Voice Actor Mike Henry Stepping Down from ‘Cleveland Brown’ Role
by Bruce Haring
June 26, 2020


Voice actor Mike Henry said Friday on Twitter that he will no longer voice the Cleveland Brown character on Fox’s animated "Family Guy".

Henry, who is white, has voiced the African-American Brown since the show’s inception in 1999. He also voiced the character and his son, Rallo Tubbs, on the spinoff, "The Cleveland Show", which ran for four years on Fox.

“It’s been an honor to play Cleveland on Family Guy for 20 years. I love this character, but persons of color should play characters of color. Therefore, I will be stepping down from the role,” Henry wrote.

https://deadline.com/2020/06/family-guy-voice-actor-mike-henry-stepping-down-from-cleveland-role-1202971407/

Animated community has mixed feelings over white actors exiting minority voice roles (https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/07/hollywoods-voiceover-community-reeling/614383/)

Casting director Linda Lamontagne (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaklqxWoVi8) has been responsible for assembling the casts of animated series such as Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and BoJack Horseman. As somebody who's half-Chinese, Lamontagne says she understands the controversy over white actors voicing minority roles. Yet Lamontagne was responsible for casting Alison Brie as Vietnamese-American BoJack Horseman character Diane Nguyen, and says she was sad to see Brie apologize last month (https://www.primetimer.com/item/Alison-Brie-is-quot-truly-sorry-quot-for-voicing-BoJack-Horsemans-Vietnamese-American-character-1KSbYX) for taking on that role. Lamontagne says she made the role of Diane available to Asian actors, but Brie's work stood out. “When I first heard about Alison Brie (posting an apology), I was a little torn,” she said. Lamontagne also felt the same way about Family Guy's Mike Henry, whom she also worked with, abandoning his Black role of Cleveland Brown. "I’m sorry they feel bad they took (the parts), but believe us, we tried … We did the best we could," she says. In interviews with The Atlantic, some in the voice acting industry felt the departures were a move in the right direction. Others, however, felt they were just playing it safe.