For decades, Kevin Conroy has been the iconic voice of the person many know as Batman. Attending acting school at Juilliard in 1970, he performed on stage and in small roles for a long time. Conroy finally got his big break in 1991, when he landed the voice of Batman. Since, he reprises the role in many different films, TV shows, and video games. At New York Comic Con this past week, Bicentennial Dan and Ticelli Bot got to sit down with him at a roundtable discussion about his latest reprisal, Justice League: Doom.
Q: So, when you’re channeling a personality, does it come simply from a voice or do you have to create a character in your head?
KEVIN CONROY: Well, with voice for batman, it definitely comes from a psychological place. His character is based on his childhood pain. The whole ethos of that mythology, I put into creating that character’s voice. So, there’s a lot of pain there and that’s that dark place I go to, to come up with that sound. So, with me, it comes from a very organic place.
Q: When you go into the audition for the very first time, and the thing that they are going to decided on is based literally on what they hear when that voice comes out. How do you make that decision about what you’re going to do hoping that what they hear is going to give you the part?
CONROY: That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question because usually, they don’t know what they want. They’ll know it when they hear it and so when you ask them what they want, they really can’t tell you. They’ll give you some vague things like, ‘Just wing it, just try it.’ Well, this is a shot in the dark and 99% of the time, you make the wrong shot and that 1% of the time when you make the right shot, like when I walked in to do Batman, it’s just a fluke. There were probably a dozen other actors who could have gotten that job, if they made the same choice I made but they just didn’t think of making that choice. They said they looked at hundreds of actors for weeks and they couldn’t find anybody. Then I came in and I did it. You don’t think among all those hundreds of actors there weren’t a dozen people who couldn’t have done that voice? They just didn’t think of it so it’s really just making the right choice at the right moment. I’ve been in on a dozen other voices that I didn’t get the job because I probably just didn’t make the right choice that day. I could have come up with the same voice as the guy who got the job but I just didn’t and they didn’t know to ask me because they usually don’t know what they want. With Batman, I came up with that sound because they were describing what the character had been through; the childhood loss of parents, living in the cave, the secrecy, everything about The Dark Knight legend. So, I came up with that sound and they didn’t know that was the sound they wanted until they heard it.
Q: What do you think has been the reason they keep bringing you back time after time?
CONROY: Well, I know what’s kept me coming back for so many years. It’s because they have been so loyal to what I created initially so I know that’s why Warner keeps asking me back. They’ve had different actors do all the different live action films of Batman, which is kind of an interesting choice, not to have one person associated with the franchise. They could just as easily have done it with all the animated series but it was really, I think, because of the reaction from the audience that they kept coming back to ask me to do it. That’s just luck and I love doing it. I really thank the audience for that.
Q: Did you think that when you got the job that you’d be doing it for this long?
CONROY: Noooo, there’s no way. No way, you kidding? A twenty year job? I mean, that just doesn’t happen. That’s why I’m so happy for Julie Kavner. (Voice of Marge Simpson) We did a pilot together actually 25 years ago, A Fine Romance. An American pilot of a British show that didn’t get picked up, but I was very happy for her when she got The Simpsons.
BICENTENNIAL DAN: “Building on that, what you said about the 20 year job, how does it feel being a part of what is essentially the iconic version of a character for basically my entire generation?”
CONROY: Very, very lucky. I worked hard at being an actor. I started when I was 17, I moved to New York and went to Juilliard. So, I put in a lot of work but a lot of it is just luck as well so I’m very lucky to have this job.
Q: Recently, you did the ‘Perchance to Dream’ episode where you actually did four different characters in real time.
CONROY: Andrea let me do that. She said, ‘Well, we’ll try it for a little while but I don’t think this is gonna work. We’re going to end up doing each voice and then we’re gonna edit it.’ I said, ‘Just let me try it, it will be a fun little acting thing.’ As we were getting into it she said, ‘You are doing this?!’ She was amazed.
Q: But how do you get that into your head?
CONROY: I’m just a very schizy person. *laughter* It was fun. I took some classes where we tried to do that, like switching between different roles. I think I was able to do it because, at that point, I’ve been doing Batman for so long that I can kind of switch into the voices very easily. So, getting into the voice isn’t as challenging but the trick was switching out of it. Then, when I saw the finished product, I was so happy with they way it came out. It is a beautiful show.”
