Here is the voice of Bruce Timm’s next animated Batman

Now you can say: Hamish Linklater (midnight fair) will lend his voice to Batman in Bruce Timm’s latest animated series. Batman: The Masked Crusader, Takeover for late Batman: The Animated Series star Kevin Conroy. You can hear a taste of Linklater’s performance in the video below.

Speak with Vanity FairTimm said that Linklater’s approach is one “that no one has ever done before in the animation field.”

“There were certain things I had in mind for the original in the early 90s Batman: The Animated Series I wasn’t allowed to do that,” Timm told the magazine. “I wanted to do this emotionally confused 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 dedicated to fighting crime 24/7. Hamish was really the only one who got exactly what we wanted.” As Timm also notes in the article, “We had a lot of people who were pretty good Batmans, but almost no good Bruces.”

In Linklater’s words, “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.”

The article also revealed that Christina Ricci has been cast as the voice of Selina “Catwoman” Kyle, Jamie Chung is taking on the role of Dr. Harleen “Harley Quinn” Quinzel, and former Batman voice actor Diedrich Bader is set to play Harvey “Two-Face” Dent; all performances are brand new, reversed takes.

For 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.“Bader’s Two-Face will also experience a turnaround, as DA Harvey Dent is initially a corrupt official. until his disfiguring accident. “We thought, what if he starts out as some kind of idiot?” said Timm. “And then, when his face gets disfigured, he actually feels compassion for other people for the first time in his life.”

Harley Quinn, on the other hand, has become a sort of vigilante herself through her job as a psychiatrist. “We figured that as a psychiatrist, her clients are some of the richest and most powerful men in Gotham City and that they’re dumping all their crap on her,” Timm said. “It drives her crazy. She hears all this stuff, but because of psychiatrist-patient privilege, she can’t do anything about it. She can’t tell anyone. We figured that some of these guys have probably confessed really horrible things to her, and she’s just like, ‘Well, I can’t just put this guy on the street, but I can’t turn him over to the police either.'”

The magazine also noted that the series will feature characters voiced by Minnie Driver, Eric Morgan Stuart, Michelle C. Bonilla, Krystal Joy Brown, John DiMaggio, McKenna Grace, Jason Watkins, Paul Scheer, Reid Scott, Gary Anthony Williams, Dan Donohue, David Krumholtz, Haley Joel Osment and Toby Stephens — but their roles have yet to be revealed. We’ll find out who’s who when Batman: The Masked Crusader Premieres on August 1st on Max.

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