November 18, 2022 • 59 mins
We recently lost one of the all-time greats. Not just as a voice actor but as a person. Kevin Conroy was Batman for over 30 years, and now leaves behind a legacy even greater than the hero he voiced.
Please join us for a very special episode of IHV as we revisit Kevin’s time on the show, accompanied by an emotional tribute from Will as he remembers his mentor and the incredible person that Kevin was to all.
With the loss of such a powerful voice, the words are especially hard to find.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, everybody, it's will here. As many, if not all,
of you know by now, my friend and v O
mentor Kevin Conroy sadly passed away last week. Kevin was
an incredible talent and an even better human being. I
don't know if there will ever be a character so
identified with an actor, or an actor so identified with
the character as Kevin was with Batman. Kevin is Batman.
(00:28):
When Christie and I started I Hear Voices, we put
together a list of the actors we wanted to talk
to to capture these incredible stories, and Kevin was right
at the top, Being the man he was. He said simply,
when and where do you need me? Thank you, Kevin,
Thank you for taking this naive nineteen year old actor
under your wing, for teaching him how to address a microphone,
(00:50):
how to roll his shoulders back, how to open his diaphragm,
and how to turn his pages without making any noise.
I would not be the person or the actor that
I am if I didn't know you, and I will
think about you every time I'm in a booth. Rest well,
my friend. I love you and I will miss you
(01:11):
every day. Everyone, the great Kevin Conroy. If you want
to see people go insane at a convention, Kevin, we
will be sitting on a panel and Kevin Conroy will
start to sing I feel blue, ah my blue, Am
(01:33):
I blue? That there was a time was the only
one now no sad and lonely one lonely and so
(01:56):
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
(02:19):
sitting here with love that will of course it's Bill
loves you so much. He's mentioned 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
(02:41):
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, Glennmarrakami,
all these incredible people involved. Uh, And You're sitting there
(03:03):
going what am I going to do? And I'm sitting
next to Kevin Conroy, who had Man 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?
(03:24):
How 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 casts together, so you're not working in a vacuum.
You're working it's like recording a play. So all these
(03:46):
other people were 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 take has to be done again. Do you have
any memories of anybody ruining a take that was like,
(04:06):
really some of your best work kind of thing. Has
anyone ruined your exactly? Christ Like, who do you hate?
Let's get 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
(04:27):
making any noise. But you taught me. Someone just gotta
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
(04:48):
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 nice ones are generous ones and
selfish one. Yeah, there are people you want to work with,
(05:10):
and they are 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 what 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, opened, giving, generous.
(05:36):
You know. I should have known because Andrea Romano, who
cast the show, she's my sister. By the way, I
wish I still haven't better. My last name is Romano. Yes,
and what if you're related? Sometime I kind of do
I think I've actually mess Romano? Good question. I want
to I want to work with all these wonderful women.
A voice is another batman. It's a Reno as a man. Yes,
(06:00):
nice that it was a woman. I'm sorry 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 attitude. Yeah, well
(06:22):
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 luck. 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.
(06:42):
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
(07:05):
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 strangeness 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. I was
a New York actor much like you're Juilliard trained as well.
(07:29):
You know, they rejected me classics. Okay, so I were
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 a 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
(07:52):
went to a 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
(08:15):
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? Well, it can be many things.
There's the pre college prep programs. You can do what
you did the four years? Did four you? I was seventeen,
I'd left high school early. I was the youngest one
(08:36):
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 we're honest, Oh, come on,
forget about forget about how you're still a hugely attractive man.
Show me pictures of self back in the day. I
(08:57):
think he's dashing. It was like, it was incredible. I mean, you're,
let's be honest, prettydamn good looking. At God, I'm coming
back here 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
(09:17):
get a b f A, which involved doing academics on
the side. Oh where did you do the academy on
the fourth floor. Oh, so through Juilliard, and they had
special teachers who would come in and they'd be you know,
you're you're dealing with people in essay, Basic American Opera Center.
I mean, all these incredibly you know, stars of their
(09:38):
generation with dance and singing and acting, you know Kevin
Klein's and your angular but 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
(10:01):
classes were such an afterthought. They were kind of a joke. Yeah,
I understandably that everyone went to just to you know,
get the basic training something. If you get a the
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 class a job. For
(10:24):
each one of those classes you have to perform. It's
all performance based, so you're doing a French mass class,
and I know a fense. 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.
(10:45):
It's a British, wonderful stage fighting. But Pierre Lefever taught
me French mass. 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?
(11:06):
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 criticism. But then in poetry class you're doing
(11:28):
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 Julliard,
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
(11:50):
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 application of what you've learned.
(12:11):
But the thought of swimming in the deep pool at
the age of eighteen nineteen, sure, 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 the connector? 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 Connecticut?
(12:34):
Are you from Connecticut? Of course I'm from Say I
was doing I was doing Hartford. I'm from I was
born in Hartford. I'm from from a town in Avon,
and you are from Milford. Where are you from? West Pole?
