[May 25, 2013] Actor animated about voice work on Nickelodeon Tweet May 25, 2013 (The Fresno Bee - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- It's been a few years -- 27 to be exact -- since Maulik Pancholy was a 12-year-old boy. Despite the passing years, he had no trouble recalling what it was like to be a preteen so that he could provide just the right voice of Sanjay in the new Nickelodeon animated series "Sanjay and Craig." The new animated series, from the people behind the FOX animated series "Bob's Burgers," follows the exploits of the young boy and his best friend, Craig, a talking snake. "It came pretty easy," Pancholy says. "When you are 12, you have a lot of insecurities and can be extremely excitable." Pancholy says the series is fun. He loves the wild adventures that the pair face, from creating the perfect bike skid to sneaking into a hospital so that they can watch a rare "butt transplant." Helping him with the voice work are Chris Hardwick as Craig, Linda Cardellini as Megan and Kunal Nayyar as Vijay. Pancholy told his parents when he was 5 that he wanted to be an actor, but it wasn't until he turned 12, and living in Tampa, Fla., that he found the phone book and started calling talent agents. That plan got delayed when Pancholy attended the Yale School of Drama and earned a theater major at Northwestern University. Since landing his first TV role in 1998, Pancholy's appeared on "The Sopranos," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "30 Rock" and "Whitney." His guest-starring voice work as Baljeet Tjindal in "Phineas and Ferb" prepared him for the demands of the new series. Pancholy and Hardwick are in almost every scene, but that doesn't mean they get to record together. There are times when the actors are in the recording studios by themselves. Pancholy loves it when he and Hardwick can record together. "Chris is so busy with the all the shows he's doing. It's been really fun when they can get the two of us together because we can do a little improv," he says. "If there's a scene where Sanjay is supposed to get excited about a bucket of hot wings, it's easier to know how excited to be if there's another person screaming in your ear." ------ SHOW INFO "Sanjay and Craig": 10:30 a.m. Saturdays on Nickelodeon. * TV and movie critic Rick Bentley can be reached at (559) 441-6355, [email protected] or @RickBentley1 on Twitter. Read his blog at fresnobeehive.com. ___ (c)2013 The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.) Visit The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.) at www.fresnobee.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]