Nancy Cartwright: Eat my shorts

Nancy Cartwright has made her name supplying the voice of the world's most famous cartoon kid, Bart Simpson. Now she's stepping out from the shadow of the yellow peril, she tells James Rampton

If you bumped into Nancy Cartwright, you wouldn't know her from Eve. Until she opened her mouth, that is. Cartwright is Bart Simpson - or at least she's his voice. In the 18 years since he first appeared as part of a 30-second insert in The Tracey Ullman Show, the yellow, 10-year-old, skateboarding-obsessed, school-hating serial under-achiever has become the most famous boy on earth.

The longest-running animated series in television history, The Simpsons is watched every week by 40 million people in more than 100 countries. It has made Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV in excess of $1bn (£550m). Time magazine declared The Simpsons the greatest TV programme of the last century, and Variety called the clan "America's dysfunctional First Family". The actors have graced the cover of Vanity Fair, and Entertainment Weekly voted Bart one of the 20 most influential entertainers in history.

Cartwright has for the best part of two decades led a double life. By day, she is the voice of the best-loved and worst-behaved schoolboy on earth; by night, she is the self-deprecating "soccer mom" of two teenage children. Now you know why she called her stage show My Life as a 10-year-old Boy.

In the show, which she is performing at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith from 24-29 May, Cartwright recalls the highlights of her time acting alongside such names as Mel Gibson and Meryl Streep, and each week voicing phrases that have long since passed into the lexicon of everyday usage, such as "Eat my shorts" (first coined in an ad lib by Cartwright), "I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?", and "Don't have a cow, man." (In Cartwright's back garden in Northridge, California, stands a life-sized plastic cow. The registration number on her pink sports car reads: DNTHVCW).

Bart's status as a global superstar has opened many doors for Cartwright. It did so last week - quite literally. "Since September 11, security has been increased everywhere," Cartwright says, "and we have new IDs to get on to the Fox lot. I drove to the security gate, but realised I'd left my ID in my other car. I just broke into that voice - 'Hey, man, I'm Bart Simpson. Who else sounds like this?' The guard waved me through."

On previous occasions, Cartwright has used those world-famous pre-teen tones to be excused a speeding fine, and to convince the bank to give her a new credit card after the old one was swallowed by a cashpoint. And yet, in her day-to-day life, the 47-year-old actress manages to maintain an enviable anonymity. "It's not like it's Nancy Cartwright in your living room every Sunday night," she says. "Even after writing a book, producing a website, doing this live show and all the promotion, it's still not enough to take away my privacy."

She assuredly gets the money: after recent negotiations with Fox, Cartwright landed a contract worth a reported $8m (£4.4m) per series - nice going for a job that requires less than a morning's work a week. But the actress, who was brought up in the distinctly unglamorous Kettering, outside Dayton, Ohio, contends that she is not driven by dosh. "All I've ever wanted to do was to entertain people and make them laugh with my voice."

After winning a school competition for her public rendition of Rudyard Kipling's "How the Camel Got His Hump" and working as a teenage commercial-scheduler at a local radio station, Cartwright got the chance to try her luck. A Warner Bros representative visiting her radio station passed Cartwright the number of Daws Butler, the doyen of voice artists and the larynx responsible for such deathless cartoon characters as Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and Roadrunner.

"I called him and got his answering machine," Cartwright recollects. "He had recorded a message as a very stodgy British butler. So I did this kind of Cockney voice and it worked. He called me back and that was the start of our relationship. Within 20 minutes he had agreed to send me a script and a tape and offered to listen to my voice if I put it down on a tape for him."

Butler then invited Cartwright to Hollywood, where she secured such memorable roles as Gutsy in My Little Pony, Chuckie in Rugrats, Gloria in Richie Rich, Woody in Popeye and Son, Daffney in The Snorks and Brighteyes in Pound Puppies. In 1987, she auditioned for the part of Lisa, Bart's swotty little sister. According to the actress, "I went in, saw Lisa, and didn't really see anything I could sink my teeth into. But the audition piece for Bart was right there, and I'm like, 'Whoa, 10 years old, under-achiever and proud of it? Yeah, man - that's the one I want to do!'"

Cartwright immediately clicked with the character. "I couldn't believe I was actually getting paid for doing things I would get into trouble for doing as a kid. Metaphorically, Bart is no gender, age, race, colour or religion. I think he's adorable. He's my special guy."

Cartwright is equally positive about the rest of the Springfield family. "The Simpsons tap into the pulse of humanity, without neglecting any of life's pitfalls, such as everyday pressures, sibling rivalry, financial stresses or marital problems. Whether you're from Dayton, Ohio, Los Angeles or London, it plugs into the heart and soul of life.

"That's why it has endured - because there is an essential truth to it. Unfortunately, we can all relate to Homer. And Homer and Marge are still together after 17 seasons. For all his slobbishness, she does still love him. That shines through."

How would Cartwright, recently divorced from the actor Warren Murphy, and the mother of Lucy, 15, and Jack, 13, bring up the delinquent oldest Simpson offspring? "How would I cope with Bart?" she laughs. "Well, I think I raise my kids in a very sane household. When I share that with people, their eyebrows rise as if they've suddenly been injected with Botox. But I've always had a great relationship with my children. That might be because I've done a lot of kids' shows, and I've had to study their patterns of behaviour."

The show is not popular with everyone. During the presidential election campaign of 1992, George Bush famously declared that "We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family, to make them more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons." The Simpsons' creator, Matt Groening, immediately moved Bush and his wife in next door to Homer and Marge. Cartwright cackles gleefully at the memory: "You can take John Boy and can go and live with him on Walton's Mountain. I'm from Springfield - and that's where I'm staying!"

The actress emphasises that many of the show's critics have got the wrong end of the stick. "Some pundits think that the Simpsons are not the best role models, but the show's purpose is not to enlighten viewers. It's satire and, at its best, satire is not crammed down your throat. The Simpsons' scripts are written so brilliantly that they can teach us lessons - not by being didactic, but by poking fun at us. That's often the best way to learn something, because you don't feel like you're being lectured to."

Nancy Cartwright's 'My Life as a 10-year-old Boy' is at the Riverside Studios, London W6 (020-8237 1111), 24-29 May