Backstage
- Kevin Conroy Interview
Kevin
Conroy returns to seminal role as the
definitive voice of Batman in
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
Batman: The Animated Series
star reunites with Tim Daly and Clancy
Brown brings in all-new DC Universe
Animated Original PG-13 Movie for
distribution Sept. 29
While
the debate rages among fans over who
might be the best live-action actor to
play Batman, there is no such
controversy when it comes to the voice
of The Dark Knight – Kevin Conroy stands
unchallenged for that title.
As
the voice behind the landmark series
Batman: The Animated Series, Conroy set
a standard that has cast a wide shadow
over any other actor attempting to fill
the role for nearly two decades. Conroy
once again dons the animated cowl for
the September 29 Warner Home Video
release of Superman/Batman: Public
Enemies.
Warner Premiere, DC
Comics and Warner Bros. Animation will
present the all-new Superman/Batman:
Public Enemies in a Blu-Ray™ Hi-Def
edition, a special edition 2-disc DVD,
and a single disc DVD. Warner Home Video
will distribute the action-packed movie,
which will also be available OnDemand
and Pay-Per-View as well as available
for download on Sept. 29.
In
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, United
States President Lex Luthor uses the
oncoming trajectory of a Kryptonite
asteroid to frame Superman and declare a
$1 billion bounty on the heads of the
Man of Steel and his “partner in crime,”
Batman. Heroes and villains alike launch
a relentless pursuit of Superman and
Batman, who must unite – and recruit
help – to stave off the action-packed
onslaught, stop the asteroid, and
uncover Luthor’s devious plot to take
command of far more than North America.
Conroy’s acting career has covered a
lengthy gamut of performances on stage
and screen, including soap operas and
television series like Dynasty and Tour
of Duty. His first audition for an
animated voiceover role was in 1991 when
he arrived at Warner Bros. hoping to
land some of the character roles on an
upcoming series, and walked out as the
title character of Batman: The Animated
Series. As they say, the rest is a grand
and glorious history for Batman fans
across the nation.
So pleased
with his return to the role is Conroy
that he made his first appearance in six
years at Comic-Con International this
past summer to promote Superman/Batman:
Public Enemies, and the crowd greeted
their beloved Batman voice with multiple
standing ovations. For those fans that
couldn’t hear Conroy’s words in person,
here’s the recap of a chat with the
actor during that weekend …
QUESTION: You’ve been doing this role
for nearly 19 years. Are there still
challenges to doing the voice of Batman?
KEVIN CONROY I guess the biggest
challenge to doing any kind of animation
voice work is that you only have your
voice to tell the story. And you want to
keep it real and you don't want to get
cartoony, especially now because the
audiences are much more sophisticated.
Anything over the top is going to read
over the top. So it's a very fine line
that people walk. For Batman, I think
the biggest challenge is the timber of
the voice that I established early on. I
just kind of improvised it and it stuck.
It's very deep in my register – very
throaty – and whenever it gets
emotional, it’s a difficult sound to
create with a lot of volume technically
without blowing your chords out. So
there's all kinds of tricks you learn
along the way of how to produce a sound,
how to produce it without injuring
yourself, and how to juice it enough.
It's a delicate, funny balancing act.
Recording Superman/Batman: Public
Enemies was actually easy because of the
cast that Andrea (Romano) put together.
Tim (Daly) and Clancy (Brown) – all of
us have worked together a lot over the
years, and there's a real shorthand when
you're dealing with people who have done
a lot of it and know what they're doing.
Which is really a pleasure. Andrea
doesn't have to say very much for me to
know what she wants.
QUESTION: What do Tim Daly and Clancy
Brown bring to their respective roles?
KEVIN CONROY: Tim brings to
Superman that strong voice, but there's
also a real humanity to Tim as an actor
and that really comes through. So
there’s strength but there's a great
sensitivity, and that's unique about his
take on Superman.
Clancy is
great at being crazy. He's a very
talented actor. He's got that great
sound, that resonate voice. And yet when
you've got that kind of power under you,
you can afford to be very casual with
it. It makes his sinister quality so
much more frightening when this guy with
this voice is just being very debonair.
QUESTION: What can people
expect to find different about
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies than
most crossover stories?
KEVIN
CONROY There's definitely more humor
in this because of the relationship
they've created between Superman and
Batman. It was really fun doing it with
Tim because it almost became like a
buddy cop kind of thing. There are not a
lot of people that Batman can fool
around with like that – that can take it
and can dish it back. So I really
enjoyed that aspect of the script.
QUESTION: Batman and Superman
have all these amazing foes. And yet Lex
Luthor has no super powers. What makes
Lex a great villain, and how does Clancy
make him greater?
KEVIN CONROY:
Actors always want to play the villain –
they’re a lot more fun. Think about it.
The hero is just about being a good guy
and, in life, we all want to be good
guys. But when you're playing at
something other than yourself, it's fun
to do what is taboo. I played Edgar in a
production of King Lear that John
Houseman directed for Lincoln Center.
