Batman Beyond star Will Friedle won’t be voicing Terry McGinnis again, no matter what kind of project he is offered. Friedle spoke to fans at a convention called Animate! Columbus 2025 last month, explaining that he had been eager to play Terry or even revive the Batman Beyond series itself up until November of 2022, when his co-star Kevin Conroy passed away. Conroy was the voice of Batman for an entire generation, from Batman: The Animated Series through Just League Unlimited, Static Shock, and all the direct-to-video DC animated films of the 2000s and 2010s. Without Conroy, Friedle can’t imagine returning to that world.
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“If you asked me that question three years ago, the answer would be, ‘Oh my god, yes. Get me in front of the microphone right now,’” Friedle said at the GalaxyCon event. “Now that Kevin’s gone, I don’t know if I could do it again. I think they would need to recast both roles. Being Terry and not having him answer as Bruce, I don’t think I could do it.”
Friedle is not alone in this resolution — back in 2023, Mark Hamill said he did not plan on voicing the Joker again in anymore DC projects after Conroy passed away. Like Friedle, he broke the news directly to fans at a convention, Fan Expo San Francisco. He said, “Without Batman, crime has no punchline.” Hamill had previously revealed that his primary means of deciding whether to join a DC project was whether or not Conroy would be involved too.
“They would call and say, ‘They want you to do the Joker,’ and my only question was, ‘Is Kevin Batman?’” Hamill told Empire Magazine at the time. ” If they said yes, I would say, ‘I’m in.’ We were like partners. We were like Laurel and Hardy. Without Kevin there, there doesn’t seem to be a Batman for me.”
Conroy portrayed Batman longer than any other actor in any medium. In addition to the broadcast cartoons and direct-to-video films, he leant his voice to the Arkham video game series as well. For fans of the Dark Knight, Batman Beyond was particularly special as it was a new concept not based on the comics, but it was so popular that it has since been adopted into the comic book continuity.
Conroy was 66 years old when he passed away on November 10, 2022 at a new York City hospital. He suffered from intestinal cancer and related complications. Many of his colleagues in animation have sung his praises since then, and those who work on DC Comics in other mediums proclaimed his stature as well. At the time of this writing, fans can stream Batman Beyond on HBO Max.
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Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.