Fancy guy? Three kids. Now, for anybody doesn't know Connecticut,
we are from three different sides of Connecticut and that's
still a half hour away from each other. Um, what
(12:57):
what kind of Connecticut's are we all from? What kind
of Conecticut is Avon? Or was it Avon, Connecticut? As
exactly as it sounds, it was? It was. 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,
(13:18):
but that's what it was like. So it was what
you would expect a place that sounds like Avon, Connecticut.
It would be Avon Country 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 wasn't 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
(13:39):
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, they go no, you'
don't have red hair, and you go thank you. When
you turn around, you walk out. And at twelve, I
was walking around New York City 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
(14:00):
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 to 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
(14:22):
your first show? Don't just sit there on Nicola. Oh,
of course 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
(14:42):
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 seventy on a bike walking,
how are you doing it? I had a card pushed card.
(15:03):
It was one of those guys on Sixth Avenue you
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 then this and um, so
they would all subscribe to this airline mail service. Basically,
the the mail room was underneath Grand Central, so you'd
(15:25):
come in. I come in on the morning train from
Connecticut a 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. It was all men,
real characters, like a sitcom. And I went to go
to my Juilliard audition from that mail room and they
(15:47):
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 accept and they all
like picked me up in the air and they carried
me out and they got me drunk irish. It was
(16:07):
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 Juilliards, you were
kind of already going into New York. Interesting. I was
going to have to get a scholarship to go, so
I had to save up as much of money as
I could. That's amazing. That's amazing. Now what did you
(16:30):
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 what
would you do? You're both much younger than me. It
was different in the seventies, there was still a theater
that you could make a living in. Really, yeah, I
(16:51):
mean you could train to be a classical actor. I
used to go to the American Shakespeare Festival Stratford, Connectiquet. Yes,
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
(17:13):
exist anymore more. I mean you have to supplement your
income with other things. You have to Yes, sponsored content sponsor.
The section has been brought to you by m X Now, Kevin,
I hate to keep bringing integrating, but I'm just so
impressed by you that I'm trying to, like, like I
(17:33):
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 I was Mary Fagan Original
Mary Fagan and Parade with Jason Robert Brown and Hell
(17:55):
Prince and all that, and I was just the theater kid,
and then Disney kind of plucked me into l A
and then I sort of did. It was a wonderful production.
I was, yes, the one that closed got closed down
from liven 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
(18:18):
I will also say worst choice of my life was
thinking that I could just try to be auditioning for
Romeo and chewing Now. 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 just just bombed. Shakespeare's not for me. I leave
(18:40):
it to Well. I mean, I think that brings brings
it to kind of an interesting point in the conversation.
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 this study of acting as a
(19:01):
craft as much anymore? And it's more I've got talent,
it's natural. Just hire me to be myself and arsonalying
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.
(19:25):
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
(19:47):
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.
(20:09):
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. Yeah, Well, don't you think
creating a character? American actors don't do that so much anymore?
We do does There are certain actors who do, but
for the most part it's the British actors who do that.
(20:30):
I really love Jessica Chastain. I think she's Andy, isn't Okay, Now,
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. Oh kind of that is you know, it's
about everything's about me. It's all about me. Whether it
(20:51):
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
(21:11):
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, okay,
(21:33):
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.
(21:58):
So in a booth, I and 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 peaceful place. It is.
It's but it's so strange because one of the best
(22:18):
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
(22:39):
you and Mark where he's being so familiar with her head,
oh batsy, and just being so high brus and it's
so unbelievable. And then you know, you have 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 Shakesparian actor, sits a lot.
And then there's you, who's taken this character that is
(23:03):
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
(23:25):
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
(23:47):
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. We're going to get into the fact
(24:18):
that you are the only correct answer to who's the
best Batman. We're going to get into you say that
to everybody. It's true, but just to you and to me,
if you and everybody, and no, no, no, I'm saying
who's the best batman? I always say he is or
I am. That's the only answer to those things. Um,
I thought it was you, Now I think it's no
it's always He's the only correct when you look at
(24:41):
especially a Bruce tim drawing of Batman and 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.
There's not a little bit of Kevin in there now,
I don't know. Maybe the jaw. So then that's one
(25:02):
of my questions. Let's we were Do you see yourself
in Ron? Yes? You do? I do? I do? When? 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
(25:24):
when I see it, I don't see me. Yes, 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 because this thing I want
(25:44):
to bring you to your childhood. Yes, well no, for
one specific reason. Did you watch any animation, any cartoons?
There wasn't even animation us, so it's just cartoons growing up.
I had never well, there wasn't a Batman in cartoon.
There was Batman comics though, right, comics. Yeah, I watched
(26:06):
the Jetsons I love, 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
(26:26):
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
(26:48):
did you have? Oh man, you're saying 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
(27:09):
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
(27:31):
voiceover world or the animation? None? Okay, No, this is
the first audition I ever went in on for a voiceover.
