Kevin Conroy has been playing Batman for a quarter of a century, so it's fair to say he's an authority on the Dark Knight.
Conroy first took up the cape and cowl for Batman: The Animated Series in 1992 and has continued to voice the character ever since, including in the hugely popular Arkham video games.
He has a very particular idea of who Batman is, and says that a misunderstanding of the character is "a trap that a lot of the live-action actors fall into".
"The trick for me to keeping it fresh and keeping it real has been that Bruce Wayne is the performance," he told Digital Spy. "He puts on that face – that charming, sophisticated face – but when he's alone and he takes the suit off, he goes into this dark, brooding place, because he's such a damaged person.
"So to me, Batman is who he is. That's not the role. I think that's a trap that a lot of the live-action actors fall into – they sort of put on a voice, and it sounds weird. It's because they're putting on a voice, instead of being the voice, and audiences can see it."
To mark 25 years of Batman: The Animated Series, Conroy reprises his role in a new feature-length animation, Batman and Harley Quinn, which sees The Big Bang Theory's Melissa Rauch take on the role of the villainess.
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"She's such a crazy, off-the-wall character," Conroy said of Harley's enduring popularity, after the character was first created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm to appear in the animated series.
"I guess part of it is because she was such a great foil for Joker. Before that, the only person he had to play off of was me – and Batman... he's the ying and the yang for Joker, y'know? Each one defines the other...
"But it's not as much fun for Joker to play off Batman, because Batman's a straight man. Whereas Harley is out-there and left-field with Joker – you enter this whole other world of crazy, watching the two of them interact, so I think that's why she probably took off so well.
"But also I think it has to do with the growth of the female audience for animation. It's become a really big part of the industry."
Back in the early '90s, Batman was the first animated voiceover role that Conroy had ever auditioned for, and he says it's "so bizarre" that "the right actor for the right role happened to walk into the room on the right day".
"I had only done theatre and television, and I'd done commercial voiceovers to supplement my New York theatre habit," he explained. "My voiceover agent said, 'Oh they're putting together a new series over at Warner Bros – go read for it, it's Batman.
"I went in completely naive – it was just an actor going into a booth and improvising. So it was a blessing because I was completely unintimidated, I had no anticipation of what to expect from myself, and I just winged it.
"I had no intention of doing an animated character – at all, much less for 25 years, much less having it be a character that I get identified with. It just happened.
"I was a stage actor – I started out in the theatre in New York. But to be a part of this iconic figure for 25 years is just a privilege I never anticipated having. It feels like I just started!"
Batman and Harley Quinn is out now on Digital Download, Blu-ray and DVD.
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