S/B: Public Enemies: Kevin Conroy Interview
Superman Homepage.com posted an interesting interview with Kevin Conroy regarding the upcoming movie Superman/Batman: Public Enemies due to be released next Tuesday (oh hell yeah).
QUESTION: So what does Kevin Conroy bring to Batman?
KEVIN CONROY: I guess I am basically most comfortable when I'm alone. As a kid, I was very much a loner. I love long distance running and long distance biking. A director once pointed out that those are all very isolated exercises you do for hours at a time. I think Batman taps into that quality of me, because my initial take on the character was that Batman wasn't the performance. Bruce Wayne was the performance. Batman is where he's most comfortable. The cave is where he's most comfortable. And he puts on this persona of incredible sophistication to be able to deal with the world just like I think everybody puts on a mask to deal with the world. Everyone has a private self and a public self. With him, it's taken to a real extreme. And I think I related to that aspect of him. I am basically a pretty shy person - I think a lot of actors are. That's why they get into acting - because it's easier to be free emotionally when you're pretending to be someone else than to be free emotionally when you have to be yourself. And I think Bruce has the same problem.
QUESTION: Is there still a cool factor for you to be the voice of Batman?
KEVIN CONROY: Oh, yeah. It's something that I'm reminded of a lot from people who enjoy the show. That's a very cool thing. I don't ever take for granted how cool a job it is and how lucky I am to have landed in it. It was the first animation job I ever auditioned for - and it just happened to all come together so well. But it was just pure chance.
QUESTION: Were you a comics reader as a kid?
KEVIN CONROY: I had an interesting childhood in that my parents were older. I was a late child, and they were children of immigrants. So the connection of the family to Ireland was very close. I have an Irish passport - I went to school there a bit when I was younger. So my parents were very old world, and they grew up during the Depression. They were kind of like my friends' grandparents - my family kind of skipped a generation that way. I was put in very conservative Catholic schools - the nuns had habits to the ground, and the boys and the girls were separated. It was very old school. And comic books just weren't allowed. It just wasn't part of my world. I didn't read them because I didn't like them - I didn't even know about them. (he laughs). Comic books weren't part of the planet that I was raised on. Of course, once I heard about them, I liked them a lot. (he laughs)
Click here to read the rest of the interview.
QUESTION: So what does Kevin Conroy bring to Batman?
KEVIN CONROY: I guess I am basically most comfortable when I'm alone. As a kid, I was very much a loner. I love long distance running and long distance biking. A director once pointed out that those are all very isolated exercises you do for hours at a time. I think Batman taps into that quality of me, because my initial take on the character was that Batman wasn't the performance. Bruce Wayne was the performance. Batman is where he's most comfortable. The cave is where he's most comfortable. And he puts on this persona of incredible sophistication to be able to deal with the world just like I think everybody puts on a mask to deal with the world. Everyone has a private self and a public self. With him, it's taken to a real extreme. And I think I related to that aspect of him. I am basically a pretty shy person - I think a lot of actors are. That's why they get into acting - because it's easier to be free emotionally when you're pretending to be someone else than to be free emotionally when you have to be yourself. And I think Bruce has the same problem.
QUESTION: Is there still a cool factor for you to be the voice of Batman?
KEVIN CONROY: Oh, yeah. It's something that I'm reminded of a lot from people who enjoy the show. That's a very cool thing. I don't ever take for granted how cool a job it is and how lucky I am to have landed in it. It was the first animation job I ever auditioned for - and it just happened to all come together so well. But it was just pure chance.
QUESTION: Were you a comics reader as a kid?
KEVIN CONROY: I had an interesting childhood in that my parents were older. I was a late child, and they were children of immigrants. So the connection of the family to Ireland was very close. I have an Irish passport - I went to school there a bit when I was younger. So my parents were very old world, and they grew up during the Depression. They were kind of like my friends' grandparents - my family kind of skipped a generation that way. I was put in very conservative Catholic schools - the nuns had habits to the ground, and the boys and the girls were separated. It was very old school. And comic books just weren't allowed. It just wasn't part of my world. I didn't read them because I didn't like them - I didn't even know about them. (he laughs). Comic books weren't part of the planet that I was raised on. Of course, once I heard about them, I liked them a lot. (he laughs)
Click here to read the rest of the interview.