And you were a little reluctant. Were you reluctant? Well?
I I well, because actors, you know what it's like.
You go on twenty auditions and you don't get them.
(27:54):
So you could become kind of casual about and you
think I really want to go to this one today. Yeah,
I don't really. 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
(28:15):
working at 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 Chico who was an amazing voice
actress and she was a good friend of mine and
(28:37):
is still and I love her so much. And she
was like, yeah, you want to work for Disney, and
I was like, I was like, yeah, why not. She's okay,
you know, and I was that's my guest and Chico, okay,
it'sn't okay. It's i'ven't okay to Chico on a good day.
But yeah, I remembered having to make that choice and
that leap into the unknown of something that was sort
(29:01):
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 because
we're an into production. I was going to blow it
off because I thought, you know, this is, this is,
(29:21):
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, you know what
I mean? Yeah, sure, And I thought else, you know,
I'll just go what's 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
(29:42):
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
(30:02):
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,
(30:22):
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
(30:45):
is completely Shakespearean. When you actually think about the Batman
character is totally Shakespearean character. He has no superpowers, he
can't fly against see through walls. He's a tragic hero.
He is arresties, he is Achilles, he is Edgar in Le.
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
(31:08):
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? Yeah?
(31:33):
And wasn't that you two helicopter? That was was the
coolest thing. That was the coolest thing in the world.
So 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.
(31:55):
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 a full symphony score. It was
they threw money at that show. Still it still shows.
(32:17):
It's why it still looks so rich and so fresh
and compelling, and young people still get turned onto it.
I get approach the comic cons all the time by people.
Oh I just started watching it. So cool. His fans too,
It isn't me. They all go, oh, man, you're here.
Where's Kevin um? And I'm like, hey, thanks, he's over
there in the line. Or I will get this a lot.
(32:38):
This is the best one. Like I love Batman Beyond.
Can you sign this for me please? I 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
(33:00):
in different voices, any of that stuff. I had imaginary friends?
Sounds weird. Have you seen the title of the ship?
You're in a safe space? Come on, now, we had
I actually grew up on Long Island. We moved to
Westport when I was about eleven, and when I was
(33:21):
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
(33:42):
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 trees. With
the trees. That's amazing. So my first imaginary friends were
(34:06):
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,
(34:26):
essentially great. But it was the loss of the leaves
that that that moved me emotionally to them, and 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 love being outside. So I
(34:47):
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,
(35:16):
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 got. And what a character to play, you think,
I mean, so rich, there's so much always defined there.
(35:38):
You never get tired of playing him. That's wonderful. Oh
you don't. It's just he's so damaged, 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 flaw is that's what attracts people.
(36:01):
They really are. People think of the heroic and the
big and they think of that as Batman, But it's
really the flaws in him I think could 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, and like everyone's their own Batman,
but they're all damaged and that's what anchors their performance.
(36:24):
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.
He 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
(36:44):
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's awesome, and I thought
there was something very interesting about that as well, where
(37:06):
it's just that character that has so many levels where
we both know Dietrich Bader 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.
They were just different, just different Batman. Adam West, who
was you know, God rest him? We were I know
(37:29):
you knew Adam West pretty well, right, Yeah, it was
a funny scene. He 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 City airport. We saw each
other and I was like, Adam an 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
(37:54):
the camera phones came out and people started taking pictures.
There was a Batman convention that salt like a But
I mean, how is that because again too completely different versions, different, unbelievable,
so strange. Yeah, he's a really nice, really nice man.
He wasn't very nice. So then you don't never feel
territorial over Batman as a whole, do you know? Not
(38:18):
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 carecter'st 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
(38:39):
Batman are pretty much playing for a second. We all
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 was like Kevin Conroy's Batman,
Like you know, anybody who's inn sect who knows anything
about animation or any or this world or is truly
(39:01):
a Batman fan. This is how I look at it,
because you get a lot of people that are Batman fans,
fans when it comes to like the films, like but
truly at 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
(39:22):
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 an I think it's I mean, of course, what
we've talked about that many times too, where the you know,
the Bruce and Terry relationship was was kind of similar
to yours in mind who came to actually doing the show? Um,
(39:43):
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 men the Games came along? Well that okay,
so that's actually games we were just going to. Just amazing. Now,
(40:05):
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. You're all interacting. You. You have
(40:25):
the other actor feeding you, you have Mark Hamill feeding
you aligne. 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,
(40:46):
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
(41:09):
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 left, thousands of different things there two years
(41:29):
to 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,
(41:54):
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. That's really
tough work. People, i think assume that just because you're
talking into a microphone that it's not 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
(42:14):
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
(42:39):
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
(43:01):
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. I can't say
you can't. You can't see you and you can't you
can't say me either. Of course you would who. But
(43:31):
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 it, 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
(43:53):
Keaton did the first of the Batman movies, I thought, well,
he's nailed it. He's got it. Yeah, and he's going
to the whole franchise because I love him as an actor.
