You know that feeling when you're watching a cartoon about a horse, but suddenly you're crying about your own generational trauma? That’s the BoJack Horseman effect. A huge part of why that show hit so hard—and why people are still dissecting it years after the finale—is the work of the BoJack Horseman voice actors.
Honestly, it wasn’t just a "celebrity voice" show. It felt different. Usually, when a show casts huge names like Will Arnett or Aaron Paul, it’s for marketing. But in BoJack, the voices were the architecture of the characters' souls.
The Core Five: More Than Just Famous Names
The main cast of BoJack Horseman was a weirdly perfect mix of comedic veterans and dramatic heavyweights.
Will Arnett was the anchor. Before BoJack, we mostly knew him as the arrogant-but-clueless GOB Bluth from Arrested Development. As BoJack, he used that same gravelly, self-important tone but added a layer of profound, vibrating sadness. Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg once mentioned that Arnett was picked because he could be hilarious while making you feel like there was a deep well of misery just under the surface.
Then you have Amy Sedaris as Princess Carolyn. Her delivery had to be fast. Like, lightning fast. She’s a talent agent who never stops moving, and Sedaris brought this manic, hyper-competent energy that made the character’s occasional moments of vulnerability feel like a gut punch.
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Aaron Paul played Todd Chavez. Fresh off the intensity of Breaking Bad, Paul went the opposite direction. He gave Todd a sweet, airy optimism. It’s a range most people didn't know he had until they heard him voicing a guy who accidentally becomes the fashion icon of "derelict chic."
Paul F. Tompkins as Mr. Peanutbutter is probably one of the most accurate "dog-to-human" translations in history. He captured that golden retriever energy—the kind that is relentlessly happy to the point of being exhausting for everyone else around them.
The Diane Nguyen Conversation
We have to talk about Alison Brie. She voiced Diane Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American writer. While Brie’s performance was critically acclaimed for its nuance and emotional depth, the casting became a major point of reflection for the show’s creators.
By 2020, both Alison Brie and Raphael Bob-Waksberg expressed deep regret over the casting. Brie stated on Instagram that she wished she hadn't voiced a person of color, acknowledging that "people of color should always voice people of color." Bob-Waksberg was equally transparent, admitting that they "missed the mark" and that the casting led them to downplay Diane's cultural heritage in the early seasons because they were afraid of getting it wrong.
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It’s a complicated legacy. The character is beloved, but the casting is a textbook example of how Hollywoo—the fictional one and the real one—historically ignored representation in favor of "star power."
Why the Guest Stars Weren't Just Cameos
One of the coolest things about the BoJack Horseman voice actors was how the show used guest stars. It wasn't just "hey, look, it's a famous person." They often used these actors to subvert expectations.
- J.K. Simmons as Lenny Turtletaub: He brought a gruff, old-school Hollywood cynicism that felt lived-in.
- Margo Martindale as "Character Actress Margo Martindale": This is legendary. Will Arnett actually convinced the real Martindale to do it. She played a heightened, gun-toting, criminal version of herself, and it’s easily one of the funniest running gags in adult animation.
- Rami Malek as Flip McVicker: He captured the pretentiousness of a "visionary" showrunner so perfectly it almost made you uncomfortable.
- Aparna Nancherla as Hollyhock: She brought a dry, anxious, but hopeful energy that was the perfect foil to BoJack’s nihilism.
The show even got Paul McCartney to do a voice. Well, technically he voiced himself, jumping out of a cake. That’s the level of clout this show had.
The Magic in the Booth
Believe it or not, the actors almost never recorded together.
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In an interview for the book BoJack Horseman: The Art Before the Horse, the cast revealed that the chemistry you hear is mostly the result of incredible editing and the annual table reads. Paul F. Tompkins mentioned that the table reads were the only time they got to "act opposite each other." He’d sit across from Alison Brie to do those heavy, emotional scenes from their characters' failing marriage.
Bob-Waksberg’s directing style was unique, too. He didn’t want the "perfect" line read. He wanted options. He’d tell actors to give him multiple "correct" versions of a line so the editors could stitch together a conversation that felt spontaneous.
What You Can Learn from the BoJack Cast
If you’re a fan of the show or an aspiring creator, there are a few big takeaways from how this cast was handled:
- Vulnerability is Key: Even in a comedy, the most resonant moments come from actors who aren't afraid to sound "ugly" or broken.
- Representation Matters from Day One: The Diane Nguyen controversy shows that if you don't bake representation into your casting from the start, you limit the stories you can tell.
- Subvert Expectations: Don't just cast a funny person to be funny. Cast them to find the tragedy in the humor.
The BoJack Horseman voice actors turned a show about a talking horse into a definitive piece of 21st-century media. Even in 2026, we’re still talking about it because the performances felt real. They weren't just reading scripts; they were inhabiting a world that felt as messy and complicated as our own.
If you're looking to revisit the series, pay attention to the smaller roles next time. Notice how Patton Oswalt voices about twenty different characters, or how Wendie Malick makes BoJack’s mother, Beatrice, both terrifying and heartbreaking. It’s a masterclass in voice work.
To dig deeper into the production, you should definitely check out the "BoJack Horseman: The Art Before the Horse" book. It’s a goldmine for behind-the-scenes details on how these voices were actually chosen and recorded.