Here’s the Voice of Bruce Timm’s Next Animated Batman

Now it can be told: Hamish Linklater (Midnight Mass) will voice Batman in Bruce Timm’s latest animated series, Batman: Caped Crusader, taking over for late Batman: The Animated Series star Kevin Conroy. You can hear a tease of Linklater’s performance in the below video.

Speaking to Vanity Fair, Timm said that Linklater’s take is one “no one has quite done for animation yet.”

“There were certain things that I had in my mind back in the early ’90s for the original Batman: The Animated Series that I didn’t get to do,” Timm told the magazine. “I wanted to do this emotionally messed-up version of Batman, who’s extremely aloof and almost inhuman. [Bruce Wayne is] a persona that Batman himself has cultivated to throw people off of his scent. Deep down inside, he’s not a fun guy. He’s not charming, he’s not sexy, or anything like that. He’s devoted to warring on crime 24/7. Hamish was really the only one who nailed exactly what we were going for.” As Timm additionally 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 of] how Batman would try to play himself off as a playboy socialite. I think I just tried to swing and swing and swing until I made contact with something.”

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

For Ricci’s Catwoman, Timm said, “We wanted [Selina Kyle] to be not too dark and serious, as most Catwomans have been for the last 20 years or so. We wanted her to be…not ditzy, but just not serious.” Bader’s Two-Face will also see a reversal, with DA Harvey Dent beginning as a corrupt official until his disfiguring accident. “We thought, well, what if he starts off as kind of a schnook?,” Timm said. “And then when he gets his face disfigured, for the first time in his life he actually feels empathy for other people.”

As for Harley Quinn, her job as a psychiatrist has lead her to become a sort of vigilante in her own right. “We figured, as a psychiatrist, her clientele are some of the richest, most powerful men in Gotham City, and they dump all of their crap on her,” Timm said. “It’s driving her crazy. She hears all this stuff, but because of psychiatrist-client privilege, she can’t do anything about it. She can’t tell anybody. We figured some of these guys have probably confessed some really horrible things to her, and she’s just like, ‘Well, I can’t just turn this guy loose out on the streets, but I can’t turn him into the cops either.”

The magazine additionally noted the series will include 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: Caped Crusader premieres this August 1 on Max.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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