The Voice of BATMAN Can Freaking Sing!

Batman for thirty years. That is not an exaggeration thirty years. And he's coming to talk to us today. And I hear voices. I can't wait. I hear voices, I hear voices speaking of voices, speaking of voices, voices, And there's no a song that should be our our to our intro. You don't understand. So if you want to see people go insane at a convention, oh boy, Kevin. We will be sitting on a pane and Kevin Conroy will start to sing. I feel blue, Am I Blue? Am I blue?

I Like that There was a time was the only one now no sad and lonely one, lonely and so sung that as Batman on The Batman, the animated series, and so he will hit the first note and you will see hundreds of people like go insane to see this. And normally he's sitting next to the people who played wonder Woman Greenland doesn't matter all eyes, Kevin Conroy, and he just owns the stage. It is absolutely, of course sitting here with look about love that will of course

it's Bill loves you so much. He's men. We worked together for twenty two When do we start? Five years? Twenty five years? Seven we started, and it was my first ever animated series, and you took me under your wing from day one, and you didn't have to. You easily could have been one of those actors. But this is why we keep talking about the voiceover world compared to the on camera world. Because I walked into that room. I was as frightened as I've ever been in my life.

I've never done an animated series, and now I've been cast as Batman and Batman Beyond with Drey Romano directing, Bruce, Tim Paul Deaney, Glenn Murakami, all these incredible people involved. Uh, and You're sitting there going what am I going to do? And I'm sitting next to Kevin Conroy, who had help Batman forever. He easily could have been who are you kid? What are you doing here? But but he was, but he didn't. He opened his arms. He taught me how

to sit behind the microphone. Yeah, I was gonna say, how did you had? Did you teach him? Do you remember meeting him? There's certain tricks in the sound room that when you come from the outside, you don't understand that. You know, every noise in the room is being recorded and when other people are acting, because Warner Brothers likes to get all the cats together, so you're not working in a vacuum. You're working. It's like recording a play.

So all these other people are in the same room together, all those mics are live. So every time you turn a page it can destroy someone else's performance. Someone can give a great take and then someone rustles a page over there and their take has to be done again. Do you have any memories of anybody ruining a take that was like really some of your best work kind of thing. Has anyone ruined your perform exactly? Who do

you hate? Let's really screwed up? No? But then so there's an art to turning the page by picking up the entire page and moving it over and laying it down right and turning it. You do it that way without making any noise. But you talked, someone just got to show you. It's just basics like that. So Will had never been in a sound studio like before, so he just needed someone to Did you know his work from other other things he was doing, or what was

your first impression of Will? A great guy? Yeah, who I knew came from a very successful show that I had never seen. Just not that much of a I'm not a TV junker. You also were in our demographic if I wasn't, if you're honest, and but I knew he'd done a successful show, and I wasn't sure. You know, actors or people, there are sometimes if you feed them and they're not such a nice ones. There are generous

ones and selfish one. Yeah, there are people you want to work with and they're pricks you just want to avoid. Did I just use a bad word? That's okay, Well we can bleep it. It's not. No, it's not Those kids have heard that by this point. But so when you're dealing with someone who came from a successful show. You don't know you're going to be dealing with you. So I didn't know. I don't know who was he going to come in with a lot of attitude, you know?

And he didn't. He came in ready to work, open, giving, generous. You know. I should have known because Andrea Romano, who cast the show. She's my sister. By the way, christ Romano, I wish I still haven't better. My last name is Romano. Yes, I wonder if you're related. Sometime I kind of do. I think I've actually messed Romano. Good question. I want to I want to work with all these wonderful women. A voice has another batman, it's a Reno is a man, and I said it was a woman. I'm sorry. Is

a great guy. But anyway, Um, she always brings people together who are just generous, fun, creative, not a lot of judgment, not a lot of attitude, just ready to play. That's what all the bookings have always been like for thirty years. Just no attitude. Yeah, well it is lucky, but it's not lucky. It's it's Andrea. Yes, you know what I mean. There's more of a science to it, I think than just look she knows what to look

for in people, and she brings wonderful people together. She also so here's here's a question for you, because one of the things that Andrea I always noticed did was she just she cares about the acting. That's all. It's all. It's about, just get the best actor you can for the role. However, at the same time, she's turned more quote unquote on camera actors into voiceover actors than anybody else I've ever seen. I've never done a voiceover role before.

I now consider myself more of a voiceover actor than I do an on camera actor. Will Wheaton. You know, there's a giant group of us who look at Andrea and essentially say, we were one thing in this industry, and then you brought us into a whole another side,

and now we consider ourselves a whole different thing. So there's a strange justs where yes, she wants to get the best actor possible, but then she takes that actor and brings them into this world and it's like, now you're something else, and there's something really I mean, well, I mean you started on stage, didn't You was a New York actor, much like you're Juilliard trained as well. You know, they rejected me classics. Okay, so I pre fools them, Yes, okay, I totally see it. So I

I was infatuated. My mom used to call it cross training, but she was like, yeah, let's do the dancing. Let's go to School of American Ballet. I got kicked out of there and I went to I went to Performing Arts school right there by the Fame School. I went to Professional Children's School. Anyway, long story short, I auditioned. I trained for about a year to be a color tour soprano in the pre college Juilliard program. I was

not accepted into the program. They said I had because I was a Broadway kid, so I did a lot of Broadway belting. It turns out I had too many bad habits for Juilliard. Really, but my god, is Juilliard amazing And anyone that's done Juilliard training has a lot of respect. It's it's it's grueling. I mean it's it's it's a grueling experience for somebody who doesn't know anything about Juilliard. Is it a four year program, is it a two year It can be many things. There's the

pre college. There are a lot of different programs you can do what you did the four years you did four you I was seventeen, I'd left high school early. I was the youngest one in the school when I went in, but I was six too, and I had a deep voice. Yeah, no one really thought about it, you know, because I just fit right in. But um, so I really wanted he's hit looking guy too, if for honest, Oh come on, forget about forget about how you're still a hugely attractive man. Show me pictures of

himself back in the day. I think he's dashing. It was like, it was incredible. I mean, you're, let's be honest, he's pretty damn good looking at I'm coming back here. But it's like this company, but the whole package when it comes to especially back in the day, what they're what you're looking for as an actor, I mean, commanding the presence of the talent. I mean. But so I went for the four year program because I wanted to get a b f A. Which involved doing academics on

the side. Oh where did you do? The academy on the fourth floor, So Juilliard, and they had special teachers who would come in and be you know, you're you're dealing with people in Essay, BA School of Americans, the American Opera Center. I mean, all these incredibly you know, stars of their generation with dance and singing and acting. You know, Kevin Klein's in your regular slus that kind of stuff. And you're talking about you know, Dickens or something.

