Nancy Cartwright has voiced Bart Simpson for 37 years. She's not about to let an algorithm take over now.
In a recent interview, Cartwright made her position crystal clear: When she eventually retires, she wants a human successor for Bart. "AI has no heart," she told Deadline. "AI might sound pretty close to Nancy, but I got passion."
She's right, of course. But she's also fighting a battle that voice actors across Hollywood are starting to realize they might lose.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: AI voice cloning is already good enough to fool most listeners. Feed it a few hours of Cartwright's Bart recordings, and it could generate new lines indefinitely. No recording sessions. No salary negotiations. No union protections. Just infinite Bart, forever, for the cost of a server rental.
The Simpsons has been on the air since 1989. Cartwright is 67. Eventually, someone at Fox is going to look at the AI option and see not just cost savings, but creative flexibility. Want Bart to say something controversial? Just type it in. No need to bring the actress into the booth.
This is why Cartwright's comments matter beyond The Simpsons. Voice actors built their careers on the idea that their particular instrument—their voice, their timing, their heart—was irreplaceable. That's becoming less true by the month.
Pair this with the ByteDance situation, and you see the pattern: Hollywood's creative labor force is realizing that AI isn't just coming for the boring jobs. It's coming for the ones that require soul.
Cartwright is drawing a line. "I think I would choose a successor instead of AI," she said. Let's hope Fox respects that. But hope isn't a business strategy, and has never been sentimental about replacing expensive humans with cheaper technology.
