CAPED CRUSADER Voice Cast and Details Revealed; Hear Batman’s New Voice — GeekTyrant

The voice cast has been announced for Bruce Timm‘s upcoming animated series Batman: The Masked CrusaderAnd Hamish Linklater (midnight fair) will give Batman his voice and will take over for the end Batman: The Animated Series star Kevin Conroy.

You can hear a taste of Linklater’s performance in the audition video below. As you’ll hear, it’s a Batman-like voice.

It was also revealed Christina Ricci was cast as Selina Kyle / Catwoman, Jamie Chung is Dr. Harleen Quinzel / Harley Quinn and former Batman voice actress Diedrich Bader will play Harvey Dent / Two-Face.

Other actors include Minnie Driver, Eric Morgan Stuart, Michelle C. Bonilla, Krystal Joy Brown, John DiMaggio, McKenna Grace, Jason Watkins, Paul Scheer, Reid Scott, Gary Anthony Williams, Daniel Donohue, David Krumholtz, Haley Joel OsmentAnd Toby Stephens.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Timm said Linklater’s interpretation was “one that no one has ever done for animated films before.” He said, “In the early ’90s, I had certain things in mind for the original Batman: The Animated Series that I couldn’t do.”

“I wanted to do this emotionally disturbed version of Batman who is extremely distant and almost inhuman. (Bruce Wayne is) a personality that Batman himself cultivated to throw people off his trail.

“Deep down, he’s not a funny guy. He’s not charming, he’s not sexy or anything like that. He’s committed to fighting crime 24/7.

“Hamish was really the only one who got exactly what we wanted. We had a lot of people who were pretty good Batmans, but almost no good Bruces.”

Linklater added: “Bruce Wayne is the mask. He’s the secret identity. He’s the invention. Batman is the actual character, the actual guy. It’s set in the ’40s, (so I just thought about) how Batman would try to portray himself as a playboy of society. I think I just tried to swing and swing and swing until I came across something.”

Of Ricci’s Catwoman, Timm said, “We wanted (Selina Kyle) not to be too dark and serious, like most Catwomans have been for the last 20 years or so. We wanted her to be… not silly, but just not serious.”

Regarding Two-Face, he said, “We thought, what if he starts out as a kind of jerk? And then, when his face gets disfigured, he actually feels compassion for other people for the first time in his life.”

Regarding Harley Quinn, Timm said: “As psychiatrists, we figured that her clients were some of the richest and most powerful men in Gotham City and that they would dump all their crap on her.

“It’s driving her crazy. She hears all this, but because of psychiatric confidentiality she can’t do anything about it. She can’t tell anyone.

“We thought some of these guys had probably confessed really horrible things to her, and she was like, ‘Well, I can’t just let this guy loose on the street, but I can’t turn him over to the police either.'”

The summary of the story reads: “Welcome to Gotham City, where the corrupt outnumber the good, criminals run rampant, and law-abiding citizens live in constant fear.

“Forged in the fires of tragedy, wealthy socialite Bruce Wayne becomes something both more and less human – the BATMAN. His one-man crusade for justice attracts unexpected allies within the GCPD and City Hall, but his heroic actions have deadly, unforeseen consequences.”

This animated series has been in development for some time with Timm, J.J. Abrams, Matt Reevesand comic author Ed Brubaker leads the attack.

Batman: Caped Crusader premieres on Max on August 1st.