You're studying English literature with people who are really thinking about what they're going to have to perform that night. You know, what they're going to present my experience. I mean, it's all about performance. It's all performance oriented. So these academic classes were such an afterthought. They were they were kind of a joke. Yeah, I understandably that everyone went

to just to you know, get the basic training. So if you get a f A because you were spending you know, twelve fourteen, sixteen hours a day in performing fencing, dance, movement, voice, diction, acting classes, poetry classes, French mass. For e to one of those classes, you have to perform. It's all performance based. So you're doing a French mass class and I you know defense, Oh my gosh, did you know that? I did not know. I was trained by B. H. Barry.

The you know, there's I don't know. He said, no, he's um, he's like the stage fighting theater stage fighting guy, a British, wonderful stage fighting. But Pierre Lefevre taught me French map. Now see that in that name. And I was in that class with Robin Williams. So my presentation, I did a scene from Peter Pan, the fight between Captain Hook and Peter Pan as the characters, and we staged a fight. And who did I do with Harriet? Harris?

Harriet were wonderful character actors? Wait were you Peter? Okay, you are the bad guy because of his height and my voice. But you present these pieces and you know it takes weeks to work on these things and present them and then get judged by torn down. Oh the judgment was. But then in poetry class you're doing you know, you're preparing poetry to to have judged, and it's it's grueling. It's a grueling experience. So you don't have time to

prepare academics. So I'm actually really curious about this because in speaking to somebody who's gone to Juilliard, I don't think I really have had that interaction. Did you want to leave at any point just to do traditional industry work? Or did anyone else want to just stop the grueling? That's such a good question. I was scared. I always wondered if I should leave and just start acting. Okay, wouldn't you learn more by just doing? Because the first

two years are really the training there. The second two years are all performance based people application of what you've learned. But the thought of swimming in the deep pool at the age of eighteen nineteen, it scared me. I wanted to stay in the school. Now did you go to become an actor? Did you go to become a singer?

Did you go to be collected? It was an actor? Okay, Now there's one thing, So going back a little bit earlier in your life, there's one thing that I'm the only one at this table that knows, which is all three of us are from Connecticut. Are you from CONNECTICUTT? Are you from CONNECTICUTT? Of course I'm from Say I was doing? I was doing from Hartford, I'm from I was born in Harvard. I'm from from a town in Avon, And you were from Milford. Where are you from? West Pole?

Fancy guy? Three? Kid? Now, for anybody doesn't Connecticut, we are from three different sides of Connecticut and that's still a half hour away from each other. Um, what what kind of Connecticut's are we all from? What? What kind of Connecticut is Avon? Or was it? Avon? Connecticut? Is exactly as it sounds. It was. It was farmland, it was I mean, it was a small town, but it was upper middle class and you know, very hoity toity

kind of people. And we were not that family, but I mean there were kids in high school that drove the BMW's and all that kind of stuff. Again, not our family, but that's what it was like. So it was what you would expect a place that sounds like Avon, Connecticut would be any did Yeah, there were the Avon country clubs. And again I went to a public high school. So I went to Avon High I because I had to. I was swimming in the deep end. I never was trained.

So I started acting at a very young age. And I would take the bus. It was three hours from Farmington to New York, uh, and I would do that once or twice a week for auditions to be told. You'd walk in there, you go, no, you don't have red hair, and you go thank you. When you turn around, your walk out and at twelve, I was walking around New York City and in the eighties and the bus would drop you off of Port Authority. My manager was supposed to be me there. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't.

I would walk to my audition and it's I mean, there's there was no better way to grow up. I never had a problem. Uh, nobody ever accosted me. I knew the homeless people in Port Authority by name. Where I would literally get off the bus and somebody go, I break a leg today, will and I go, thanks, Harvey, And I'd walk through the you know, it was It was a great experience for me. It really made me. But you know, and then I did my first show in New York and at fifty Unit Television Studio at

fifty five and ninth. What was your first show? Don't just sit there on Nicola both who else? I know that show? That was my first one, that was nine. But the idea of being trained to do it I never did, And I think I suffered because of that. I mean, obviously, if you had to go back and do it again, knowing your success, would you just jump into the deep end or would you go back to Juilliard again? No? I. I learned an awful lot. That's what I was. I was emotionally very immature at seventeen.

I had a lot to learn. The city was overwhelming. Everything about the experience was overwhelming. My first job in the city was as a mailman, as a mail carrier, really delivering the mail for a private mail service. When I was seventeen, on a bike walking, how are you doing it? I had a card pushed card. It was one of those guys on Sixth Avenue, see pushing, Yeah, did you have your beat? Like the like the wow.

