I did actually read the comic again, and it was exactly how I remembered it. Really cool and kind of dark and gritty and very bold in how it approached the source material, which has been carved out into such a revered piece of comic book fiction. It is impressive that someone would do a new take on the story, summoning the courage to just throw away a lot of that traditional stuff and really focus on some of the darker elements, which is what Frank Miller did. I think it's great. It's cool, it's bold, and I think the film lives up to that.


QUESTION:
As this was your first animated voiceover project, what were you expecting and how did find the experience?

BEN MCKENZIE
It's always fun to do something that you're not particularly experienced in, something that's a little bit of a new skill to learn. Regina King has done a lot of voiceover stuff for Boondocks – with Andrea (Romano) – and she loves it. So it was really nice to feel like I was in good hands and that I'd be well treated. I think any job where you can stay indoors, work a couple of hours, say a few things and get paid is a good job to have. It beats Southland, where you're out in the streets and the heat in the wool uniforms. Nobody needs that. (laughs)


QUESTION:
Were there any outside influences on your performance before working on the booth?

BEN MCKENZIE
I'd like to say I was influenced mainly by Adam West's performance as Batman more than anyone else – but it’s not quite the same take. There's something in the way that Frank Miller wrote the comics that lends itself to a darker gravelly-voiced kind of intensity. You can’t help but go there. So maybe it's sort of similar to the live-action version that Christian Bale is doing, but maybe not quite as much in that direction.


QUESTION:
How did your familiarity with the original Frank Miller comics help formulate your approach to the acting?

BEN MCKENZIE:
This Frank Miller world is an amazing place with a wonderfully dark aesthetic – it has the kind of noir-ish world of moral ambiguity that I really respond to. And I think if you’re going to play it sincerely, you have to realize that it’s written like a piece of noir with real characters and real emotional takes. This isn’t some fantasy. Bruce Wayne is damaged, he’s emotionally scarred, and he’s trying to make sense of justice in the world. So he creates an alter ego to keep some normalcy in his daily life. That’s the way he tries to make some sense of the world. He’s battered and scarred, but that sort of makes him stronger, because he’s ultimately unafraid of putting it all on the line. He’s very human. That’s the great thing about Batman – he has no super powers. He is a flawed man.


QUESTION:
How did you differentiate the voice or the attitude for Batman versus Bruce Wayne?

BEN MCKENZIE
We worked on distinguishing between Bruce, who is an introvert perhaps, but is forced through his position in society to be affable to a certain degree, and then Batman himself, who is really sort of the devil within. He can really take on a whole another vocal inflection and demeanor. So we sort of wanted to play with that and make Bruce almost overcompensate in order to hide his identity, to be even more affable and agreeable than he would otherwise in order to hide the fact that he is Batman.

It's hard to do because when you're going through the script in the sessions, you'll just jump back and forth. One page, you'll be doing Bruce Wayne, and the next page, you'll be doing Batman. So it is hard to kind of keep them separate in your mind. It requires a few takes to sort of relax into it and to switch it up. I'm sure tonight I'll be dreaming of being Batman. (laughs)


QUESTION:
Was there a focal point for you to stay on target throughout the recording session?

BEN MCKENZIE