Edgar is the good son in Lear and it's
probably the hardest role in the play. I
thought I did a pretty good job at it –
although one critic was particularly
unkind. Years later, I did a production
at the San Diego Shakespeare Festival of
Lear and I played Edmond, who is the
force of evil throughout the play. The
plot really revolves around Edmond's
machinations. It was so much more fun to
play Edmond because of the joy he took
out of being evil. This guy is planning
the downfall of his family, and laughing
about it, and delighting in it. And it
was a real blast to me. A couple years
earlier I was busting my back for
Houseman, doing Edgar every night,
working so hard on a role that the
audience doesn't care about. They want
to cheer Edmond and how evil he is
because it's so much fun. Clancy brings
that joy to Luthor and the more ease he
does it with, the more frightening it
becomes. And he's really good at that.
QUESTION: So what does
Kevin Conroy bring to Batman?
KEVIN CONROY I guess I am basically
most comfortable when I'm alone. As a
kid, I was very much a loner. I love
long distance running and long distance
biking. A director once pointed out that
those are all very isolated exercises
you do for hours at a time. I think
Batman taps into that quality of me,
because my initial take on the character
was that Batman wasn't the performance.
Bruce Wayne was the performance. Batman
is where he's most comfortable. The cave
is where he's most comfortable. And he
puts on this persona of incredible
sophistication to be able to deal with
the world just like I think everybody
puts on a mask to deal with the world.
Everyone has a private self and a public
self. With him, it's taken to a real
extreme. And I think I related to that
aspect of him. I am basically a pretty
shy person – I think a lot of actors
are. That's why they get into acting –
because it's easier to be free
emotionally when you're pretending to be
someone else than to be free emotionally
when you have to be yourself. And I
think Bruce has the same problem.
QUESTION: Is there still a
cool factor for you to be the voice of
Batman?
KEVIN CONROY Oh, yeah.
It’s something that I'm reminded of a
lot from people who enjoy the show.
That's a very cool thing. I don't ever
take for granted how cool a job it is
and how lucky I am to have landed in it.
It was the first animation job I ever
auditioned for – and it just happened to
all come together so well. But it was
just pure chance.
QUESTION: Were you a comics reader as
a kid?
KEVIN CONROY I had an
interesting childhood in that my parents
were older. I was a late child, and they
were children of immigrants. So the
connection of the family to Ireland was
very close. I have an Irish passport – I
went to school there a bit when I was
younger. So my parents were very old
world, and they grew up during the
Depression. They were kind of like my
friends' grandparents – my family kind
of skipped a generation that way. I was
put in very conservative Catholic
schools – the nuns had habits to the
ground, and the boys and the girls were
separated. It was very old school. And
comic books just weren't allowed. It
just wasn't part of my world. I didn’t
read them because I didn't like them – I
didn't even know about them. (he
laughs). Comic books weren’t part of the
planet that I was raised on. Of course,
once I heard about them, I liked them a
lot. (he laughs)
QUESTION:
Do you have a collection of Batman
paraphernalia?
KEVIN CONROY:
I'm no dumb actor (he laughs). Do you
remember the Warner Brother stores? One
of the most lucrative parts of those
stores was the galleries – they ran them
like real art galleries. They'd have
people who did the voices come in and do
so signings, and when they asked me, I
said, “Do I get some kind of
compensation?” They were trying to get
us on the cheap, but I thought there had
to be something to make it worth my
while. I said “Why don't you give me a
cell?” And they said “Oh, that's a great
idea.” So I said, “Why don't we make it
two?” (he laughs) And so I started doing
appearances at the stores and my
compensation was two cells – and now
I've got about 60 or 70 cells. It's very
cool. I have a great apartment in New
York and they're all on this wall.
Everyone who walks into that apartment
turns into a 12-year-old boy. They all
walk in and say, “Oh. Wow. Cool.” And it
is. (he laughs)
QUESTION:
What makes Batman the greatest super
hero?
KEVIN CONROY
Oh, that's easy. The thing that makes
Batman unique as a super hero is that he
has no super powers, and the darkness of
his personal story. Everyone relates to
having a personal dark story – his is
just much more dramatic than most
people's. Everyone is handed adversity
in life. No one's journey is easy. It's
how they handle it that makes people
unique. Batman took adversity and turned
it into something enormously powerful
and positive without any superpowers.
For more information, images and
updates, please visit the film’s
official website at
www.SupermanBatmanDVD.com.
Suggested captions for attached
images: Kevin Conroy.jpg Kevin Conroy,
the definitive voice of Batman, returns
to his seminal role in Superman/Batman:
Public Enemies, the next DC Universe
animated original movie, will be
distributed September 29, 2009 by Warner
Home Video. (Photo courtesy of Gary
Miereanu)
B_12.jpg Kevin
Conroy provides the voice of The Dark
Knight in Superman/Batman: Public
Enemies, the next DC Universe animated
original movie, which will be
distributed September 29, 2009 by Warner
Home Video.
B_16.jpg Kevin
Conroy provides the voice of The Dark
Knight in Superman/Batman: Public
Enemies, the next DC Universe animated
original movie, which will be
distributed September 29, 2009 by Warner
Home Video.
SB_16.jpg U.S.
President Lex Luthor recruits super
heroes to help keep America safe, and
that includes hunting down the Man of
Steel and the Dark Knight in
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, the
next DC Universe animated original
movie. Warner Home Video will distribute
the film on September 29.
Trademark information for the
images: SUPERMAN © Warner
Bros. Ent Inc. BATMAN © Warner Bros. Ent
Inc. "SUPERMAN" and “BATMAN” and all
related characters and elements are
trademarks of and © DC Comics. © Warner
Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights
Reserved.[ Back to Backstage ]
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