neil patrick harris played gargamel in the first smurfs movie.
who played gargamel in the first smurfs movie?
neil patrick harris
azaria played gargamel in the computer-animated/live-action adaptation of "the smurfs" (2011). azaria wore a prosthetic nose, ears, buck teeth, eyebrows and a wig, as well as shaving his head. he spent approximately 130 hours in the make-up chair over the course of the production. azaria considered gargamel's voice to be the most important part of his performance. the producers wanted an "old, failed, shakespearean actor" voice, but azaria felt this would lack energy and wanted something more eastern european. he eventually selected a voice similar to that of paul winchell's from the cartoon. azaria disliked the cartoon when it first aired, and considered gargamel too one-dimensional a character and "just this straight villain"; he opted to make gargamel "more sarcastic" than in the cartoon, but "discovered that there's no way to play gargamel without screaming your head off at certain points – ramping him up and getting him very upset over smurfs". he interpreted him as "very lonely", adding that "he hates the smurfs because they're such a happy family. he wants in really badly. i think he wants to be embraced as a smurf". azaria worked with the writers to "infuse" the script with some of his ideas about the character, "particularly with the 'married' relationship between gargamel and [his cat] azreal " which azaria conceived.
hank azaria
while all smurfs live happily in the village, one smurf unlike the others just wants to seek new horizons, so he says it to papa smurf. despite the efforts of many smurfs (like greedy smurf and jokey smurf), he still leaves, but papa smurf gives him a magic whistle that will return him to the village if he's in danger. during his travels, the smurf is found and captured by gargamel, who, not knowing what the whistle does, uses it and arrives to the smurf village. there, gargamel tries to capture the smurfs, but papa smurf gives him a serum that makes him good and nice for a while. then, gargamel and the smurfs go to gargamel's house to save the prisoner smurf, and arrive just in time to save him from azrael. however, the serum that made gargamel good wears off and gargamel captures all the smurfs. luckily, a smurf has taken the magic whistle, so the smurfs hang one to another while papa smurf uses the whistle, and all smurfs return to the village. the smurf not like the others decides that nothing is better than stay in the safety of the village.
the smurfs and the howlibird