 Academy Award winning actress Meryl Streep was called in to do the voice of Jessica . Nancy Cartwright , who provides the voice of Bart Simpson on the show , was a huge fan of Streep and she assumed that Streep would record her lines individually , but all of their recordings were done together . Streep showed up alone with no entourage at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles at 2 : 30 P.M. , where she recorded her parts with Cartwright . Streep was continually doing many different versions of her lines . Mirkin felt she was easy to work with because she was versatile and keen to do a lot of different things , and as Mirkin expressed it , " easily evil " . Cartwright said in an interview with The Pantagraph that she really wanted Streep 's autograph , but was afraid to ask for it . After the recording session , Streep tapped Cartwright on the shoulder , and said her kids were big The Simpsons fans and that she would be in " big trouble " if she did not get Cartwright 's autograph . 