It was like a private business mail service. It was before FedEx and and um, so they would all subscribe to this airline mail service. Basically, the mail room was underneath Grand Central. So you come in. I come in on the morning train from Connecticut at like five am and go to the mail room and start sorting all the mail. And all the guys in there were wonderful. They were all these New York tough, blue collar young men,

all men, real characters like a sitcom. And I went to go to my Juilliard audition from that mail room and they were so you know. God. They used to call me Shakespeare because I was always working on Shakespeare, and I was working on my pieces and stuff. They go, go for Shakespeare, go for it. You gotta get in there. And the day I got my acceptance, they all like picked me up in the air and they carried me out and they got me drunk ish. It was such

a wonderful New York moment. They just adopted this kid, you know. And so that was a job that you commuted to, like before you heard about Juilliard. So you were kind of already going into New York. Interesting. I was gonna have to get a scholarship to go, so I had to save up as much money as I could. That's amazing. That's amazing. Now what did you want to do? You got to pick your career from Juilliard. You could be a film star, you could be a TV star,

you could be on Broadway. What what would you do? You're both much younger than me. It was different in the seventies, right, There was still a theater that you could make a living in. Really, yeah, I mean you could train to be a classical actor. Used to go to the American Shakespeare Festival Stratford, Connectquet. See the plays there. I saw brilliant, aren't they didn't it burn down recently?

Oh my god. But you would see these actors who did these amazing performances, and we're making a wonderful living at the theater. And that doesn't exist anymore anymore. I mean, you have to supplement your income with other things. You have to Yes, sponsored content, sponsor. The section of Catacandra

has been brought to you by m X. Now. I hate to keep bringing integrating, but I'm just so impressed by you that I'm trying to, like, like I need to tell you certain things, so like, because we're all from Connecticut, right, the worst audition I've ever had in my life was for that Stratford Shakespeare. I was always

this Disney kid. I did a bunch of Disney shows growing up, and but I did actually start in theater like I was in was Mary Fagan Original Mary Fagan and parade Um with Jason Robert Brown and hell Prince and all that. And I was just a theater kid. And then Disney kind of plucked me into l A and then I sort of did a wonderful production. I was, yes, the one that closed got closed down from Live In. Yeah that was fantastic, thank you. Yeah, it was amazing

to be a part of that. So theater was how I started and going back and forth as a kid from Connecticut to New York. So that's why I really resonate with that part of your story. But I will also say worst choice of my life was thinking that I could just try to be auditioning for Romeo and Chew. Now I can do. I was like, all of a sudden, my Mom's like, go for it. I was like, okay, I said, literally standing there like like this, just terrified.

I couldn't get through one like Stanza or whatever it was. It just just bombed. Shakespeare's not for me. I leave it to Well. I mean, I think that brings brings it to kind of an interesting point in the conversation where we're going to get into v O because it's about v O. But it seems like acting itself has changed where there doesn't seem to be the discipline that there once was. There isn't the study of acting as

a craft as much anymore. And it's more I've got talent, it's natural, just hire me to be myself and arsenalitying that more. Do you see that more and more with the generations coming up? Where it's like, which is why it seems like everything we're watching, whether it's television or film, everybody's British because they still study the craft of acting, whereas we're more about being celebrities, they're still about being actors. Yeah.

Acting is the art of communication, right, It's it's communicating, it's telling stories. It's as old as the caveman. It's telling stories and elevating it to an art form. And the more intimate you can make that story, the more personal, the more at risk you can make it for you, the more compelling it is. People can't take their eyes

off of you. If you're risking something, if you're really exposing who you are, if you're really exposing who you are, if you're taking if you're if you're being dangerous, that makes it riveting. People have taken that to mean I'm just going to be myself in whatever role I play, it's about me, rather than taking those personal experiences, those personal emotions, that raw emotion and bringing it to the character. Okay, you know what I mean. Well, don't you think creating

a character? American actors don't do that so much anymore, do you sound Meryl? Does there are certain actors who but for the most part it's the British actress who do that. I really love Jessica Chastain. I think she's isn't she Julie. No, there's a group that does it, but there's also I think one of the things that it shows about, especially the American society right now, is there's kind of a pervasive narcissism kind of that is, you know, it's about everything's about me. It's all about me.

Whether it is I call it a narcissistic purgatory, well, there you go, but it is so when you're making everything about you, then the idea that you don't want to watch me is so strange. It's alien. Why would you not want to watch me just being me? So I don't have to study or do anything because just me is so amazing And I think you don't see

that in some of the foreign actors. Um Now the question becomes, then bringing it back to what we do here, the question becomes, how do you get that same level of vulnerability that you've talked about that you need to really kind of established to make something compelling When all you have to work with is your voice. I find it easier when all you have to work with is your voice, because you don't have to accommodate the camera, you know what I mean. You don't have that whole

crew standing around you off off camera. You don't have the boom man and the lighting guy and the makeup person and the camera coming in. Well, it's you and the microphone. So it's more intimate. It's so intimate. It's it's more of an internal dialogue that that I have with the character. So in a booth, I can really let go, whereas on camera there's so much more that you have to accommodate. I love that choice of words. Yeah, So I find it very liberating. I find a sound

a sound room to be really liberating. It is a very peaceful place. It is. It's but it's so strange because one of the best overall scenes I've ever seen done in a recording room. You and I were doing the film Batman Beyond Return of the Joker, which was a wonderful film, and I'm sitting in between you and Mark Hamill for a week. I just sat there, going, just keep your mouth shut or you're gonna get fired because you don't belong here. And you never looked at

each other because you can't. You're staring at the microphone. And yet the scene between you and Mark where he's being so familiar with her head, oh batsy and just being so hybrus and it's so unbelievable. And then you know, I've you ever seen Mark Camill work. For everybody out there who hasn't, he's devouring the microphone, he's an inch away, and he's just so passionate, shakes like a shakes Barian actor,

he spits a lot. And then there's you who's taken this character that is now in his late eighties at this point, so you're trying to have that same kind of verve that you had when the first time the Joker and Batman faced off, but it's not there anymore. So there's that sense of the aged as well, and the two of you together, and I just sat back

