Michael Keaton is preparing to wear the cowl once again for The Flash release date, but we’re still fondly remembering Tim Burton‘s Batman, and it turns out there was a solid reason behind his famous low voice in those DCU movies.
Many actors have taken up the role of the world’s greatest detective, and as such he’s one of the fan-favorite best DC characters. And Bruce Wayne must always have a few things: wealth, an emo way about him, and a gravelly voice to mask his real one.
Ben Affleck, Christian Bale, and more have lent their chords to Batman, but Keaton’s intonation from the 1989 movie has its own legacy. It wasn’t a random decision, since Keaton put this thought behind it.
“How do you justify the voice? It’s cheesy but I figured once he’s in the trance, he doesn’t think like he does like Bruce Wayne, doesn’t act like he does,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “So the voice came out of that, it was a really practical thing.”
Keaton’s take on Bruce going into a “controlled psychosis” is kind of fascinating, and gives an already intense character a bit of a manic edge that some of the other versions don’t have. He obviously had lots of ideas, because he also improvised his best Batman line.
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