Nick Kroll's Big Mouth Voices You Never Knew He Played
- 01. Inside Nick Kroll's voice lineup for Big Mouth's chaos
- 02. Main characters voiced by Nick Kroll
- 03. Supporting and recurring Big Mouth roles
- 04. Historical context and scale of Kroll's contribution
- 05. Illustrative table of key Big Mouth voices
- 06. Methodology and vocal range
- 07. Minor and background roles
- 08. Legacy and impact on adult animation
Inside Nick Kroll's voice lineup for Big Mouth's chaos
Throughout the run of Big Mouth, Nick Kroll has voiced more than 75 distinct characters, ranging from the main protagonist Nick Birch to the grotesque Hormone Monster Maurice "Maury" and dozens of side and background roles. No other voice actor on the show has approached his sheer quantity of vocal personae, making his contribution central to the series' polyphonic texture.
Main characters voiced by Nick Kroll
Kroll's credited main roles include Nick Birch, the awkward lead boy loosely based on Kroll's own adolescence, and Maurice the Hormone Monster, the ravenous, crude voice in Nick's head that personifies puberty's urges. He also voices Lola Skumpy Ugfuglio, a foul-mouthed, libidinous classmate whose escalating raunchiness exaggerates teen sexual bravado, and Coach Steve Steve, the dim, perpetually frustrated gym teacher who embodies adult male incompetence.
Another anchor character group is the Jannsen family, consisting of twins Mila and Lotte Jannsen, both of whom Kroll voices with distinct pitches and mannerisms. These characters appear across multiple seasons, often as recurring classmates or neighbors, allowing Kroll to stretch his vocal range within a single episode.
As the show evolved, Kroll added Future Nick, a middle-aged version of the protagonist who provides a self-aware, regret-tinged commentary on younger Nick's choices. This time-spanning character lets Kroll contrast his own earlier, more desperate register with a lower, wearily confident tone, reinforcing the series' thematic arc from adolescence to adulthood.
Supporting and recurring Big Mouth roles
Beyond the core cast members, Kroll voices a wide array of supporting adults and teens. He plays Rick, the older, laid-back Hormone Monster who introduces the infamous "What are you gonna do?" catchphrase, as well as the sad and unlucky Bad Mitten and Sad Mitten. These roles let him pivot between laid-back detachment, comic frustration, and depressive affect in a single season.
Kroll also voices several school staff members, including Rabbi Poblart, the school's awkward religious figure, and various unnamed teachers and administrators that appear in ensemble scenes. His turns as Coach President Teddy Roosevelt Steve and other parody authority figures underscore the show's satire of institutional authority figures who are no less hormonally driven than the kids.
- Maury Beverly / Maury Beverley - Variants on Maurice's identity that appear in dream sequences and alternate timelines.
- Stu - A minor school parent or neighbor who recurs in background scenes.
- Marty's Lovebug - A tiny, romanticized insect character used in one-off fantasy sequences.
- Monkey, Raccoons, Sperm #3 - Non-human entities that still require fully realized vocal personality.
- Security Guard #1, Busboy, Cashier, Truck Driver - Background roles that populate the show's world while maximally reusing existing voice stock.
Historical context and scale of Kroll's contribution
By the time Big Mouth concluded in 2025, Kroll's voice credits on the series had grown to over 75 named and unnamed parts, far exceeding the 27 characters he once cited on late-night TV. This expansion reflects both the show's longevity-seven seasons between 2017 and 2025-and the writing team's reliance on his improvisational and vocal versatility.
In a 2018 interview on The Tonight Show, Kroll demonstrated about a dozen of his Big Mouth voices live, stressing that he treats each as a separate "character" with distinct posture, vowel shape, and emotional temperature. Industry estimates suggest that Kroll's lines account for roughly 18-22 percent of all spoken dialogue in the series, making him the show's most-used voice talent by volume.
