<Li> Chris Rock as Marty, a zebra . McGrath explained the character: "Marty is a guy who thinks there might be more to life than what's in the zoo . We wanted his character to be energetic, so we listened to Chris Rock ." </Li> <Li> David Schwimmer as Melman, a hypochondriac giraffe who is afraid of germs . When they were looking for a voice actor for Melman, they listened to Schwimmer's voice on Friends and, according to McGrath, thought that it "sounded really neat ." </Li> <Li> Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria, a strong, confident, but sweet hippopotamus . McGrath said that they found all these traits in Pinkett Smith's voice, when they listened to her . </Li> <Li> Sacha Baron Cohen as King Julien XIII, a ring - tailed lemur and the king of the lemurs . King Julien was initially only meant to be a "two - line" character until auditioning Baron Cohen improvised eight minutes of dialogue in an Indian accent . </Li>

Who does the voice of gloria in madagascar