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The Simpsons will feature a special guest on an episode that’s set to air in October. He is Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh. Yunus is a pioneer of microcredit. He started out by lending a mere 27 dollars to a few women in 1976. His Grameen Bank now lends small amounts of money to more than eight-million borrowers in Bangladesh alone. One of Yunus’s many admirers is actress Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson. We caught up with Smith who just returned from Bangladesh. Download MP3
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MARCO WERMAN: The Simpsons will feature a special guest this October. He’s Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh. Yunus is a pioneer of microcredit. He started out by lending a mere 27 dollars to a few women in 1976. His Grameen Bank now lends small amounts of money to more than eight million borrowers in Bangladesh alone. One of Yunus’ many admirers is actress Yeardley Smith. You may know her as the voice of Lisa Simpson.
YEARDLEY SMITH: Dad, look, I made fish sticks. They’re burnt on the outside but they’re frozen on the inside so it balances out.
WERMAN: Yeardley Smith just returned from Bangladesh where she observed the Grameen Bank at work. Yeardly, since we’re on the radio, I imagine many listeners will picture you in their minds immediately as Lisa Simpson. But you could also say this kind of interest in the Grameen Bank would actually be in line with the character of Lisa. Smart, worldly, and humanitarian?
SMITH: Yes, absolutely. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch and he’s one of the reasons why I pitched the idea of microcredit to The Simpson’s writers. I had had dinner with Muhammad Yunus about the night before I guess. And he told me that his daughter, he has two daughters, are great fans of the show and we came up with this idea that he should be on the show and we should do a show about microcredit and what a perfect fit for Lisa Simpson.
WERMAN: And so, how did you even have dinner with Muhammad Yunus in the first place?
SMITH: Well, you know, I’m very fancy. I actually saw professor Yunus on the Oprah Winfrey show, right after he won the Nobel Prize. And I’d heard of microcredit before that, but didn’t know that much about it and I was so captured by his demeanor. He has an elegant stillness about him and he’s so well spoken and to me what’s appealing about microcredit is that it’s not a welfare model. It’s helping people help themselves. Get back on their feet, so that they can hopefully one day be free of the donor. And so I started to give money to Grameen Foundation very quietly and a couple of years later, they finally tracked me down. And then was invited to a board meeting. It was sort of funny actually. Alex Counts, who runs it, said “Alight, you’re really interested. Well, why don’t we go see microcredit in the field?” And I say, “Okay.” So he said, “How about Haiti?” And I said, “Okay.” He said, “Ever been to a third world country before?” And I said, “No,” and he said “Well, I just want you to know that people in Bangladesh say you haven’t seen poverty until you’ve seen Haiti.” [OVERLAPPING]
WERMAN: That’s what the people in Bangladesh say.
SMITH: It’s true and I am the original princess and the pea, so… Proved to be a very interesting trip for me.
WERMAN: I hope you didn’t have too many sleepless nights. Tell me about the trip to Bangladesh, what you wanted specifically to achieve by going there?
SMITH: I wanted to see where it had all begun since I was such an admirer professor Yunus’. Now he’s set up so many arms, actually businesses, that have sprung from Grameen Bank. There’s Grameen Telephone, there’s the social business partnership between Dannon, a French yogurt company and Grameen Bank. All of these businesses are there to either fix a problem, serve a need, and he’s just been phenomenally successful, so it’s a model worth seeing firsthand.
WERMAN: So, Muhammad Yunus himself will actually be in this episode and his voice. Did your track your scenes there in Bangladesh or, how did that work? What are the scenes about?
SMITH: Yes. Well, Lisa Simpson gets money from her grandfather and she decides to pay it forward and gives a microloan to Nelson, the bully. And he starts a bicycle repair shop and he’s phenomenally successful and decides “I’m so successful I don’t have to stay in school.” And she’s absolutely horrified. You completely missed the point. But she taps Muhammad Yunus for a little intel and since he is the father of microfinance, he’s able to give her a little bit of information about how microcredit should work. And they picked him up in Bangladesh, which by the way, wasn’t so easy cause I guess there aren’t that many recording studios in Dhaka.
WERMAN: Right. Maybe you can just tell me, you’re speaking to me as Lisa Simpson now, what you discovered in Bangladesh in terms of Muhammad Yunus and microfinance?
SMITH: No pressure.
WERMAN: Talk to me, Lisa.
SMITH: Alright, well, let’s see. What I saw in Bangladesh is an incredibly enterprising population. Bangladesh is definitely on the move. And what I would say about Muhammad Yunus is that the man has endless passion. He’s amazing and he has a fantastic sense of humor.
WERMAN: He never stops thinking. What would Homer have to say about that?
SMITH: Well, you know, Homer is – oftentimes if you go into a thought bubble in his head all you get is a question mark. There’s a lot of emptiness up there. He’s not the deepest guy. But we love him. He’s ever so lovable.
WERMAN: Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, and also a big fan of microfinance and Muhammad Yunus. Thank you very much.
SMITH: Thank you so much for having me. This is a tremendous honor. This is Lisa Simpson and you are listening to PRI, Public Radio International.
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