He's a brilliant 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,
(44:15):
I mean, Ben Affleck is fantastic. He's fantastic and good.
He 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, great Bruce Wayne, phenomenal.
So everybody brings something different than it's I realized after
(44:35):
a while why they did that. It makes it makes
it so interesting to see what different actors bring. Yeah,
But to be honest, Michael Keaton, I think I had
to pick one hand down. 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,
(44:59):
certainly that the 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 hons half the city and
he puts on a mask and no one knows it's him.
(45:20):
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.
(45:41):
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 Animated. They decided over time to
have me tone it down because when the artwork came back.
(46:05):
The show was so dark. It was all painted on black.
It was the first time the show had been painted
on a black wow. 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,
(46:27):
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
with the characters that he and I were blessed to play.
Our characters were Kim and Rock. We kind of massaged
(46:49):
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 my 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
(47:11):
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
(47:33):
interesting that we mirrored ourselves in that aspects 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 or likes animation knows that Batman the
animated series changed the whole ballgame, definitely. I I lived
through that too as a as a viewer, so I
completely came became It was no longer a cartoon, it
(47:56):
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
(48:17):
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 voice
(48:38):
over 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 cartooning? Yeah, because you know,
like when she would always say that when somebody would
(48:59):
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, 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 a
cartoon like it was, And she was always had that doubt. Uki.
That's so interesting and I think that it was real.
(49:21):
Is it was the word I would use for Batman
the animated series. It was real. She brought an actors
to actors. So if there was any voice character that
you would want to do, I'm doing it. It's cantan
something else besides Batman to do. Who would you do Batty? Oh?
(49:49):
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
UM 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 all after all these years. I
am also officially advocating for somebody to write an episode
(50:11):
where Mark Hamill and Kevin Connray get to switch roles
for one for one episode. Oh they did that would
keep remember we did the body switch switch. I want
to see Mark Hamill as 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
(50:33):
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 ridiculously 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 Mike's really good looking. God. Oh, he
(50:55):
is 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
(51:18):
are going to get to skype in, come in talk
to their favorite voiceover 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
(51:40):
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. I put you on the spot,
isn't it. This is the joy the muscles, and we
would like would you like us to pick or would
you like to pick? Yeah? Here we go, Here we go?
(52:04):
Is he picking at random? It's up to you. Okay,
Oh that's beautiful. Some great artists and some inspiring artists.
Certainly 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 right fun. Okay,
(52:30):
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 disneified fish. It's a beautiful fishes. Uh.
This is from Sam, who created 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,
(52:53):
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.
(53:16):
And here we have a cat who's also from Sam Portly.
He's partly that I'm a very portly cat. This is
King pussy Cat, King pussy Cat, and I am Emperor
for the Day, Emperor for the Day. There you go,
look at that sale. Kevin Conroy just put voices to
(53:39):
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? Sam
in the Fish? Well, I really I think I like Sam.
I really like Sam. So, Kevin, what's next? What's what's
next for you? Down a line? Um? This thing I
(54:02):
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 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 of on the side of caution
(54:26):
and just say you've got some really cool stuff coming out, right, Yeah,
but then it sounds like you're just an actor. Lyne
to make it sound like you're working. I do that
all the time, do that all the time. I've got
amazing things coming out. I don't know which one to pick.
I was in you know when you do the the
(54:46):
the upfronts for the networks, when you're doing a TV show,
and so they bring into New York and you meet
all the advertisers and everything. 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
(55:08):
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 lying actors just act They
(55:30):
just act actors acting. Oh gosh, that's the 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
exactly exactly welcome to NPR Actors on a Native So again,
(55:54):
we've now got Batman for thirty some odd 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
(56:18):
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
(56:39):
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 the Game, that's
what happens to him. He gets his identity gets challenged,
So I I love it when that happens, it does.
(57:00):
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
(57:21):
Bruce Wayne. Oh. That's that's cool. Cool, that's very cool that.
You know. I've got to ask, do you sign your
own cells 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
(57:44):
Tunes and Hannah Barbera and you're talking, Andrea Romano Looney
Tunes Barbera, it's like the original n F t Yeah.
I got a lot of a pinky in the brain.
I got a Carrot Blanca, come on a classic. It's
a Looney Tunes where bugs Bunny plays. Um, it's Sam
(58:05):
yeah from CASABLANCT. It's a spoofs a carrot right. Oh, Okay,
he's did. I'm thinking of the reason that 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
(58:26):
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 every
episode number of the Obscure Show and what color the
cape was, you know, I mean, he knows everything about animation.
(58:48):
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'm eart that you were here today.
Thank you so much much. Luck this thank you, thank you.
This is by the way, has been recorded. No, I
(59:10):
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 going to do it live.
