Kevin Conroy Had A Very Different 'Batman' Approach At First

09/05/2017 11:35 pm EDT

Twenty-five years ago, voice actor Kevin Conroy began the job that would reinvent Batman for a generation of fans...but he almost sounded much different in the role.

During a retrospective interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Batman: The Animated Series actor admitted that he had to workshop his Dark Knight a little bit.

"Early on, I said, 'This is the most famous and powerful guy in Gotham. Are you telling me he just puts on a mask and no one knows it's him? Seriously? There's got to be more to the disguise,'" said Conroy. "My template for the two voices was the 1930s film The Scarlet Pimpernel. I played Bruce Wayne as sort of a humorous playboy to counteract the brooding nature of Batman."

It wasn't the iconic Batman voice that needed to be changed so much as the Bruce Wayne voice, which seemed a little too light and humorous for the noir tones of the animation.

"It was too much. So Bruce had me re-record the first few episodes and tone it down. They liked my idea of two voices; they just wanted it to be more subtle," Conroy recalled.

The interview also features insights from Mark Hamill (who repeats an often-expressed line that he believed the iconic "good guy" nature of Luke Skywalker could have prevented him getting the gig as The Joker) and Loren Lester, who admitted that his take on Robin was inspired by Burt Ward's performance in the classic Batman TV series.

Conroy's next Batman performance is currently up in the air, although DC just released Batman & Harley Quinn, a feature-length animated movie set in the world of Batman: The Animated Series. The actor also stars as Batman in Cartoon Network's Justice League Action.

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