In the time since first giving the Dark Knight his voice in 1992’s Batman: The Animated Series, actor Kevin Conroy has voiced Batman for a quarter century, portraying various iterations of the caped crusader across animated television series, movies and video games. Talking to ComicBook.com, Conroy revealed his favorite part of playing Batman for nearly three decades.
Conroy told ComicBook: “Favorite part other than interacting with fans, which is pretty extraordinary, Andrea Romano was the woman who cast most of these. Now it’s a guy named Wes Gleason, but it started out with Andrea. The wonderful thing about what she established was, she loves actors. And she loves to surround herself with very generous actors. And you know, actors are people. There are generous ones and selfish ones, mean ones and nice ones, people you want to work with, and people you really want to kill. They’re just like life. So she has a wonderful way of surrounding herself with giving, generous, wonderful actors.”
Videos by ComicBook.com
Conroy’s Batman has squared off against all of the hero’s iconic rogues gallery, and Conroy points to co-stars Mark Hamill (the Joker), Clancy Brown (Lex Luthor) Adrienne Barbeau (Catwoman), and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. — who voiced Bruce Wayne’s loyal ally and butler, Alfred Pennyworth — as some of the actors he feels lucky to have worked with.
“Mark Hamill is like a brother to me,” Conroy said. “I love Mark. We work so well together. But that’s been true of literally dozens of actors that she’s brought on. Clancy Brown, Adrienne Barbeau, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. I mean, it’s twenty five years of — [Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond co-star] Stacy Keach! [Lois Lane actress] Dana Delany! You never know who’s gonna walk through the door, and you think, ‘God, look who I’m working with today!’ It’s amazing.”
“On the 100th episode, Warner Brothers took out a two-page spread advertisement in — it was either Variety or Hollywood Reporter — to thank everyone who had been involved in the show up to that point,” Conroy shared. “And it was just name after name after name, and I hadn’t ever seen all the names put together like that. And this was only after a few years. It was like everyone in LA! It was amazing.”
Because episodes of Batman: The Animated Series would typically feature a self-contained story with a new cast of characters each week, Conroy amassed a large amount of co-stars.
“When you do a show, an on-camera show, you develop sort of a rapport and a family feeling with the people you work with, but it’s usually four, five, maybe eight people on a show,” Conroy said. “With this show, every week, it’s like six or eight new people through the years. So I’ve worked with literally hundreds of different, wonderful actors, so that’s been a blast.”
Since debuting in Batman: The Animated Series, Conroy has reprised his role for other DC Animated Universe projects like Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, and Batman Beyond, as well as several of the DC Universe Original Movies, and for Rocksteady Games’ Batman Arkham trilogy. Conroy most recently returned to voice Batman alongside Robin/Nightwing actor Loren Lester in the latest DC Universe Animated Original Movie from Warner Bros. Animation, Batman and Harley Quinn, released to DVD and Blu-ray August 29.