Next time. Kevin Conroy, thank you so much again in
the vely answer to who's the best Batman, Kevin Conroy,
I am Vengeance, I am the Knight, I am Batman.
(59:33):
Cannot end on anything better than that. Thanks everybody, connect
together
Hi, everybody, it's will here. As many, if not all,
of you know by now, my friend and v O
mentor Kevin Conroy sadly passed away last week. Kevin was
an incredible talent and an even better human being. I
don't know if there will ever be a character so
identified with an actor, or an actor so identified with
the character as Kevin was with Batman. Kevin is Batman.
(00:28):
When Christie and I started I Hear Voices, we put
together a list of the actors we wanted to talk
to to capture these incredible stories, and Kevin was right
at the top, Being the man he was. He said simply,
when and where do you need me? Thank you, Kevin,
Thank you for taking this naive nineteen year old actor
under your wing, for teaching him how to address a microphone,
(00:50):
how to roll his shoulders back, how to open his diaphragm,
and how to turn his pages without making any noise.
I would not be the person or the actor that
I am if I didn't know you, and I will
think about you every time I'm in a booth. Rest well,
my friend. I love you and I will miss you
(01:11):
every day. Everyone, the great Kevin Conroy. If you want
to see people go insane at a convention, Kevin, we
will be sitting on a panel and Kevin Conroy will
start to sing I feel blue, ah my blue, Am
(01:33):
I blue? That there was a time was the only
one now no sad and lonely one lonely and so
(01:56):
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
(02:19):
sitting here with love that will of course it's Bill
loves you so much. He's mentioned 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
(02:41):
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, Glennmarrakami,
all these incredible people involved. Uh, And You're sitting there
(03:03):
going what am I going to do? And I'm sitting
next to Kevin Conroy, who had Man 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?
(03:24):
How 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 casts together, so you're not working in a vacuum.
You're working it's like recording a play. So all these
(03:46):
other people were 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 take has to be done again. Do you have
any memories of anybody ruining a take that was like,
(04:06):
really some of your best work kind of thing. Has
anyone ruined your exactly? Christ Like, who do you hate?
Let's get 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
(04:27):
making any noise. But you taught me. Someone just gotta
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
(04:48):
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 nice ones are generous ones and
selfish one. Yeah, there are people you want to work with,
(05:10):
and they are 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 what 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, opened, giving, generous.
(05:36):
You know. I should have known because Andrea Romano, who
cast the show, she's my sister. By the way, I
wish I still haven't better. My last name is Romano. Yes,
and what if you're related? Sometime I kind of do
I think I've actually mess Romano? Good question. I want
to I want to work with all these wonderful women.
A voice is another batman. It's a Reno as a man. Yes,
(06:00):
nice that it was a woman. I'm sorry 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 attitude. Yeah, well
(06:22):
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 luck. 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.
(06:42):
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
(07:05):
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 strangeness 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. I was
a New York actor much like you're Juilliard trained as well.
(07:29):
You know, they rejected me classics. Okay, so I were
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 a 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
(07:52):
went to a 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
(08:15):
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? Well, it can be many things.
There's the pre college prep programs. You can do what
you did the four years? Did four you? I was seventeen,
I'd left high school early. I was the youngest one
(08:36):
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 we're honest, Oh, come on,
forget about forget about how you're still a hugely attractive man.
Show me pictures of self back in the day. I
(08:57):
think he's dashing. It was like, it was incredible. I mean, you're,
let's be honest, prettydamn good looking. At God, I'm coming
back here 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
(09:17):
get a b f A, which involved doing academics on
the side. Oh where did you do the academy on
the fourth floor. Oh, so through Juilliard, and they had
special teachers who would come in and they'd be you know,
you're you're dealing with people in essay, Basic American Opera Center.
I mean, all these incredibly you know, stars of their
(09:38):
generation with dance and singing and acting, you know Kevin
Klein's and your angular but 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
(10:01):
classes were such an afterthought. They were kind of a joke. Yeah,
I understandably that everyone went to just to you know,
get the basic training something. If you get a the
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 class a job. For
(10:24):
each one of those classes you have to perform. It's
all performance based, so you're doing a French mass class,
and I know a fense. 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.
(10:45):
It's a British, wonderful stage fighting. But Pierre Lefever taught
me French mass. 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?
(11:06):
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 criticism. But then in poetry class you're doing
(11:28):
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 Julliard,
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
(11:50):
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 application of what you've learned.
(12:11):
But the thought of swimming in the deep pool at
the age of eighteen nineteen, sure, 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 the connector? 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 Connecticut?
(12:34):
Are you from Connecticut? Of course I'm from Say I
was doing I was doing Hartford. I'm from I was
born in Hartford. I'm from from a town in Avon,
and you are from Milford. Where are you from? West Pole?
