From vampire priest to brooding vigilante, Hamish Linklater voices the legendary Batman in Amazon Prime’s new animated series, Batman: Caped Crusader, slated to air on August 1, 2024.
While Linklater is no stranger to the world of superheroes after playing Clark DeBussy in Legion and voicing Sandman in Marvel’s Wastelanders: Doom podcast, this is his first time crossing over into the world of DC Comics as well as animated voice acting. The role came as a surprise to fans when the trailer was posted to Instagram on June 20, 2024, with no prior announcement of his involvement.
The new series was written and produced by J.J Abrams, Matt Reeves, James Trucker, and Bruce Timm, a powerhouse combination of producers, writers, and animators who have a long history of working with the Batman franchise.
In an interview with IGN, Bruce Timm described the challenges of finding Batman’s new voice.
“It’s not a remake or reboot. So we felt like right out of the gate that we needed to have somebody different to play him… Amazingly, almost nobody else could come anywhere near what Hamish did, but Hamish was just dead-on.”
Linklater told IGN that he was a massive fan of Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series and was excited for the opportunity to audition for the role.
“I was working on an indie movie in Minneapolis, and I got the audition,” Linklater says. “I had been a devoted, massive fan of the animated series that Bruce Timm did in the ’90s. I mean, I was just like, ‘This is so freaking cool to get to audition for this.’ I sat in a car, and it was freezing cold in Minneapolis, but I couldn’t have the heat on, I couldn’t have the car on, so I could make good audio. I just did so many takes, not ever even remotely imagining that I would actually get cast.”
Linklater then went on to explain the process in which he explored finding Batman’s voice for this role, trying to branch outside of the countless reiterations of the masked crusader over the decades.
“I sort of tried to think how would Batman play a socialite man about town, like what would his version of that be?” And that’s where my Bruce Wayne came from, sort of from that outside-in or inside-out perspective. How does Batman imagine 1940s Lothario sounds?”
The 10-episode first season will air on Amazon Prime on August 1st while the confirmed second season does not yet have a release date. Fans can read more of Timm’s interview with IGN here and check out the trailer below.