Q: Related to that, you’ve done about six or seven variations of Batman. What are you doing mentally when you are trying to distinguish them, like Batman from Justice League and Old Man Wayne?
CONROY: I’ve always found that the best way to go into a different voice is to go from within. If you try to impose an artificial sound that you think something should sound like, it sounds imposed. If you go from within, like when I go to Old Man Wayne, I just think of the weight of 80 years. How tired I would feel, which just kind of slows you down. There’s a lot of speed with youth so I just went with doing the feeling of exhaustion,. I always like to go from inside to get a voice. That may go back to my training at Juilliard. Also, I’m not really one of them ‘voice’ guys. You know, there are those actors that can do a lion and you think that the lion is under the table. Then, they switch to doing a parrot and then a yapping dog, all in three seconds. You believe that they are all right around the table. I kind of go from inside.
Q: Does this process also apply to singing as Batman?
CONROY: *laughter* That was just my own ego because I love to sing so they let me try it.
Q: If your character is more of an internal thing, how are you affected when you do started doing something like Justice League and you’d see lots of other character actors coming in to play that you are going to be working with? Do you just play it the exact same way, or does your character change as it would if you were doing an ensemble piece based on the ensemble that’s going to be around you?
CONROY: Well, in an ensemble, you’re always working off the other people, and that affects and feeds how you react in that sitation, but it shouldn’t change your core belief in yourself or in your character. I think the really important thing about Batman through all these different incarnations for me — and the reason why it’s resonated with the audience — is the consistency of the character, to be true to him. Really, many people in the audience understand Batman better than I do. They are so devoted to the story and they would hear in a second if I was being insincere or if I was being inauthentic. For me, the trick has been to maintain a level of integrity with the character, with whatever whatever situation he’s in, whether he’s been in all these different series or even in the games I’ve been doing lately, which is much harder to produce the character in because you’re much more in a vacuum. The challenge for me has been consistency rather than differences in different situations.
That happens with just the way you’re fed from the other actors. They bring out different sides of the character, just like people bring out different sides of you that you encounter through the course of the day. Joker is the…almost the flip side to Batman, there’s this symbiotic relationship between those two characters that’s so interesting. Again, the most important thing is the consistency of the character in every situation he’s in. The truthfulness of the character.
Q: So, is that you on Twitter?
CONROY: No
*laughter*
Q: Are you going to do anything about it?
CONROY: Yes, I am. I don’t know what I can do about it but I am putting the word out that it is not me.
Q: You said something about how doing games is harder. Can you talk about that?
CONROY: Well, the story of the game changes depending on how it’s played, right? So you’re recording every different variable that the gamer can go on. It’s not like you’re recording a linear story. You’re recording every possible variable the game can play, so you’re just doing wild lines, and four different takes of four different readings of every wild line. “Can you do that with a little more irony?” “Can you do it a little angrier?” “Can you try it with a little happy irony?” Just all these different variations, and they’re often in a complete vacuum because you don’t know how the gamer is going to play the game. You’re giving the producers basically thousands of lines that all relate to the story, but you don’t necessarily know how they relate to the story. You’re just giving them different kinds of readings sort hoping that they’ll plug them in the right way, sort of trusting that the editors and the producers will know how to plug it in. It’s so much harder, because you’re keeping the character alive literally in kind of a vacuum. It’s completely technical.
Q: How different is the Batman you play now from the Batman that you sat in that audition? Or is he pretty much the same all the way through as far as the way you play him?
CONROY: He’s become darker. I initially played around with the high notes more, the lighter qualities, especially with Bruce Wayne. Light defines darkness, so to define all that dark world that Batman was, I thought you have to illuminate Bruce Wayne more. Play the high notes more. So I made him much more sarcastic, more playboy…I played a lot with irony. It was a lot of fun. As they evolved the show, they went with a much darker palette and much darker stories and they were getting much more dramatic. I talked to Bruce Timm about it, and we actually went back and re-recorded some early episodes of just the Bruce Wayne voice to bring him down a few notches. And over time, he became even darker. So there was really a very subtle difference between Bruce Wayne and Batman. I’ve always felt that there had to be a difference, because you don’t just put on a cape and cowl and nobody knows who you are. Especially if you’re the most famous man in Gotham. That’s ridiculous, so I stuck with the idea that there had to be a vocal distinction and I’m glad I did that.