just going, I don't this, I don't belong here. So there's that sense of it's still being a stage play in voiceover that sometimes you don't get in television or on film. And it's so strange because in some ways you're so much more disconnected from your fellow actor and that you're not making eye contact, and yet just through the microphone there is that familiarity. It's so strange. I don't I don't even know how to describe it. It's

just so odd. It is interesting because you're you're living through your voice and you're creating the character, and you're creating the drama, and you're creating, uh, the tension, and the other actor is doing the same thing. But you're not even looking at each other, and there's this intimacy that develops, and it's only through the voice. It's really fascinating. It's so strange when you see we're gonna get into the fact that you are the only correct answer to

who's the best Batman? We're going to get into that to everybody, it's true, but just to you and to me, if you and no, no, no, I'm saying who's the best Batman? I always say he is or I am. That's is the only answer to those things. Um, I thought it was you, Now I think it's No. It's always it. He's the only correct. When you look at especially a Bruce tim drawing of Batman or Bruce Wayne, do you see yourself some hard hitting questions, No, you

don't really see myself you don't I really see the character. Okay, there's not a little bit of Kevin in there now, I don't know. Maybe the jaw. So then that's one of my questions. Let's we were do you see yourself? And Ron? Yes, you do? I do? I do? When I if, I if because it's funny. It's one of the ways that I know I'm not doing the character properly is if I can see the drawing or watch

the show and I don't see myself. Okay. There's been several characters I've done where I'm like, I'm not hitting it because when I see it, I don't see me. I know what you mean. Certain things where I can see myself. Ron is one of them. Terry more than Batman was one of them. But like when I did Guardians of the Galaxy the first episodes, my register was too high for the animation and I didn't see myself in the character, and it was weird. It was off

putting to me. But going back to Connecticut, Oh, yes, this thing I want to bring you to your childhood. Oh yes, that's to well. No, for one specific reason, did you watch any animation, any cartoon. It wasn't even animation to us. So it was just cartoons growing up. I had never well, there wasn't a Batman cartoon. There was Batman comics though. Comics, yea, I watched the Jetsons, I mean all the stuff from the sixties. Sure, that was what I want. But were you a cartoon fan.

We were allowed a certain amount of TV. It was a pretty strict house. But um, but yeah, I watched the flint Stones and the Jetsons and but I had no exposure to comic books. We didn't have comic books. When when I went into audition for for Batman, Bruce Tim said, what's your knowledge of Batman? And I said, well, I know the Adam West Show. And he said, no, no, no, that's not what we're doing. He said, we love Adam,

but that's not what we're doing. He said, didn't you every comic books when you're a kid, the Batman's I said, well, no, I didn't. We didn't have comic books. He said, what kind of childhood did you have? Oh man, that too. So you can hear what I'm saying. You can you can hear. And so he is the one who introduced me. He said, well, it's you know, his parents were murdered in front of him as a child, and in Crime Alley, he's spent his life avenging their deaths. He's become this

dual personality. He's a public face and a private face, and he's, uh, you know, he's he's living too avenged and to to bring justice to the world. And I said, well, you're telling your kind of telling the Hamlet story again, it's very similar. And he said, well, no one's made that analogy. So I said, well, let me just use my imagination, and so I just put myself in that scene in Crimes in Crime Alley. Had you already been

in the voiceover world or the animation? Okay, this is the first edition I ever went in on for a voice over. And you were a little reluctant. Were you reluctant? Well, I I rectant. Well, because actors, you know what it's like. You go on twenty auditions and you don't get them, so you could become kind of casual about them. You think I really want to go to this one today? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

I don't really want to go to this Well. Also, I'm going to speak to the fact that I had done a lot of indie I had done like this really high art Broadway show and we were paid off to go like to my my mom and I went to pilot season with the money because we closed early, right, and I ended up working getting a Disney job, and that was it. I just work work, work for Disney for my whole teen years. But prior to that, I didn't. I did a Woody Allen movie. I did a lot

of more like indie New York stuff. And so actually I'm going to mention her name, but because she knows, it's okay now. But it's just a chek who is an amazing voice actress. And she was a good friend of mine and is still and I love her so much. And she was like, yere, you want to work for Disney. And I was like, I was like, yeah, why not? She said, okay, you know, and I was that's my guest, Okay, it's okay, it's I haven't okay to chic On on

a good day. But yeah, I remember having to make that choice and that leap into the unknown of something that was sort of wildly different than the training and experience that I had, you know, on the East Coast and the whole thing. Yeah, I was totally going to blow it off because I thought, there's no way this is going to happen. Why am I bothering to go this ninety one? It was nine okay, because we're an

into production. I was going to blow it off because I thought, you know, this is this is this is gonna be a complete waste of time. Put my energy into preparing the audition for tomorrow, that is for a pilot or something, you know what I mean? Yeah, sure, I think else, you know, I'll just go what's the worst that can happen. I can make a fool of myself, big deal. So it was a totally random audition that I did not think was going to lead to anything.

But then as I started putting my imagination into the character in the booth and putting myself into that that that boy in that alley and what would happen to him and how he would compensate in life, and then I just my voice went to this place and this I started using this sound that I had never used before. It just came out, and they hired me on the spot. That's exactly what we want. Of course, of course that's

what I mean. But it was totally improvised on the spot. No, no, yeah, no, I mean to the point where I remember my dad. We were doing Beyond at the time, and something had happened where we were in New York. My father and I and you were in New York at the time, and we were waiting in the room to record something, and you were walking down the hallway and you said hello to somebody and you said in your voice, like, hey, Jack, how you doing? And my dad went, who is that?

Because that voice? You have that voice, and it was like that, that's Kevin, that's Kevin. So again we've talked about this first audition ever for voiceover is Batman. It is completely Shakespearean when you actually think about the Batman character is totally Shakespearean characters. He has no superpowers, he can't fly, he can't see through walls. He's a tragic hero. He is Arresties, he is Achilles, he is Edgar in lear.