Fancy guy? Three kids. Now, for anybody doesn't know Connecticut,
we are from three different sides of Connecticut and that's
still a half hour away from each other. Um, what
(12:57):
what kind of Connecticut's are we all from? What kind
of Conecticut is Avon? Or was it Avon, Connecticut? As
exactly as it sounds, it was? It was. 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,
(13:18):
but that's what it was like. So it was what
you would expect a place that sounds like Avon, Connecticut.
It would be Avon Country 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 wasn't 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
(13:39):
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, they go no, you'
don't have red hair, and you go thank you. When
you turn around, you walk out. And at twelve, I
was walking around New York City 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
(14:00):
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 to 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
(14:22):
your first show? Don't just sit there on Nicola. Oh,
of course 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
(14:42):
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 seventy on a bike walking,
how are you doing it? I had a card pushed card.
(15:03):
It was one of those guys on Sixth Avenue you
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 then this and um, so
they would all subscribe to this airline mail service. Basically,
the the mail room was underneath Grand Central, so you'd
(15:25):
come in. I come in on the morning train from
Connecticut a 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. It was all men,
real characters, like a sitcom. And I went to go
to my Juilliard audition from that mail room and they
(15:47):
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 accept and they all
like picked me up in the air and they carried
me out and they got me drunk irish. It was
(16:07):
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 Juilliards, you were
kind of already going into New York. Interesting. I was
going to have to get a scholarship to go, so
I had to save up as much of money as
I could. That's amazing. That's amazing. Now what did you
(16:30):
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 what
would you do? You're both much younger than me. It
was different in the seventies, there was still a theater
that you could make a living in. Really, yeah, I
(16:51):
mean you could train to be a classical actor. I
used to go to the American Shakespeare Festival Stratford, Connectiquet. Yes,
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
(17:13):
exist anymore more. I mean you have to supplement your
income with other things. You have to Yes, sponsored content sponsor.
The section has been brought to you by m X Now, Kevin,
I hate to keep bringing integrating, but I'm just so
impressed by you that I'm trying to, like, like I
(17:33):
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 I was Mary Fagan Original
Mary Fagan and Parade with Jason Robert Brown and Hell
(17:55):
Prince and all that, and I was just the theater kid,
and then Disney kind of plucked me into l A
and then I sort of did. It was a wonderful production.
I was, yes, the one that closed got closed down
from liven 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
(18:18):
I will also say worst choice of my life was
thinking that I could just try to be auditioning for
Romeo and chewing Now. 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 just just bombed. Shakespeare's not for me. I leave
(18:40):
it to Well. I mean, I think that brings brings
it to kind of an interesting point in the conversation.
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 this study of acting as a
(19:01):
craft as much anymore? And it's more I've got talent,
it's natural. Just hire me to be myself and arsonalying
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.
(19:25):
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
(19:47):
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.
(20:09):
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. Yeah, Well, don't you think
creating a character? American actors don't do that so much anymore?
We do does There are certain actors who do, but
for the most part it's the British actors who do that.
(20:30):
I really love Jessica Chastain. I think she's Andy, isn't Okay, Now,
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. Oh kind of that is you know, it's
about everything's about me. It's all about me. Whether it
(20:51):
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
(21:11):
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, okay,
(21:33):
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.
(21:58):
So in a booth, I and 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 peaceful place. It is.
It's but it's so strange because one of the best
(22:18):
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
(22:39):
you and Mark where he's being so familiar with her head,
oh batsy, and just being so high brus and it's
so unbelievable. And then you know, you have 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 Shakesparian actor, sits a lot.
And then there's you, who's taken this character that is
(23:03):
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
(23:25):
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
(23:47):
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. We're going to get into the fact
(24:18):
that you are the only correct answer to who's the
best Batman. We're going to get into you say that
to everybody. It's true, but just to you and to me,
if you and everybody, and no, no, no, I'm saying
who's the best batman? I always say he is or
I am. That's the only answer to those things. Um,
I thought it was you, Now I think it's no
it's always He's the only correct when you look at
(24:41):
especially a Bruce tim drawing of Batman and 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.
There's not a little bit of Kevin in there now,
I don't know. Maybe the jaw. So then that's one
(25:02):
of my questions. Let's we were Do you see yourself
in Ron? Yes? You do? I do? I do? When? 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
(25:24):
when I see it, I don't see me. Yes, 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 because this thing I want
(25:44):
to bring you to your childhood. Yes, well no, for
one specific reason. Did you watch any animation, any cartoons?
There wasn't even animation us, so it's just cartoons growing up.
I had never well, there wasn't a Batman in cartoon.
There was Batman comics though, right, comics. Yeah, I watched
(26:06):
the Jetsons I love, 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
(26:26):
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
(26:48):
did you have? Oh man, you're saying 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
(27:09):
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
(27:31):
voiceover world or the animation? None? Okay, No, this is
the first audition I ever went in on for a voiceover.
And you were a little reluctant. Were you reluctant? Well?
I I well, because actors, you know what it's like.
You go on twenty auditions and you don't get them.
