Warner Bros. and DC’s new animated film Batman vs. Two-Face (now available on Digital, DVD and Blu-ray -- read our review here) is funny in that not only does it feature the classic version of the Dynamic Duo played by Adam West and Burt Ward, but it also stars another actor known for playing an iconic hero -- William Shatner. Only this time Shatner is voicing the titular villain of the piece.
“I think of myself as a hero,” laughs Shatner when I tell him he’s considered strictly a hero to several generations of fans.
“You hear from actors all the time, bad guys are more fun and all,” says the once and future Captain Kirk. “And it’s true. In this particular case, playing two people -- he’s not named Two-Face for any reason -- so there’s a Jekyll and Hyde character. And that’s always fun to try and differentiate the two people. And that’s what I attempted to do.”
Batman vs. Two-Face pits the 1966 West/Ward version of Batman and Robin against the classic villain for the first time in filmed form (a never-produced episode of the old show featuring the character was adapted as a comic a few years back). West sadly passed away after completing the film, though Ward says that if BvTF does well enough, there is the possibility that there will somehow be more sequels. But either way, for Ward, who is now 72, it’s been a long, strange trip that has him still playing the Boy Wonder all these years after first donning the tights.
“Adam and I first met, prior to our screen test, in July of 1965,” he recalls. “And I didn’t even know what I was trying out for. I had no idea what it was. And in five minutes of talking to him, the two of us were laughing. And we never stopped laughing. Fifty-some odd years. I absolutely loved him, loved him.”
Ward recalled a voice recording session where the assembled crew was astonished by how the actor still sounds like he did from a half-century ago.
“It’s very easy for me,” he said. “There’s a whole ton of people there. And they all know the script, right? I mean, it’s all approved before I ever came in. So when I’m doing my stuff, usually it’s like they’re just serious. These people are all laughing. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Is it something I’ve done? What’s going on?’ And [they say], ‘Burt, we’re blown away. Everybody in this room is stunned that you sound exactly like you sounded 50 years ago.’ … The thing was, they all knew the stuff, and they’re all laughing! In other words, it blew me away to hear these great pros could somehow be affected.”
The actor recalled how back in the days of the 1960s show, the crew were so preoccupied with the explosions and effects and the such that he and West were mostly left to craft many of their characters’ mannerisms themselves.
“Jumping over the door to get into the car,” he laughs. “Jumping over the door to get out of the car. Walking along the top of the car -- oh my, and I found out later the people with the car were hysterical about the paint job. When I was hired, you know how I got the part? Eleven hundred guys were interviewed for this. It’s pretty stiff competition. And the executive producer was William Dozier. And he came to me after I’d been hired, and he said, ‘Burt, would you like to know why we selected you out of 1,100 people? Because … if there really was a Robin, you would be it. So we don’t want you to quote act. We want you to be yourself, and be enthusiastic. And that’s all we want. And that’s exactly what I did.”
Shatner still calls upon his theatrical training from early in his career, and when crafting a specific voice for a character like Two-Face -- who, in fact, has two voices -- that training comes in particularly handy.
“I think that being in front of an audience -- and I have been consistently in front of an audience over the years, doing one thing or another, one project or another, whether it is a play or a one-man show, which I did recently on Broadway not too long ago and I’ve been touring with it -- your mind is trained to think of the audience's reaction, you’re forced to,” he says. “So when doing a film, somewhere in your brain is listening for the audience reaction, and you’re playing to that invisible audience, because that’s the way your training is. Actors who haven’t been in front of an audience, I think, miss that theatricality, if you will.”
This latest take on Two-Face also used the actual visuals of the film to inform his performance. When he was recording his dialogue, the producers played early drawings and animation for Shatner.
“They played the film that had been drawn already with the incipient green blotches that Harvey Dent gets, like an algae growth,” he said. “And as I watched it, the artist who had done it started off with a little pimple, then it grew, metastasized all over his body. So, seeing that, I began to play the voice to that. So the voice of the emerging bad guy came and went as I watched the artist coming and going with the green. Which was different than what anybody expected, including me. That was great fun.”
Batman vs. Two-Face is available now on Digital, DVD and Blu-ray.
Talk to Senior Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura.
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