I mean, he's so many of the roles that I had played, and so I just approached it that way. So now I rewatched on literally on Sunday on the plane home. I was just in Connecticut and I'm flying home. It was negative eight thousand degrees Um. Batman the animated series was just is now on all the day, and I was like, I'm starting over, and I went right to the pilot and the first line of the first episode of the first Batman series is what was that?

And wasn't that you two helicopter? That was was the coolest thing. That was the coolest thing in the world. So h I'm watching. And obviously the animation has changed from that first episode quite a bit, the stories instantly compelling and now getting back into the world of v O. Batman. The animated series changed the whole ballgame for animation all the way around, from the way they recorded it to the way they animated it, to the way they produced it, to the way it was it was promoted, to the

way it was scored full symphony score. It was. They threw money at that show, which still show. It still shows. It's why it still looks so rich and so fresh and compelling, and young people still get turned onto it. I get approached the comic cons all the time by people, Oh I just started watching it. So cool. His fans too, it isn't They all go, oh man, you're here as Kevin Um And I'm like, hey, thanks, he's over there in the line, or I will get this a lot.

This is the best one. Like I love Batman Beyond. Can you sign this for me please? Like yeah, like it's really great that you came over there, Like yeah, Kevin's line was too long. I get that a lot too. Kevin's lines too long? Like, well, it's nice to me. Did you do voices at all growing up? Did you did you do voices of your own things that you read or or have imaginary friends that you spoke to in different voices, any of that stuff. I had imaginary friends. Okay,

sounds so weird. Have you seen the title of the ship? You're in a safe space? Come on, now we have I actually grew up in Long Island. We moved to Westport when I was about eleven, and when I was it was a very working class community and there were a couple of trees in the backyard dogwood trees, and when the leaves fell, I would get very, very very upset, and my mother caught me outside on a chair with

tape putting the leaves back on the tree. That was the kind of affection that I had to these trees. I was trying to heal them as I couldn't hear how what's going on? And then she watched me and she saw me starting to talk and then stop and listen. And I was having a conversation with the tree with the trees. That's amazing. So my first imaginary friends were the two trees in the backyard. Do you remember what

the conversation. I don't know what their names were, or you know, I don't know the personas that I put into them. She said I would go out and have dialogue. She said she'd watch me, and she thought, I hope there's nothing wrong with this child. I think that's amazing. So you gave boys, you voiced, gave voices to the earth essentially, but it was the loss of the leaves that that moved me emotionally to them. Then I developed

this relationship with them. Those are my first voices. That's beautiful. Do you still love trees? Oh? I'm a real outdoor person. You are being outside. So I was trying to think you might have thought of this already, because I can't of literally other than maybe a talk show host, any other actor in history who has played a role as long as you have. And I can't think of anyone. You've been Batman now in many iterations for thirty years?

Have have the Simpsons been on longer? Maybe? Maybe? Okay, so then they might have voice actors, they might have may be essentially but you right, it's up there. But you'd be one of a handful of actors in history that have played a single character for as long as you have. And what a character to play, you think, I mean, so rich, there's so much always defined there. You never get tired of playing him. Oh that's wonderful

to hear. Oh you don't. It's just he's so damaged. Yeah, and that's what it compels people to him, because we're all damaged, and people read that into Batman. They relate that to Batman. It's his humanity, it's his flaws. That's what attracts people. They really are. People think of the heroic and the bigger I am, and they think of that as Batman. But it's really the flaws in him,

I think that really draw people in. It's also what's recurring in any iteration of Batman, even live action that we're seeing, like with the Robert Pattinson one that's recently coming in, Like everyone's their own Batman, but they're all damaged and that's what anchors their performance. But then there's there's also something very interesting. I remember Bruce tim saying something to me that was we were talking about just the character Batman in general, and the thing that he

told me that it was very interesting. As you said, bat there always needs to be a Batman for everyone. So he said, when the movies got very dark, the cartoons, the animated series got very light, so it was like Braven the Bold came out and you saw it was more of a comedy side of Batman because the film's got very dark. And then he said, when the film's got very like like like the Schwarzenegger ones, we were

doing Beyond and Batman the animated series. So he said, Batman always needs to exist for everybody, so a five year old can find their Batman and a year old can find their Batman. And I thought there was something very interesting about that as well, where it's just that character that has so many levels where we both know Dietrich bad very well, who came and sat down in front of the microphone and did it completely different, I mean, such a different Batman than than you you ever did.

And one wasn't better or worse. There were just different, just different Batman Adam West, who was you know, God rest him? We were I know you knew Adam West pretty well, right, Yeah, it was a funny scene. Lived in Utah and I had been at some comic con and I was changing planes at Salt Lake City Airport and Adam was waiting for a plane. That's all like they airport. We saw each other and I was like Adam,

and he went Kevin. So we sat down and we're talking to each other and people started noticing that's Batman and Batman. So all the camera phones came out and people started taking pictures. There was a Batman convention at Salt Lake Airport. But I mean that because again, two completely different versions, wildly unbelievable, so strange. Yeah, he's a really nice, really nice man. He wasn't very nice. So then you don't ever feel territorial over Batman as a whole,

do you know? Not at all? It's a you don't get to own the character. You get to sort of rent him for a while, You get to inhabit him for a while, um, and then someone else comes. You know, you don't have been pretty close to owning the camera, love doing it, I love well yeah, but I mean and I have a wonderful relationship with the audience and the fans through the character. But all of us other Batman are pretty much playing for a second. I think we all know that. Oh my gosh, that takes such

like but it's true. I mean, but it's true. It's there's there's times where you just go, I mean again. People always ask me, all right, Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, who's your Batman? And I always Kevin Conroy's Batman. Like you know, anybody who's in conect who knows anything about animation or any or this world or is truly a