(27:54):
So you could become kind of casual about and you
think I really want to go to this one today. Yeah,
I don't really. 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
(28:15):
working at 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 Chico who was an amazing voice
actress and she was a good friend of mine and
(28:37):
is still and I love her so much. And she
was like, yeah, you want to work for Disney, and
I was like, I was like, yeah, why not. She's okay,
you know, and I was that's my guest and Chico, okay,
it'sn't okay. It's i'ven't okay to Chico on a good day.
But yeah, I remembered having to make that choice and
that leap into the unknown of something that was sort
(29:01):
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 because
we're an into production. I was going to blow it
off because I thought, you know, this is, this is,
(29:21):
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, you know what
I mean? Yeah, sure, And I thought else, you know,
I'll just go what's 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
(29:42):
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
(30:02):
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,
(30:22):
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
(30:45):
is completely Shakespearean. When you actually think about the Batman
character is totally Shakespearean character. He has no superpowers, he
can't fly against see through walls. He's a tragic hero.
He is arresties, he is Achilles, he is Edgar in Le.
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
(31:08):
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? Yeah?
(31:33):
And wasn't that you two helicopter? That was was the
coolest thing. That was the coolest thing in the world.
So 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.
(31:55):
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 a full symphony score. It was
they threw money at that show. Still it still shows.
(32:17):
It's why it still looks so rich and so fresh
and compelling, and young people still get turned onto it.
I get approach the comic cons all the time by people.
Oh I just started watching it. So cool. His fans too,
It isn't me. They all go, oh, man, you're here.
Where's Kevin um? And I'm like, hey, thanks, he's over
there in the line. Or I will get this a lot.
(32:38):
This is the best one. Like I love Batman Beyond.
Can you sign this for me please? I 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
(33:00):
in different voices, any of that stuff. I had imaginary friends?
Sounds weird. Have you seen the title of the ship?
You're in a safe space? Come on, now, we had
I actually grew up on Long Island. We moved to
Westport when I was about eleven, and when I was
(33:21):
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
(33:42):
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 trees. With
the trees. That's amazing. So my first imaginary friends were
(34:06):
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,
(34:26):
essentially great. But it was the loss of the leaves
that that that moved me emotionally to them, and 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 love being outside. So I
(34:47):
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,
(35:16):
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 got. And what a character to play, you think,
I mean, so rich, there's so much always defined there.
(35:38):
You never get tired of playing him. That's wonderful. Oh
you don't. It's just he's so damaged, 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 flaw is that's what attracts people.
(36:01):
They really are. People think of the heroic and the
big and they think of that as Batman, But it's
really the flaws in him I think could 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, and like everyone's their own Batman,
but they're all damaged and that's what anchors their performance.
(36:24):
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.
He 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
(36:44):
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's awesome, and I thought
there was something very interesting about that as well, where
(37:06):
it's just that character that has so many levels where
we both know Dietrich Bader 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.
They were just different, just different Batman. Adam West, who
was you know, God rest him? We were I know
(37:29):
you knew Adam West pretty well, right, Yeah, it was
a funny scene. He 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 City airport. We saw each
other and I was like, Adam an 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
(37:54):
the camera phones came out and people started taking pictures.
There was a Batman convention that salt like a But
I mean, how is that because again too completely different versions, different, unbelievable,
so strange. Yeah, he's a really nice, really nice man.
He wasn't very nice. So then you don't never feel
territorial over Batman as a whole, do you know? Not
(38:18):
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 carecter'st 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
(38:39):
Batman are pretty much playing for a second. We all
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 was like Kevin Conroy's Batman,
Like you know, anybody who's inn sect who knows anything
about animation or any or this world or is truly
(39:01):
a Batman fan. This is how I look at it,
because you get a lot of people that are Batman fans,
fans when it comes to like the films, like but
truly at 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
(39:22):
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 an I think it's I mean, of course, what
we've talked about that many times too, where the you know,
the Bruce and Terry relationship was was kind of similar
to yours in mind who came to actually doing the show? Um,
(39:43):
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 men the Games came along? Well that okay,
so that's actually games we were just going to. Just amazing. Now,
(40:05):
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. You're all interacting. You. You have
(40:25):
the other actor feeding you, you have Mark Hamill feeding
you aligne. 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,
(40:46):
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
(41:09):
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 left, thousands of different things there two years
(41:29):
to 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,
(41:54):
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. That's really
tough work. People, i think assume that just because you're
talking into a microphone that it's not 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
(42:14):
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
(42:39):
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
(43:01):
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. I can't say
you can't. You can't see you and you can't you
can't say me either. Of course you would who. But
(43:31):
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 it, 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
(43:53):
Keaton did the first of the Batman movies, I thought, well,
he's nailed it. He's got it. Yeah, and he's going
to the whole franchise because I love him as an actor.
He's a brilliant 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,
(44:15):
I mean, Ben Affleck is fantastic. He's fantastic and good.
