When you think of the voices behind South Park, you probably picture creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. After all, they voice all the main boys, many of their classmates and just about every adult male in town, too. But since the very beginning, Parker and Stone have always outsourced the voices they couldn’t — and shouldn’t — do on their own, like Chef, Tolkien, Towelie, Mr. Slave and pretty much all the female voices on the show.
So when you think of the voices behind South Park, you should also picture the women behind them. For the first three seasons of the show and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Mary Kay Bergman originated and played nearly every female character — from Wendy Testaburger to Sheila Broflovski. (South Park producer Jennifer Howell, who has always voiced Bebe as well as the very occasional female guest star, is the only notable exception during this time period.)
When Bergman tragically died by suicide in 1999, South Park hired two women to take on her duties: Mona Marshall and Eliza Schneider. In Season Six, Jessica Makinson began to voice characters like Heidi and Strong Woman; however, she usually only appears in a couple of episodes per season. After Season Seven, Schneider left over a contract dispute, and April Stewart joined Marshall in the main cast (which, technically, is just the two of them plus Parker and Stone).
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They’ve remained there ever since.
As such, it’s no exaggeration to say that Marshall and Stewart have voiced hundreds of characters on the show. More specifically, Marshall is responsible for Sheila Broflovski, Linda Stotch and Mrs. Tweak, while Stewart is responsible for Wendy Testaburger, Liane Cartman, Shelley Marsh, Sharon Marsh, Carol McCormick and Mayor McDaniels.
To better understand their life as the women of South Park, I recently talked to Marshall and Stewart about which female characters are their favorites, what it’s like to work at “six-days-to-air” pace and which voice they’re too ashamed to tell their children about.
Do you get to record together very much? I know voice acting has become very disjointed in how it’s done.
April Stewart: We record from home now. We used to go into the studio and record and hang out sometimes all night long. I miss that.
Did that all change with the pandemic?
Mona Marshall: They didn’t want to let the fans down, so they came in and brought in all their equipment to each of our homes — it’s a lonely life.
Stewart, I was just thinking today about the session that you did when you were mondo pregnant, and they put you up at a nearby hotel. Then you came in, what was it, the day after the baby was born?
Stewart: No, no. It was three days after Annie was born. It was insane. It’s so funny because that whole season when I was pregnant, all my characters were constantly out of breath. That was just insane, and now my daughter is 17.
Marshall: Time passes so fast.
Stewart: Yeah, Season 28 will be my 20th anniversary with South Park. And you’ve been there forever.
Marshall: Yeah, 26 years. I have no idea where that time went.
That’s a good place to start then. Beginning with you, Mona, do you remember getting the part? Because the show was already a phenomenon by then.
Marshall: The hardest thing for me was listening to Mary Kay’s voice. We had been friends. We had done a benefit together that August — August of 1999 — and it was such a shock. She was a very encouraging person besides being enormously talented. She kept saying, “Oh, you should get your agent to get you out for more announcing stuff,” which was really nice. That kind of generosity kept me going while listening to her voices. I’d listen to her do the voices, and I’d start to cry. But that kept me going. It was like, “Well, I can’t do this, so you can. So, do it.”
She was so generous. I later found out that, at South Park, she would find out everybody’s birthday, and she’d have a birthday card for everybody there. Her talent was enormous. Her personality was lively and bright. It was a big loss for the industry.
April, did you know her at all?
Stewart: I didn’t. I was fairly new to voiceover then. I never got to meet her, which is sad, but I feel her all the time.
Mona, do you remember auditioning for South Park, or what the process was of getting the job to begin with?
Marshall: Basically, anybody who appeared in those first few seasons had to be covered. So they ended up using me and Eliza Schneider for the first few years. I had a different little dog then, and I was practicing the voice of the school bus driver and my dog totally freaked out when I was rehearsing her. This dog had heard me do every kind of voice imaginable, but she freaked out when she heard that.
April, what was it like for you coming into South Park?
Stewart: It was a general audition that went out, and I think, to avoid freaking people out, they just said it was to cover for when the actors go on vacation. I recorded my audition in the booth at my agency, and the booth director, who is now my husband, said, “You really sound like these characters. I wouldn’t be surprised if you got a call back.” Then I went in for the callback, and they put me through the motions. Then, as I was walking out, Anne Garefino, the producer, said, “So, when we’re in production, we own you. You can’t travel. Is that okay? Are you cool with not traveling when we’re in production?”
I’m like, “Yeah,” and then, a few days later, I got the call from my agent saying, “You got it and you’re it. It’s not just a vacation thing.”
It was a little uncomfortable at first, not knowing what I was walking into or why I was walking in, but I have to say that the first friendly face was Mona. I was totally panic-stricken, thinking, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why they hired me,” and she just welcomed me in.
Marshall: Oh my God, you never came across like that.