Batman fan. This is how I look at it, because you get a lot of people that are Batman fan fans when it comes to like the films, like but truly and all around Batman fan when you're reading the comic book, whose voices in your head? Kevin's voices in your head? And I think, don't you hear that from most of the fans that say there, when I read anything,

when I do anything, it's your voice. Well, I hear that from the fans because they're talking to me and They're not going to come to me and say, oh I hear you know you to me and say I hear Kevin Conroy, You're pretty good. But I hear Kevin Connor. Maybe they know how much you love him. This is like I think it's I mean, of course, what we've talked about that any times to where the you know, the Bruce and Terry relationship was was kind of similar

to yours and mind it was to actually doing the show. Um, but it was so funny you mentioned the Simpsons. Okay, so I couldn't think of another actor that has played a single role owned a role for thirty years. Yeah, unusual, Yeah, epic, I think, Yeah, it's epic. So we are going to get into and then the Games came along. Well okay, so that's what actually games, we were just going to jumpe just amazing. Now, how is that difference in recording? That's what I want to know. How please, It's like

it's like root Canal. It is so different because you know that when you do a recording in the studio with the other actors, especially for Warner Brothers, everybody's there together and it's like doing a radio play. Yeah, you're all interacting you. You have the other actor feeding you. You have Mark Hamill feeding you a line. I mean, how can you not feed well in response? You know what I mean? He just brings it out of you.

But when you go into do games, everything's got to be on its own track because of the way the games are played, everything is on their own algorithm, you know. So they can't do people together, so everything is isolated. So you're in a room alone, a soundproof room, and you're creating the situation of the character, the character, the what what does he want? What is he after? What's

just happened? Where are you going? And then keeping the voice alive, line by line by line by line by line, and they do them all at one line at a time, so it's totally different. Hundreds of cues, thousands of cues, thirty seven thousand lines come on in Arkham Night, the third of the Arkham series, thirty seven thousand lines, because depending on how the game's play, take thousands of different things. There two years, four hours at a time alone in

a booth. You come out and you're just sweating, and then they give you an hour for lunch, and then you go in four hours more and you're just keeping just keeping the drama alive in your head and keeping it straight. What's happened to him? Now? Where is he going? Did he just get in a fight? Is he? You know? All that stuff you're keeping alive in your own head, and it's it's exhausting. By the end of the day,

you're just depleted. You're depleted and you're exhausted. And then they do that for about a week and then you get a few weeks off while they're writing more stuff than they bring you in for another week. What's really tough work? People, I think assume that just because you're talking into a microphone that it's not a hard work. Yeah, you always hear that. Well, you're a voice over, you can come in your pajamas. It's like, yeah, that's somebody

who's never actually done the work. The building games is really hard work? Is there? When you prefer act from an acting standpoint? Arkham Knight, the third of the Arkham trilogy, I think is that one with the thirty seven thousand because the end of it, I don't want to I'm not going to give away share. But Batman goes through this this transition, this this this Catharsis that is was

so challenging as an actor to do. You know, you like to be challenged by things like that, and I was so proud of the way it it came out. I was really really happy with that one. So I don't think I've ever asked you this and you can't say me, because it's obviously the answer you would give, being that it's our podcast and you can't say you. Who's your favorite Batman? Oh man, I'm not sure if ever, I can't say you can't. You can't say you, and you can't you can't see me either? Course would who

would I? But I I thought it was really crazy for Warner Brothers not to give the franchise to one person, the on camera franchise, because traditionally that's what always happened. You know, you have one person play a character, do you know, like a James Bond, kind of like James Bonner or Peter Sellers, you know, Clusseau, and there'll be certain you know, the character would just do that franchise.

So when Michael Keaton did the first of the Batman movies, I thought, well, he's nailed it, He's got it, and he's going to get the whole franchise because I love him as an actor. He's a brilliant, such an amazing Yeah, he's one of my favorites ever really, and so I think it's impossible to pick one because they're all so different. When I started seeing the different characters, I mean, Ben Affleck is fantastic. He's fantastic and good. It was the

best part of Batman Versus Superman. Christian Bale is a little sketchy with his Batman voice, but as Bruce Wayne great, Bruce Wayne phenomenal, Bruayne phenomenal. So everybody brings something different than it's I realized after a while why they did that. It makes it makes it so interesting to see what different actors bring. But to be honest, Michael Keaton, I

thing I had to pick one down would now? Don't you think that Batman the animated series is partially responsible for actors realizing that Batman and Bruce Wayne are two different characters. Well certainly that they should have two different voices and two different personas. That hadn't been done before. And I asked Bruce if I could do that, because I said, wait a minute, because I was so new to all this I said, he's he's the richest man

in Gotham. He's the most desirable bachelor. He owns half the city and he puts on a mask and no one knows it's him. I said, seriously, that's that's stretching credulity. That's to a ridiculous point. I said, can I, you know, change the voice up a little bit, And so we decided my my image was of a playboy sophisticated, almost a David Niven kind of character. That's what I was visualizing. And it just was a lighter register of my own voice. It was just slightly lighter and a little more. I

used a lot of irony, a lot of humor. I went a lot for the humor, but you definitely it was it was Batman and Bruce Wayne were two different people, and that was never I don't think that had ever really been done before, explored to that extent as it had in Batman the Animals. They decided over time to have me tone it down because when the artwork came back, the show was so dark. It was all painted on black.

