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Acting Up: Hamish Linklater Gives a Kevin Conroy-Worthy Performance as The Dark Knight in ‘Batman: Caped Crusader’


August 28, 2024

The Snapshot

In Amazon’s animated Batman: Caped Crusader, Hamish Linklater voices the Dark Knight Detective, in a series focusing on the hero’s early years fighting crime. 

(All episodes of Batman: Caped Crusader are airing on Prime Video.)

Hamish Linklater’s Performance in Batman: Caped Crusader

Generally speaking, some movie or TV characters don’t need much of an introduction to the mass viewing public. At the top of such a list would be Batman, perhaps the most popular superhero in all of pop culture.

Over the years, he’s shown up plenty of times on the big screen, but far more often on the small one. Adam West and Burt Ward famously played the Dynamic Duo in the fun and campy live-action Batman series in the 1960s, but primarily, Batman’s television presence has been animated. Various Saturday morning cartoons like Super Friends and The Super Powers Team, made up most of the character’s TV history until everything changed in 1992.

That’s when Batman: The Animated Series premiered. Well, that’s not true. “Premiered” doesn’t do it justice. BTAS (as fans call it) veritably exploded onto the scene, shaking up television animation forever.

Created by Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski, Tom Ruegger and Mitch Brian, the show lasted four seasons and reshaped the way superhero stories were told. One could argue that BTAS did as much as any other show or movie to alter the way people viewed superhero stories and that the Marvel Cinematic Universe might not exist without it.

Part of the show’s appeal was the voice of Batman and Bruce Wayne, Kevin Conroy. Conroy’s unique vocal talents brought The Dark Knight to life in a way that no other voice actor ever had. He was so strong in the role that a great many Batman fans consider Conroy to be the definitive Batman. More than Michael Keaton, more than Ben Affleck, more than Robert Pattinson, Conroy’s work as Gotham City’s greatest hero is revered by millions of fans.

Sadly, Conroy died of cancer in 2022 at the age of 66, after having voiced the role for more than 30 years. With Amazon moving forward on the development of a new Batman animated series from executive producer J.J. Abrams, a new actor was needed to fill that cape. Sure, other actors have voiced Batman in the years since Conroy redefined the role, but this was going to be a major casting, as this show was ushering in a brand new era for the World’s Greatest Detective.

Enter Hamish Linklater. The veteran actor who has worked in both comedy and drama throughout a career lasting nearly a quarter century, has taken over the role in a remarkably unique way. The way he voices the role pays tribute to Conroy’s iconic interpretation, while also making it his own. 

At first blush, if you’re a fan of BTAS and all the various productions since, you might watch Caped Crusader and think that somehow Conroy had been resurrected. Linklater’s intonations and tone seem to match Conroy’s, so it takes a moment to realize that it’s an entirely different actor.

Once the show continues and you get into it, past the first episode and onward as we meet more of the hero’s rogues gallery — Catwoman, Two-Face, the Penguin and so on — Linklater’s performance comes out from under Conroy’s shadow.

It’s subtle, at first, then it becomes clearer. Conroy’s influence is evident in Linklater’s work. You can hear it. But Linklater’s Batman is meaner and more stoic than Conroy’s, and his Bruce Wayne is more callow and inexperienced. It fits, as Linklater has said in interviews that he found Bruce Wayne harder to play than Batman, and had been “chasing” Conroy’s performance before he realized that he needed to do his own thing.

There are moments when you might even pick up on Linklater finding his way in the role, but that fits perfectly with the character. This version of Batman is just starting, and growing into the Batman he is to become. The same can be said of Linklater, who will of course be on board for Season Two. Something for any Batman fan to look forward to.

The Career of Hamish Linklater

The son of legendary vocal trainer Kristin Linklater, the actor has crossed over from comedy to drama to horror and back over the years, getting his first big break in the Andre Braugher-led medical drama Gideon’s Crossing in 2000.

Two years later, he showed up in the TV movie Live from Baghdad, opposite Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham Carter, but his next big role was opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus in The New Adventures of Old Christine, in which he played the title character’s goofy younger brother. Throughout five seasons, from 2006 to 2010, the actor’s star rose, and he has worked pretty much nonstop ever since, going easily back and forth between movies and television.

Hamish has worked with Woody Allen (Magic in the Moonlight), Aaron Sorkin (The Newsroom), Adam McKay (The Big Short), Noah Hawley (Fargo and Legion) and Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story), among plenty of others, while also playing Abraham Lincoln (Manhunt) and Lysander in 2017’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Lately, he’s been dabbling more in horror, earning raves for his work in the 2020 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand, and a year later in Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass. So it sort of fits that he has taken on the role of The Dark Knight. It’s the perfect match of drama, action and horror, and the best Batman performances have at least a touch of comedy in them.

In a sense, Linklater has spent his entire career training for this role. That might be overstating things a bit, but the fact is that there’s a new Batman on our television screens, and thanks to Linklater’s skilled vocal performance, he’s a welcome guest.

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