With a prolific career across animated projects and video games, Troy Baker has played prominent roles in some of the world's biggest franchises, including multiple roles within the Batman mythos. While Baker has voiced the Joker since 2013's Batman: Arkham Origins, the actor has portrayed major players in Batman's world, including Nightwing, Robin, and Batman himself. Baker reprised his role as the Joker in both parts of the animated film, Batman: The Long Halloween -- a part that shows the Joker incensed that Gotham City is being menaced by a new serial killer, which puts him on a collision course with Batman.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Baker reflected on his portrayal of the Joker in the new animated movie and shared his unique perspective on Batman's mythos and characters.
You've played the Joker in multiple different worlds and mediums. What elements from previous performances did you want to retain and did you want to take the opportunity to change anything up?
Troy Baker: There's this whole adage of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And I never really liked it because my favorite toys to play with were the broken ones. To me, there is such a joy in finding something that is broken and fixing it. However, as I've gotten older, that's not as much fun to do in isolation. It's far more fun to fix it and collaborate with other people. When you're thinking of The Long Halloween, you're not fixing anything, it's not broken. The fear is that somehow inherently by touch it, you will break it so everybody approached this story with some fear and apprehension.
We've got a pretty good record so far: We've been able to do Year One, Under the Red Hood, The Killing Joke, these incredible stories that have been lauded, celebrated, and elevated in the public eye as cinema classics to this world. When you look at The Long Halloween, it's not a cult classic, but it's not something as prolific as The Killing Joke so, by the very nature of that, people who are familiar with The Long Halloween are really looking at it wondering what are you going to do. I really applaud the creators of this to be able to go into this headlong and we're going to shake it up. The temptation is to rest on your laurels and call in the standards and you play it very safe. Every frame of this movie butts up against that, being safe is antithetical, it's an anathema.
To me, that is so endemic specifically to this story and these characters -- no one is safe. From the first frame, you've got this long shot of Bruce Wayne looking out over Gotham and the first line of the movie is from Bruce and that's a bold choice! The formula says show Batman perched up on a building overlooking Gotham in the rain about to beat up some people, start with a fight scene. That's not what we do. We start with a dialogue essentially between two people and you think there's your hero and there's the enemy but, nope, every turn in this movie, wherever you think the danger is coming from, you're wrong.
One of my favorite lines in this movie is when Bruce says, "I never thought I'd have to become a detective." And that is blasphemy to us who revere this canon. He's the World's Greatest Detective! For us to be able to lean into everything about this and make you question it, that is what keeps it fresh and makes it feel unique and shows that these characters are so strong and you can bend them so far before they break. From the casting to the writing to the animation style, I feel like we did that.
I love that the Joker comes into this story pissed that there's another serial killer around, but he's still the Joker so he can't help himself to dress up like a pilot and have a good time. How is it balance that darkness with that joie de vivre?
You nailed it because, in every one of these movies with Batman, you're looking for the Joker. It's almost as if the Joker is Batman's +1. More so than Robin, you're looking to see if [Batman] brought his friend because the Joker casts a very long shadow and the temptation is great to fill up the frame. The thing that I love about this story is that we specifically wanted to make sure that he is really on the outside and he's sidelined with Batman, reinforcing the fact that Batman is at a loss and that he is not prepared for this. It's a really cool challenge because it's usually a ticking clock counting down till we get to the Joker.
And as you say, he's a little pissed that someone is still his thunder but that's not the Joker because the Joker doesn't get pissed for long. He sees it as an opportunity in a pretty unique and somewhat admirable way to view life. Every adversity is an opportunity for accomplishment, saying, "How can I use this to my benefit? Do climb up in an airplane and have a badass fight with Batman over Gotham?" Sure, that's exactly what I want to do on a Tuesday!
As someone with the unique perspective of voicing the Joker, Batman, Nightwing, Tim Drake, and Jason Todd over your career, how do you see the relationship between the Bat-Family and their greatest nemesis?
The first graphic novel I picked up was at a grocery store and it was a Batman origin story. It wasn't that I had inherently good taste in graphic novels, it was just at my eye level on the turnstile as a mini-comic. Even in that form, the story of this kid that has a horrible fate befall him and set in a town where the very nature of the city is trying to consume him and what he does is look at adversity and see opportunity and becomes a symbol of hope by becoming a symbol of fear. You just break that down from a literary standpoint, Batman is one of the most compelling characters... Tolkien would look at Batman and go, "Damn, dude! That's good!"
I believe that as we've crushed eighty years and are rapidly approaching one hundred years of this character. This thing didn't just live because of Bob Kane or exist because Tim Burton did a movie in 1989 or Christopher Nolan does this gangbuster thing with Christian Bale. The character is strong enough that not only Michael Keaton can play him, but George Clooney can also play him and he's still a good character. [laughs] It's such a strong character that I want to know what Gotham looks like not only through Batman's eyes but through Robin's eyes and Joker and Gordon and Two-Face and Ivy. I want to know what they see when they look at Gotham because, to me, the ultimate character is not even Batman, it's Gotham.
With Batman and all these characters ripe for reinterpretation and rebirth, what was an enduring mark you wanted to leave on the Joker across your performances?
The challenge for me every time is I can't be someone as good as Mark [Hamill]. That's my struggle. Mark has been very, very kind and I am still to this day very respectful to him and that role for no other reason than my own personal sentiment. There's no professional reason why I have to, and Mark has even acknowledged that you can't say one person is King Lear or Richard III. Hopefully, the character is informed by the actor who is portraying them. The second I start thinking about all the superfluous and extraneous things about the character and these stories, I'm no longer thinking about the character inside the stories. I, fortunately, have great creators on the other side of the glass who tell me to keep on Line 95 because we're in the middle of an intense moment.
But in terms of the long-lasting legacy, every time somebody gives me the opportunity to portray the Joker or any of these characters, if the takeaway is, "I never knew that." Or, "I never thought about that..." Then we collectively as a team have done our jobs. That is so much bigger than a laugh, smile, or line of dialogue, that exists purely within the character, and if I can hopefully give someone a different side of the character then I will have done my job.
Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One and Two are now available on Blu-ray and digital HD.
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