Happy birthday, Kevin Conroy! The actor is celebrating his 61st birthday today.
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Conroy, who has over 80 credits accumulated to his acting career, is best known for being the voice of Batman in several animated series, such as the popular Batman: The Animated Series, several animated movies and the Arkham Knight video game series.
It’s an iconic role — and one that Conroy has allowed himself to become somewhat subsumed by over the years.
“I don’t get a lot of questions about me,” Conroy told ComicBook.com. “It’s funny; it’s always Batman-related questions. And there’s such an ethos about the character, there’s such a body of work, and it’s such a legendary character, that people are fascinated by the character and they just want to talk about it.
“And they all have such personal relationships with the character. You know, it’s an animated character, so they can invest in him themselvse with their own imagination. And he does resonate, and he’s resonated for almost eighty years. People always want to talk to me about that, and I usually go back to mythology — the Greek legends, the Roman legends. The way the ancient cultures taught right and wrong was with stories about Orestes and Achilles and Agamemnon and Menelaus. Today, comic books are our mythological stories. That’s how we’re teaching people about good and evil: through Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and The Flash.You know, it’s the same thing. Those stories in the ancient world were contemporary; they were entertaining. They became classics over time, but Batman is like our Achilles; he’s our great warrior, battling for goodness.”
Earlier this year, he re-teamed with his longtime Joker Mark Hamill to produce the R-rated, direct-to-home-video release Batman: The Killing Joke. He will return to the character in 2017 with Justice League Action.
Prior to fame, Conroy attended Julliard’s drama division at the age of seventeen.
Happy birthday, Kevin Conroy! You’re Batman!