Q: Was that informed at all by the fact that the comics were getting darker or the films, or does that not matter?
CONROY: I don’t think that really…I was working with Bruce and Paul as we evolved all that. We started doing that sort of before the live-action films were doing that at Warner Brothers. We were working on our own very much. I think they were relating more to the Dark Knight series of comics than perhaps I was because they’re very, very faithful to all that.
Q: You’ve been Batman for so long behind a microphone and nobody sees your face very much. Have you ever been in a situation where you wonder if someone can recognize your voice after they hear it?
CONROY: *laughs* I think you would assume that it’s a totally anonymous job. I always assumed it was an anonymous job. I am constantly amazed when, literally, on the street that I live, a car will pull over and say, “Hey, Batman! How do you know?” They say, “Oh, everybody knows about that!” I think because of the Internet and the sophistication of audiences now and the democratization of everything on the Internet, that everyone knows everything now, in terms of the entertainment business. Everybody knows who’s doing what voice and everyone knows who everyone is.
I mean I brought my car in to be serviced at one point last year, and they asked for my name and address. I gave them, and the guy said, “That’s a pretty weird name to have.” I said, “What do you mean?” and he said, “Well, that’s guy who does Batman.” *laughter* I said, “That’s me.” He didn’t believe me.
Q: Did you have to do the voice?
CONROY: So I had to do the voice! I’m standing there in the garage going, “I am Vengeance! I am the Night!” And he says, “Oh my God! This is really Batman!”
Q: Did you get a Batman discount?
CONROY: No! That was my next question. I said, “Look, you’re working on the Batmobile! *laughter* You can really promote this!” He said, “Eh, it’s the same price, buddy.”
BICENTENNIAL DAN: You’re back for Justice League: Doom. In the comic it’s based on, Batman has all these contingency plans to take out his allies if they ever go rogue? Do you have any for Andrea and Bruce?
CONROY: *laughter* Well if I did, I wouldn’t tell you about them. *laughter* No, they’re irreplaceable, absolutely, both of them. They are one of a kind, each of them. I would walk over coals to work with either of them at any time, and anyone in the business would say the same thing. They are so highly respected, and I’m sure you know that. They are class acts.
Q: Did you ever talk to any of your fellow actors just to talk about the way that things are done?
CONROY: Well, yeah, that’s an interesting question. I did sort of have a sense of responsibility, especially when we were doing Batman the Animated Series and then The Adventures of Batman and Robin, because I was the unifying link to all those shows, and part of the strength of the show was that they wanted to go outside the world of voice-over actors. They were bringing in film actors and TV actors and looking all over. It was Andrea’s deal, really, bringing in really interesting actors who hadn’t necessarily ever worked in animation before. And it’s a very different technique. You don’t want to do cartoony voices, but you only have your voice to tell the story. So if you’re just going to do it like you’re doing a drama on film, it’s not going to work. You’ve got to juice it more than that, you have to use your voice to sell the story, but it’s a fine line. If you enter that cartoon world, it gets ridiculous.
Then there’s just tricks on how to turn the page without making any noise on a microphone. It sounds simple, but these are little tricks in the booth that you learn. So all these actors would come in who had never done any of this stuff before, and I would go over and say, “Look, this is how you set up your scripts. This is my advice. You can do whatever you want, but this is what I do.” And they’d always be very appreciative because you’re saving them some time. It’s an interesting question because it’s the kind of thing that you wouldn’t think of. When you’re the one actor who’s the link between all the shows and everyone else is guests, you’ve got to make them feel comfortable and you want them to feel comfortable as fast as possible because you don’t want to waste a lot of time.
Q: What else are you working on right now?
CONROY: Well, I live in New York, and so I do a lot of commercial voice-overs now. That’s largely what New York is about.
BigShinyRobot would like to thank Kevin Conroy for taking time to participate in this roundtable interview, as well as all the other members of the press and the coordinators. Justice League: Doom comes out in 2012, so don’t forget to check it out!