He 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, great Bruce Wayne, phenomenal.
So everybody brings something different than it's I realized after
(44:35):
a while why they did that. It makes it makes
it so interesting to see what different actors bring. Yeah,
But to be honest, Michael Keaton, I think I had
to pick one hand down. 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,
(44:59):
certainly that the 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 hons half the city and
he puts on a mask and no one knows it's him.
(45:20):
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.
(45:41):
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 Animated. They decided over time to
have me tone it down because when the artwork came back.
(46:05):
The show was so dark. It was all painted on black.
It was the first time the show had been painted
on a black wow. 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,
(46:27):
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
with the characters that he and I were blessed to play.
Our characters were Kim and Rock. We kind of massaged
(46:49):
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 my 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
(47:11):
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
(47:33):
interesting that we mirrored ourselves in that aspects 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 or likes animation knows that Batman the
animated series changed the whole ballgame, definitely. I I lived
through that too as a as a viewer, so I
completely came became It was no longer a cartoon, it
(47:56):
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
(48:17):
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 voice
(48:38):
over 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 cartooning? Yeah, because you know,
like when she would always say that when somebody would
(48:59):
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, 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 a
cartoon like it was, And she was always had that doubt. Uki.
That's so interesting and I think that it was real.
(49:21):
Is it was the word I would use for Batman
the animated series. It was real. She brought an actors
to actors. So if there was any voice character that
you would want to do, I'm doing it. It's cantan
something else besides Batman to do. Who would you do Batty? Oh?
(49:49):
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
UM 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 all after all these years. I
am also officially advocating for somebody to write an episode
(50:11):
where Mark Hamill and Kevin Connray get to switch roles
for one for one episode. Oh they did that would
keep remember we did the body switch switch. I want
to see Mark Hamill as 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
(50:33):
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 ridiculously 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 Mike's really good looking. God. Oh, he
(50:55):
is 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
(51:18):
are going to get to skype in, come in talk
to their favorite voiceover 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
(51:40):
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. I put you on the spot,
isn't it. This is the joy the muscles, and we
would like would you like us to pick or would
you like to pick? Yeah? Here we go, Here we go?
(52:04):
Is he picking at random? It's up to you. Okay,
Oh that's beautiful. Some great artists and some inspiring artists.
Certainly 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 right fun. Okay,
(52:30):
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 disneified fish. It's a beautiful fishes. Uh.
This is from Sam, who created 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,
(52:53):
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.
(53:16):
And here we have a cat who's also from Sam Portly.
He's partly that I'm a very portly cat. This is
King pussy Cat, King pussy Cat, and I am Emperor
for the Day, Emperor for the Day. There you go,
look at that sale. Kevin Conroy just put voices to
(53:39):
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? Sam
in the Fish? Well, I really I think I like Sam.
I really like Sam. So, Kevin, what's next? What's what's
next for you? Down a line? Um? This thing I
(54:02):
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 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 of on the side of caution
(54:26):
and just say you've got some really cool stuff coming out, right, Yeah,
but then it sounds like you're just an actor. Lyne
to make it sound like you're working. I do that
all the time, do that all the time. I've got
amazing things coming out. I don't know which one to pick.
I was in you know when you do the the
(54:46):
the upfronts for the networks, when you're doing a TV show,
and so they bring into New York and you meet
all the advertisers and everything. 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
(55:08):
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 lying actors just act They
(55:30):
just act actors acting. Oh gosh, that's the 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
exactly exactly welcome to NPR Actors on a Native So again,
(55:54):
we've now got Batman for thirty some odd 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
(56:18):
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
(56:39):
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 the Game, that's
what happens to him. He gets his identity gets challenged,
So I I love it when that happens, it does.
(57:00):
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
(57:21):
Bruce Wayne. Oh. That's that's cool. Cool, that's very cool that.
You know. I've got to ask, do you sign your
own cells 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
(57:44):
Tunes and Hannah Barbera and you're talking, Andrea Romano Looney
Tunes Barbera, it's like the original n F t Yeah.
I got a lot of a pinky in the brain.
I got a Carrot Blanca, come on a classic. It's
a Looney Tunes where bugs Bunny plays. Um, it's Sam
(58:05):
yeah from CASABLANCT. It's a spoofs a carrot right. Oh, Okay,
he's did. I'm thinking of the reason that 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
(58:26):
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 every
episode number of the Obscure Show and what color the
cape was, you know, I mean, he knows everything about animation.
(58:48):
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'm eart that you were here today.
Thank you so much much. Luck this thank you, thank you.
This is by the way, has been recorded. No, I
(59:10):
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 going to do it live.
Next time. Kevin Conroy, thank you so much again in
the vely answer to who's the best Batman, Kevin Conroy,
I am Vengeance, I am the Knight, I am Batman.
(59:33):
Cannot end on anything better than that. Thanks everybody, connect
together
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