Brian George (born 1 July 1952 in Jerusalem, Israel) is an Israeli-English character actor. He is perhaps most recognizable to American audiences as Babu Bhatt on Seinfeld and Dr. V.M. Koothrappali on The Big Bang Theory. His other television credits include roles on Quantum Leap, Coach, Weird Science, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, NUMB3RS, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland and The Expanse. His film career consists mostly of small roles in comedies such as Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Inspector Gadget (1999). He is also a prolific voice actor and can be heard on Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Phineas and Ferb and Green Lantern: The Animated Series, amongst others.
Tropes:
- Plays Great Ethnics: He is of Lebanese descent on his father's side and Indian descent on his mother's side and tends to play characters from India, Pakistan or the Middle East. In a sketch about ethnic stereotypes from the comedy show Bizarre, he played an Italian. However, his voice acting roles tend to be more focused on his British accent. Ironically, George spent his adolescence and young adulthood in Canada (his earliest credits are all in Canadian productions, including M.A.S.K.) and this allowed him to take over the role of the (British) character Bob on Bob and Margaret (a Canadian co-production) when Canadian broadcasting regulations required that at least one of the leads be Canadian.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Babu Bhatt had only appeared in two episodes of Seinfeld before being brought back for the series finale. While filming the episode, Jerry Seinfeld told George, "You're the man". George said in an interview that he did not know what Seinfeld meant at the time but later realized that Babu's speech in the courtroom helped put the final nail in the coffin in terms of sending Jerry and the gang to prison.
