How Michael Keaton Came Up With His ‘Batman Voice’

So it’s been well-established over the decades that Bruce Wayne uses a very distinct voice so Bruce Wayne sounds nothing like Batman. A “Batman voice” if you will. This seems obvious, but not every actor who has played Batman used a different voice between the two roles. Adam West didn’t, and for many he was the first time you actually heard Batman talk. But Michael Keaton, who was the first big screen movie Batman, wanted to use a “Batman voice” different from how he sounded when he was playing Bruce Wayne.

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"I’m kind of a logic freak. I don’t know how to do anything unless I have a logic to it. It can be the silliest, stupidest, broadest thing, but I have to work from somewhere. There’s no way this guy doesn’t just look at me and say, ‘That’s Bruce Wayne, everybody! I figured it out!’” he said with a laugh. “‘It’s obviously you! You’re four feet away from me!’”"

Burton & Keaton tried a number of ideas on how to hid Bruce Wayne’s identity such as contact lenses. But ultimately Keaton decided that the only logical thing was to develop a “Batman voice” that sounded very different from billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne.

"I had to do something. I had to drop down a register. Then I learned, later, that it became a thing [for future ‘Batman’ movies]."

It’s always good to know that Keaton cared about this stuff, many actors probably wouldn’t have. And now this is pretty much an established mandate of Batman films. It’ll be interesting to hear Ben Affleck’s “Batman voice” when we start seeing trailers for Batman vs. Superman in the near future (hopefully in just a few weeks if rumors are true…)

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