It was the first time the show had been painted on a black so it was very dark, and that's the music was so dramatic and the stories were so complicated. They said, you know, when you go to that light, ironic voice, it's it's a little too jarring. So they had to tone it down. They liked the distinction, but they just wanted it less less. So so actually I'm

back and re recorded the first few episodes. Really, there is quite a harmony involved in the like you're saying this, the music mixed with the actual animation to the voices. It kind of is all synergistic. Really, like if the characters that he and I were blessed to play, our

characters were Kim and Ron. We kind of massaged it over the first season of Trying to Find so that you know, when we you've mentioned that, like sometimes if you watch some of your work, you're like, oh, I didn't do that right, I'm taking I'm taking myself out

of that character. It's not blending well, like he can't see himself in that character, and it's true, and it's it's just it's one of those things where I don't know I always thought about because the exact opposite thing happened to me when I was doing Beyond, where they pulled back my gravel, where Andrea would constantly say, you're getting too gravelly into our should stay to piraty with the with the Batman voice, because with Terry it was as a seventeen year old kid when he went and

put on the cowl, going hey stop, no, nobody was going to be afraid of him. So it was interesting that we mirrored ourselves in that aspect as well, where they pulled you back from the higher register and they pulled me back from the lower register, which I thought was was kind of fun. But again, I think anybody who knows animation and or like's animation knows that Batman

the animated series changed the whole ballgame. Oh definitely. I I lived through that too as a as a viewer, so I completely came became It was no longer a cartoon, it was an animated It was a movement and that was huge. Yeah, that's really interesting. The actors they brought him, everything about this show was extraordinary. I mean, going in

every week was like an acting lesson. The people I got to work with, Mark Hamill, Roddy McDowell from Zimbilis Jr. Stacy Keach, I saw Stacy keach Is Hamlet when I was in high school. I mean, I had always admired his work. And that's Andrea, and that's all these different actors, and she went way outside the traditional pool of voice actors. She brought them into. I was gonna say, what was the traditional reach of actors then people off of certain

types of that's a good question. What was the voiceover actor? Well, Andrea always referred to a lot of it as pukey. Do you remember that with with like, well, there were some it would be, but the acting itself, not necessarily the act It was overly saccharin and overly cartoony. Was

the term, don't be cartoon? Yeah, because you know, like when she would always say that when somebody would come in and they it was always newscasters, a newscaster would come in with it with something and they'd go, you know, and this just in in Gotham and she go, no, no, no, no, no, like you're a newscaster, say it just like you. And I remember sitting there going like, oh, that's what she means by pukey, Like, don't do it cartoon like it was?

And she was always had that doubt. Uki, that's so interesting, and I think that it was real is. It was the word I would use for Batman the animated series. It was real. She brought an actors to acts. So if there was any voice character that you would want to do, I'm doing it again. Something else besides Batman to do? Who would you do? Betty? Oh? Have his laugh? I don't have his laugh? I think an episode I

have his sinister Yeah, yes, I could see that. I've done actually a voice for a new animated show that hasn't been I don't know what's happening with it. But he's very sinister and it's really fun. It's good to play a villain after all these years. I am also officially advocating for somebody to write an episode where Mark Hamill and Kevin Connray get to switch roles for one for one episode. Oh they did that with Keep Remember

we did the body switch switch. I want to see Mark Hamill is Batman and Kevin Connery is a joker. I think that would be very very cool. His laugh is just otherworldly. I mean it's just incredible. Well that was, but that was the thing is so many people saw Star Wars and kind of went, oh, Mark Camill cute. Well that's what I knew of him from and then, but his actual acting, he's a he's a character actor

and a ridiculous slee good one. He's not a young leading man, which is what he was pigeoned hold into because he was such a good looking god had haircut, but my really good looking god. Oh he is such as really a character actor. He's crazy and not only crazy, but insanely talented. It's just watching that, all right. So we've come to a portion of our podcast here that um makes us a little different than all the other

podcasts out there. So while we're just starting, it's not fully interactive yet, but eventually we are going to be fully interactive, and kids, young adults, and even some adults are going to get to skype in, come in talk to their favorite voice over actors. But more importantly, artists are going to send in pictures and have some of their favorite voice over actors add voices to their character.

So we have a stack here, oh that was sent But to completely put you on the spot, we've had for our first couple episodes, we've had some kids, some adults send in some pictures. Put you on the spot, isn't it? This is the joys in the muscles, and we would like would you like us to pick or would you like to pick? Here we go? Here we go? Is he picking at random? It's up to you. Okay, Oh that's beautiful. Some great artists and some inspiring artists. Certainly,

it's kind of cool. These are fun. Again, imagine being a little kid and getting Kevin Conroy to put a voice to the character you've drawn. These are fun. These are fun. Okay, I grabbed a couple. You grabbed that's awesome. Okay, So this first one is a beautiful fish with it almost looks like a very disnified fish. It's a beautiful fishes. Uh is this from Sam? Who did our logo? Here? Sam? This is a beautiful fish. Beautiful beautiful fish. And Kevin

Connray grabbed your fish right out of the stack. So okay, Kevin, you're you see that you're an audition comes in front of you. We want Kevin Conroy to read for the part of Sam the fish. This is my butterfly, and this is my favorite butterfly. This is my pet butterfly. I'm caressing my butterfly because fish love butterflies. That's a great voice. That's a great voice for Sam. The fish. And here we have a cat who's also from Sam Portly.

He's partly that very Portly cat. This is King pussy Cat, King pussy Cat, and I am Emperor for the Day for the day. There you go, look at that sale. Kevin Conroy just put voices to two of your characters. We got them both up there. We do. We have this one now too, So King pussy Cat and what was the fishy name? Sam? Well? I really I think I like Sam. I really like Sama Butterfly. So, Kevin, what's next? What's what's next for you? Down the line? Um?

