What Do You Expect From Jonah Hill?

When Jonah Hill was 7 years old, his parents asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. He told them, “I want to move to Springfield,” the town where the Simpsons live.

- Adam Sternbergh

The Simpsons was Hill’s favorite show, though that’s like saying the Bible was Billy Graham’s favorite book; it undersells the influence somewhat. “I’m not an authority to make this judgment,” Hill says now, “but to me The Simpsons is hands down the greatest comedy writing ever to exist.” After he’d answered their question, his parents, who lived in L.A. and were both showbiz- adjacent—his mother as a stylist and his father as the accountant for, among others, Guns N’ Roses—gently explained that Springfield was not a real place. Then they broke show business down to two essential career paths: “There’s people who write what Homer says and people who say what Homer says.” Seven-year-old Jonah thought about this, then replied, “Okay, that’s what I want to do. I want to write what Homer says. I want to write Homer’s thoughts.”