Of all the people TheWrap spoke to in the aftermath of this year’s Emmy nominations, only one needed to schedule the interview so that it didn’t interfere with rehearsals for the FIFA World Cup Final Halftime Show. Matt Vogel wouldn’t have been visible to anybody watching that extravaganza because he was hidden underneath Kermit the Frog, but he was manipulating the expressions and supplying the voice for one of the most iconic puppets of our time.
And when you’re the voice and the arm of that iconic Muppet created by Jim Henson more than 70 years ago, you pretty much have carte blanche to go anywhere and everywhere, including the stage of MetLife Stadium for the 2026 World Cup final.
“It’s crazy, the kind of things that the Muppets get to do,” said Vogel, sitting in a home studio in front of a wall sporting several guitars and one banjo, on which Kermit (a stuffed version, not the real puppet) was perched. “It’s fun to be a part of it.”
Vogel has now been honored for being a part of it, earning a nomination in the character voice-over category for his work as Kermit in “The Muppet Show,” a Disney+/ABC special that brought back the primetime series that aired from 1976 to 1981. Surprisingly, his was the first-ever nomination for voicing Kermit, who has been performed by only three people: Henson himself from 1955 until his death in 1990, Steve Whitmire from then until 2016 and Vogel beginning in August 2017.
(A few other puppeteers and voice actors briefly performed Kermit in stage shows, personal appearances, awards shows and animation, but they weren’t officially cast as the character.)
The nominee didn’t know he was the first Kermit nod until we told him, much to his surprise. “That’s remarkable to me,” he said. “I would assume that at least Jim had been nominated.” In fact, Henson was nominated for and won Emmys for creating and producing various Muppet enterprises, but neither he nor Whitmire was ever recognized for voicing or performing the character.
Vogel, a Kansas City-born puppeteer and frequent “Sesame Street” director, took on a tricky job when he became the third Kermit. When a new actor assumes a role like, say, Hamlet, audiences come to the theater wanting to see a fresh take on the character; when they see Kermit, they want the Kermit they’ve known for decades, not a new interpretation.
To complicate matters further, Kermit’s original voice was very close to Henson’s own; he wasn’t a character who needed an obvious performance, the way Miss Piggy or Cookie Monster or Fozzie Bear do.
“That’s part of the charm of the character, because it is such a naturalistic voice,” Vogel said. “It was just Jim’s voice, elevated. When Steve started, it was Steve’s voice, but elevated a little bit. And that’s kind of what I’m doing as well, trying to honor what Jim did, the little quirky way that he might have turned a phrase, or how he might have said something. I try to emulate the feeling of what it might have been like if Jim were to have done it, but through my lens.”
“Hopefully, what I’m able to do, and what any of us who take over from a performer that has come before us have been able to do, is to tap into the heart of the character, so that character can continue to live and breathe and evolve.”
It wasn’t an easy transition, with some online Muppet fan communities criticizing Vogel’s performance as soon as he came on.
“I’ve been Kermit for about nine years, and yeah, of course you want people to be excited about what you’re doing,” he shared. “But I understand that people have a vision of the character. I’m not the original guy, and the guy that came before me was not the original guy, either. There’s only one Jim Henson. And the best that I can do is to try to put the same heart into the character. I try to do that every time I put the puppet on.”
Performing as Kermit is much simpler than becoming the other iconic character that Vogel plays, Big Bird. “With Big Bird, it’s the physicality of my whole body,” said Vogel, who is completely inside the huge yellow costume/puppet. “Kermit is very different. A lot of puppets have foam or are very structured, but Kermit is really just my hand. And the way my hand moves inside helps give expression to the character.”
For the “Muppet Show” special that led to his nomination, he said the biggest challenge was to capture the feeling of the old series for current viewers. “We wanted to get the right tone for today’s audience, but we also wanted it to feel and sound like ‘The Muppet Show,’” he explained. “Every little scene was thought of with that in mind.”
Guests on the special included Sabrina Carpenter, Seth Rogen and Maya Rudolph, who were granted what can be the surprisingly emotional experience of being around characters they’d known since childhood. “I have seen grown adults walk onto the set of ‘Sesame Street’ and onto the set of the special and cry,” Vogel said. “It’s something that just organically happens. It means so much to so many people that they cannot help but have an emotional reaction.”
“And when they see the characters, they don’t see the puppeteers. People have a relationship with these characters. They’re talking to someone they know, and so they interact with them just like they’d interact with a regular person. We (puppeteers) are never part of the conversation, really.”
This story first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Comedy issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
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