This thing I just started doing that. I'm you never know what you can talk about something awesome coming out. It's by an Australian creator, Aborigine, right cool, which is really interesting. Yeah. And then there was another one that I did a couple of episodes of that. These are things that are waiting to be picked up. I never know what I'm allowed to say the names yet, on the side of caution and just say you've got some really cool stuff coming out, right Yeah, But then it

sounds like you're just an actor. Line to make it sound like you're working. I do that all the time. I do that all the time. I've got amazing things coming out. I don't know which one to pick. I was. You know when you do the the upfronts for the networks, when you're doing a TV show, and so they bring in to New York and you meet all the advertisers

or anything. And I was doing one for a show that I was on with an actor and I was doing interviews with him and he said, he's literally said during the interview, I had a pile of script this high and I picked this one off the top, and I said, you know, this is a show I want to do. And I was thinking, what a load. This guy was so excited to get that job. And he's saying, I had a lying Actors just act. They just act actors acting. Oh gosh, that's actors being act That's the

way it is. That should be a podcasting. It's just a whole bunch of whispering into the camera about so where did you find your motivation? That's an r exactly, exactly, Welcome to NPR. Actors on unctive. So again, we've now got Batman for thirty somebody years. Batman ain't going anywhere. You're constantly being cast as Batman, Because you're Batman, Where do you what would you like to see from the

Batman character that maybe you haven't done yet? Is there any part of this character in thirty years that has not been explored that you'd like to see? They've explored so much. I love it when his identity gets challenged. Those are scripts that I really get excited by. There was one called Perchance to Dream where he gets drugged and he goes back into his childhood. And so I was Bruce Wayne, I was Batman, I was drugged to Batman, then I was adolescent Bruce Wayne, and I was Thomas Wayne,

the father. So he did five voices in that in that show that all have to be believably connected but distinct, But those kind of because it's the psychology of the character that makes him so interesting. Yeah, So any of the ones that challenge that I love, Like at the end of Arkham Knight, Yeah, the game, that's what happens to him. He gets his identity gets challenged. So I I love it when that happens. It does it seems like kind of the toughest fights ever for Batman are

really the fights Bruce Wayne has to do against himself. Yeah, yeah, which is kind of the cool thing I ever wonder. I have a great big collection of cells. I've been collecting them all the time i've been doing the show. So I've got like sixty or seventies cells, and one of them is Batman struggling with Bruce Wayne. Oh that's that's that's very cool that you know. I've got to ask, do you sign your own seals make worth more? Yes? Yeah, of course, of course you have to do the same thing.

It's like, this is the greatest thing. I'm gonna hang it on my wall to I started collecting other ones like Looney Tune and Hanna Barbera and You're still talking Andrea Romano Barbara. It's like the original n F T. Yeah. I got a lot of pinky in the brain. I've got a Carrot Blanca. Come on, it's a classic. It's a Looney Tunes where Bugs Bunny plays. Um, it's Sam yeah from Casablanca. It's it's a spoof Casan but he's

a carrot right. Oh, okay, he's did. I'm thinking of THEA went to the Carrot one and Tweety Bird is Sydney Green Street. They're incredible. They're great cells and it's a classic. So I've got some great cells. Is that your nerd um? Like if you if you pick a nerd um? Is it kind of animation history? It's becoming so I knew nothing about it when I got into it. Mark is the maven about animation history. He can tell you the episode number of the Obscure show and what

color the cape, what you know? I mean, he knows everything about animation. It's amazing. Well you can tell you can see it in his passion. But you I mean again, I got to it was honored enough to sit next to you for many years at the microphone and to see the passion is honestly I've I've honored that you were here today. Thank you so much much, Thank you, Thank you. This is, by the way, second this has been recorded. No, I don't think this is a rehearsal.

We're gonna we're gonna shoot rehearsal, but decided against it. We are going to be doing it. You know, we're gonna do it live next time. Yes, no, God, thank you so much for coming in. You were by far one of my favorite people in the world. Your mind too, now I've adopted you too. Yeah, well, nobody has helped me more. No, No, he's my mentor. Don't you don't get to Yankees to stick together? That's true, Connecticut together

because it's important. So Milford Westport, Avon representing. Um okay, So Kevin, you know well, I mean in the con world, you kind of sometimes don't know where you're going until you land. So I'm going to Dubai. Goodness, but that's in like three weeks. Have you been there before? That's going to be a fun trip. Crazy, That's gonna be a fun trip. I'm going to Wales with me. I'll see you there. Yeah. And I've got I've got a bunch of them lined up domestically and I just don't remember.

Well what's where on Twitter? Um real Kevin Conroy? Okay, so please check out the site. You're also on cameo too, and I'm like cameo, I do cameo, So make sure that to hit hit Kevin up on cameo as well. Cameo experience has been fascinating. How's that much more fan interactive than I than I thought? And interesting over the last two years how it's changed during the pandemic, isn't it My cameos went from um, happy birthday, happy graduation,

happy anniversary, and and they gradually started morphing into hanging there. Yeah, you know, you're not alone. We're in this together. It's it's dramatic change and people just need that. And that's why it's so important. People are reaching out to each other so much more now because we've all been so isolated. Um. So it's been a really extraordinary experience and kind of a privilege to provide a service like that during this period. But there are a lot of them, a lot of

them like that. Yeah, but that's good though, So we can if you want, if you want something personalized from Kevin, hit him up on cameo and then uh, come to a convention and you'll find him real Kevin Conroy, real Kevin Conroy. You may have to wait a little bit for what. Yeah, exactly, you're gonna have to say, bring a sandwich, Bring a sandwich, because it's gonna be or just come see me in the meantime, because that's what Kevin's line was. Too long, You hear that quite a bit.

Kevin Conroy, Thank thanks so much again, including the lovely answer to who's the best Batman? Kevin Conroy, I am Vengeance, I am the Night, I am Batman. Cannot end on anything better than that, Thanks everybody. I Hear Voices assosted by Wilfrid L and Gristi Garls and Romano, produced by Elizabeth Joy Windham and executive produced by Brendan Rooney and Wilfred L. Our sound engineer and editor is Elizabeth Joy Windham and our video editor is at Guardo Gamba and

that was my announcer voice. Some side effects of listening to I Hear Voices are sore abs from larity falling down the Coco melon rabbit hole, sneezing due to mass nostalgia, and hugs. Follow I Hear Voices where every you listen to podcasts, you don't miss any of the amazing voices. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at I Hear Voices podcast. To see the video stream, subscribe to my YouTube channel. You can also check us out

on my Space. O'meigal Vine, lime Wire A am a napster. Okay, well let's teach you about the the what