Kevin Conroy isn’t exactly a household name, but there’s an important lesson that we can all take from this actor’s career.
In the early 90s, Warner Bros gave animator/producer Bruce Timm the go-ahead to create a new Batman cartoon that would reshape children’s television forever. Batman: The Animated Series stands out because of its highly sophisticated storytelling that explored the troubled psyches of Batman and his villains in a way that was still accessible to even the youngest viewers. It had an art style that was unlike anything on TV at the time, creating a timeless Gotham City that captured Batman’s origins in the 1930s and yet also appealed to the issues we face today. The show managed to be dark without being dreary, and it maintained a surprisingly hopeful tone throughout its 85-episode run. While all of this provided a great starting point, the show couldn’t really come to life unless Batman/Bruce Wayne had just the right voice. Enter Kevin Conroy.
Conroy must have been a total longshot. He was a Juilliard-trained Shakespearean actor who had little familiarity with the character before being called in to audition, and most of his TV credits at the time were sitcoms and soap operas, not voice acting. The pivotal moment came when the character was explained to this brilliant actor. “Well, millionaire Bruce Wayne’s parents died in front of him, and so now he clothes himself in darkness to become Batman and bring justice to his city while also maintaining his guise as a sophisticated socialite.” Conroy mulled this over and responded with, “So he’s Hamlet?”
Hamlet is arguably Shakespeare’s greatest protagonist— the emotionally and psychologically distraught Danish prince who dresses in black to mourn the death of his father and seeks to bring his father’s killer to justice at any cost. Conroy immediately saw a connection between the characters, and when he played the title character on Batman: The Animated Series, he treated every recording with the dedication and precision of a trained stage actor playing one of the most nuanced protagonists in western theatre. Conroy has been the definitive voice of Batman in cartoons and video games for almost a quarter of a century now because of three simple words: “So he’s Hamlet?”
What makes Conroy’s story so special is how he looked beyond the role and turned it into something greater. He could have easily walked into that audition thinking, “Okay, a kids’ cartoon show. This will pay the bills.” Instead, he chose to draw an analogy that made the role artistically fulfilling for him and inspiring to a generation of viewers.
What if we could all look at our jobs and daily routines this way? What if we could look beyond the on-paper job description and see the potential for something greater? I have to believe that this is in the realm of possibility for even the most mundane of occupations, so all this leads me to one question:
What is your Hamlet?