Stewart: Mona, it’s funny, your story about your dog. I have the same story about my daughter. I would bring her with me when she was a toddler, and I remember doing a very, very loud screaming character — whose name shall I shall not mention right now — and my daughter heard me in there, and she just looked at her dad and she pointed and said, “Mommy working.”
Marshall: Was it Ms. Choksondik?
Stewart: No, no. I’m not going to say it. If people are really interested, they can Google it and try to figure it out.
Can you explain what the process was to record an episode back then?
Marshall: The process of how they do this show is unlike any other animation. Our call times were anywhere from 9 to 11 p.m. I remember my agent always saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry,” when they gave me the call time and I said, “No, you don’t understand, going down the 405 now, there’s no traffic. I do not mind!”
The process of how they do South Park is Trey basically writes and then records. Then, we would either be listening to just his voice or his voice while also seeing something already animated on screen. Everything is done in-house; that’s how they were able to turn production in a week. However, even from what’s been recorded or animated, the scenes can change; that’s why we rely on producer Mark Munley to give us the context. We only get our pages of the script, but it’s constantly changing.
For the Ozempic special, it was like, “What’s going on? What’s happening here?” The good thing is, now that everyone has their own booth at home, they’re more flexible with the time we record, but we still can’t go out of town when they’re recording. We never know when we’re going to be used.
Because of the whole “six days to air” thing, are you constantly recording and re-recording?
Stewart: If we’re in that week of production, there can be certain scripts where every day I get a call and they go, “We need you!” Literally it can be, “We need you, and it’s just for five minutes.” Whatever it is, when they need you, they need you. But they’re wonderful. There are times that, during the summer, when I’m with my daughter at the beach or something, they call and they’re like, “We need you.” And I’m like, “I can get there in two hours. Is that cool?” And they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, of course.”
Are there times where you’re recording the day before it hits the air?
Marshall: There are days where we’re recording the morning of the day it hits the air — just hours before.
Oh wow. So, do you two work with Matt and Trey directly often?
Stewart: Sometimes. Sometimes Matt directs us, sometimes Trey. But, for the most part, it’s usually Mark, sound engineer Lydia Quidilla or audio producer Bruce Howell.
What are Matt and Trey like to work with?
Marshall: They’re focused on the work, but not to the extent that they’re jerks. Everything is good. It’s a very easy place and atmosphere to work in.
Stewart: They’re very kind. When I was pregnant, there were times that they called me in and I was literally days away from giving birth, and they felt so bad for keeping me waiting that they put me up in a hotel so that I could be comfortable. They’re just very kind, professional people.
Mona, of your regular characters, who do you connect with the most?
Marshall: Sheila Broflovski because, A) I’m Jewish; B) I’m Jewish; and C) I’m Jewish. And just like she came out of Mary Kay’s aunt, I have an aunt like that. God bless her. She’s no longer alive, thank God. But, if you’re Jewish, honey, you got one in the family somewhere. So, I have a blast doing her. And what I like is that she’s the opposite of Linda Stotch.
Stewart, how about you?
Stewart: I love Wendy. I love everything she stands for, and I love Sharon. Sharon is so much fun. I mean, when we have heavy Sharon episodes, it’s like therapy for me. I’m in such a good mood afterwards.
That must have been interesting because, for the first 10 years or so that you played her, Sharon was a much smaller character, but then when Randy becomes a much bigger part of the show, Sharon is along for the ride. What was that like?
Stewart: So much fun. The dynamic between Sharon and Randy is just my favorite. I’m a sarcastic human being to begin with, so that feels good to be able to really lean into, and it’s interesting because there are some times that Sharon’s going through some of the things that I’m going through.
For example, there was that episode when Randy was telling her that she was going through perimenopause and just making her feel crazy about it. He’s trying to tell people, “Stay away from her! She’s crazy! She’s angry!” That episode was very timely for me.
To end, I wanted to put you both on the spot and ask for the line in South Park that you were most embarrassed to say.
Marshall: Well, my characters don’t have the same kinds of lines that Stewart’s do. Like, that episode where everybody got to say “shit,” I was upset because Sheila didn’t say “shit.” There were a few times though where I was embarrassed because I didn’t know something. Like, during the Paris Hilton episode, I had never heard of her. They had to explain to me who she was. Also, in another episode, I had never heard of a fecal transplant. They had to explain that to me too.
Stewart: Well, it’s not a line, but I guess we’ll go full circle from where we first started with that character that I didn’t want to say the name of. I remember walking into the studio one day, and they said, “We’ve got a new character for you. Her name is the Nut Gobbler.” I was pregnant, and I remember recording it thinking, “I hope my daughter in my stomach can’t hear this. I feel like I’m traumatizing her before she even comes out.”
So, yes, it was the Nut Gobbler, and this is yet another interview I can’t let my daughter see.