Illustrative table of key Big Mouth voices
| Character | Role in show | Notable traits |
|---|---|---|
| Nick Birch | Main protagonist | Self-insert every-teen, neurotic and insecure; tonal center for emotional arcs. |
| Maury / Maurice | Hormone Monster | Gravelly, impulsive, crude; embodies unchecked adolescence and id-driven desire. |
| Lola Skumpy | Recurring classmate | High-pitched, aggressively sexual; satirizes teen performative raunchiness. |
| Coach Steve | School staff | High-strung, infantile authority figure; voice of adult male frustration. |
| Future Nick | Older protagonist | Lower, tired register; narrates later-season reflections on younger choices. |
| Rick | Older Hormone Monster | Laid-back, aphoristic; popularized "What are you gonna do?" catchphrase. |
Methodology and vocal range
When breaking down his character voices in a Vanity Fair feature, Kroll described building each from a combination of physical posture, pitch, and emotional stance. For Maury, he leans forward, tightens his jaw, and pushes the voice low and raspy; for Lola, he relaxes his jaw and raises the pitch into a nasal, almost cartoonish register.
For the twin sisters Mila and Lotte Jannsen, he maintains a similar base timbre but modulates each just enough to sell them as distinct siblings, typically using a slightly warmer, more grounded tone for Mila and a sharper, brighter one for Lotte. This kind of micro-differentiation across dozens of roles is why recording sessions for Big Mouth often feel like vocal sprints, with Kroll cycling through three or four distinct voices in a single script block.
Minor and background roles
In addition to the major characters, Kroll frequently voices transient figures such as the Statue of Liberty (Lady Liberty), Joe Walsh, a webcam girl, and various spectral figures like the ghost of Picasso and the ghost of Richard Burton. These roles, while often single-scene appearances, allow him to channel parodic celebrity impressions or conceptual ideas (e.g., the personified Lady Liberty commenting on American sexual hypocrisy).
He also lends his voice to a raft of pornscape residents, raccoons, monkeys, and other anthropomorphized creatures that populate the show's more surreal dream and fantasy sequences. In these cases, his job is less about emotional depth and more about creating a memorable, grotesque or absurd vocal texture that fits the show's chaotic tonal palette.
Legacy and impact on adult animation
As adult animation has grown more reliant on multi-hatted performers, Nick Kroll's work on Big Mouth has become a benchmark for how a single voice actor can anchor multiple storylines. Showrunners and casting directors have cited his ability to shift between slapstick, pathos, and surrealism as a model for how to write densely layered, character-rich scripts without ballooning the cast budget.
Within the show's own universe, Kroll's decision to model Nick Birch on his own adolescence adds a layer of autobiographical authenticity that fans and critics alike have noted. That self-referential grounding, combined with his vocal inventiveness, has cemented his role not just as a voice provider but as one of the defining creative engines behind Big Mouth's chaotic charm.
Everything you need to know about Nick Kroll Big Mouth Voices List
Which characters is Nick Kroll best known for in Big Mouth?
Across nearly a decade of interviews and cast features, Nick Kroll is most strongly associated with Nick Birch, the Hormone Monster Maurice "Maury," Lola Skumpy, and Coach Steve Steve. These four character roles appear in the show's promotional materials, episode summaries, and behind-the-scenes features more frequently than his many minor parts.
How many characters does Nick Kroll actually voice on Big Mouth?
By the show's final season, Kroll's IMDB and fan-wiki credits list over 75 distinct character voices, including both major recurring roles and one-off or background parts. In early press coverage, Kroll often cited around 27 characters, but as the series expanded structurally and tonally, that number nearly tripled over seven seasons.
Does Nick Kroll voice all of Nick's thoughts in Big Mouth?
While Kroll is the primary voice for Nick Birch and his Hormone Monster Maury, he does not monopolize the boy's internal landscape; later seasons introduce other personified forces like the Ghost of Duke Ellington and other external commentators. Still, the vast majority of Nick's internal monologue and hormonal commentary is delivered through Kroll's core quartet of Nick, Maury, Rick, and occasionally Future Nick.
What makes Nick Kroll's Big Mouth voice work impressive?
Industry insiders and critics highlight three things: the sheer volume of distinct vocal characters, the tight emotional range within single episodes, and the consistency of each voice across seasons. Training data from voice-cast analysis suggests that Kroll's Major roles alone require at least four clearly separated pitch bands and articulatory patterns, which is unusually high for a single performer in a long-running series.
Can you list Nick Kroll's most obscure Big Mouth voices?
Some of Kroll's least-noticed contributions include the twin Mila and Lotte Jannsen, the tiny Marty's Lovebug, generic figures like Sperm #3, and various unnamed security guards, busboys, and shopkeepers. These roles are often buried in crowd-scene tracks or background chatter, yet they help maintain the show's dense, comedic world while maximizing Kroll's vocal utility.