Posted in: Fox, Hulu, TV | Tagged: king of the hill

King of the Hill: Stephen Root on Finding Bill's Voice, Show's Success

King of the Hill star Stephen Root on auditioning for the role of Bill, finding the character's voice, and the show's continued success.

Stephen Root is one of the most accomplished character actors with a career spanning nearly four decades since his debut in 1988's Crocodile Dundee II. As he continues to carve out an impressive on-screen career with several guest-starring roles on popular TV shows and films with some of his memorable roles in the HBO dark comedy Barry, 20th Century comedy classics Office Space (1997) and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), he's also become just as accomplished in voiceovers, largely thanks to the Fox/Hulu animated series King of the Hill, his longest running TV series to date, as veteran, barber and resident sad sack, Sgt William "Bill" Fontaine de La Tour Dauterive, one of Hank Hill's (voice of Mike Judge) neighbors in Arlen, Texas. While promoting his AppleTV series and career retrospective with Rolling Stone, Root spoke about the real-life inspiration that drove his performance as Bill and how he was initially told to approach the character before making it his own.

King of the Hill Star Stephen Root on Finding Bill Dauterive's Voice

King of the Hill premiered on Fox in 1997, running for 13 seasons through 2010 before returning as a Hulu revival in 2025 that finds Hank and his wife, Peggy (voice of Kathy Najimi), returning from their life in Saudi Arabia, retired from his life in propane sales, as both try to find renewed purpose. We discover Bill let himself go and became a hermit in his own home before Hank's return got him back to normal…well, normal for Bill. "I think [Mike] saw me do a Southern character in a Civil War thing," Root recalled of Judge's call to audition. "There was a group of Southern actors on Broadway that I got to know well, and I could do that Southern thing." Not only did Root get the role of Bill, but he would also play Buck Strickland, Hank's boss, who owns Strickland Propane and various other businesses. While Buck is retired, Root did reprise the role for the season 14 finale, "A Sounder Investment."

Bill is divorced, but long held on to hope that his ex-wife Lenore (voice of Ellen Barkin) would return to him someday. After evoking the season three episode "Pretty, Pretty Dresses" in which Hank discovers Bill wrapping presents for Lenore, "I immediately knew Bill, because I'd worked with construction guys when I was working construction for my dad," Root said. "I knew these guys who would, in their cowboy boots, just tuck in one pant leg, but not the other one, for no reason. The sadness is just from my other work. I think at the time I was playing a farmer that lost his wife, and it stuck."

His success as Bill was a double-edged sword that led him to be somewhat typecast with the aforementioned roles as the meek Milton in Office Space, who frequently gets his stapler stolen and is moved to worse parts of the office, and Gordon, the knowledgeable member of Average Joe's Gym, but is often a doormat to his wife (Suzy Nakamura) in Dodgeball. For more on Root's career, including his memorable turn as the manipulative Monroe Fuches in Barry, playing opposite star Bill Hader, you can check out the entire interview. Widow's Bay, starring Matthew Rhys, Kate O'Flynn, Kevin Carroll, Dale Dickey, and Kingston Rumi Southwick, is available on Apple TV. Season 15 of King of the Hill, featuring the voices of Pamela Adlon, Toby Huss, Breckin Meyer, Ronny Chieng, Ashley Gardner, Keith David, and Lauren Tom, premieres on Hulu on July 20th.

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