radio stations.
He auditioned for a role in The Tracey Ullman Show and his first meeting underwhelmed Tracey Ullman and the other producers. Ullman decided to fly to Chicago to watch Castellaneta perform. His performance that night was about a blind man who tries to become a comedian and Ullman later recalled that although there were flashier performances that night, Castellaneta made her cry. She was impressed and Castellaneta was hired.
Castellaneta is most famous for his role as Homer Simpson on the longest running American animated television show The Simpsons. The Tracey Ullman Show included a series of animated shorts about a dysfunctional family. Voices were needed for the shorts, so the producers decided to ask Castellaneta and fellow cast member Julie Kavner to voice Homer and Marge Simpson respectively, rather than hire more actors. Homer’s voice began as a loose impression of Walter Matthau, but Castellaneta could not “get enough power behind that voice” and could not sustain his Matthau impression for the nine- to ten-hour long recording sessions.
He tried to find something easier, so he “dropped the voice down”, and developed it into a more versatile and humorous voice during the second and third season of the half-hour show. Castellaneta’s normal speaking voice has no similarity to Homer’s. To perform Homer’s voice, Castellaneta lowers his chin to his chest, and is said to “let his IQ go.”
Castellaneta also provides the voices for numerous other characters, including Grampa Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Hans Moleman, Sideshow Mel, Itchy, Kodos, Arnie Pye, the Squeaky Voiced Teen and Gil Gunderson.
Castellaneta has won several awards for voicing Homer, including four Primetime Emmy Awards for “Outstanding Voice-Over Performance”. In 1993, Castellaneta was given a special Annie Award, “Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Field of Animation”, for his work as Homer on The Simpsons.
Source: WIKI