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Clancy Brown talks "Public Enemies"
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Our friends over at the Batman Universe received an interview with Clancy Brown from Warner Brothers. Clancy Brown was the voice of Lex Luthor in the popular 1990's Superman animated series. He's reprised the role in a few other animated projects and will be doing it again in the upcoming "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies" film. Here are some of the highlights.
QUESTION: Can you remember your initial audition for the role of Lex Luthor?
CLANCY BROWN: Warner Bros. had been doing Batman and it was very successful, so they were gearing up this new iteration of Superman. They decided to sort of go outside the box as far as talent was concerned, and I had made it known that I wanted to do more voice work. I wasn't very good at it, but I wanted to get better. I enjoy cartoons and animation, and comic books were part of my life growing up. So they said “Come on in, We're trying to cast Superman.” So I went in and just blew them all away with my Superman. And then they said “Here's an idea (he laughs) nobody has ever thought of: What if Clancy played the bad guy?” (he laughs harder) So I rolled my eyes and said, “Can I, just one time, play the good guy?” And Andrea said, “No, you can play Lex.” So I said, “Fine, I'll play Lex.” Honestly, Lex is fun. I'm very happy to be Lex. It's a lot more interesting than Superman to me.
QUESTION: What exactly is it that makes you the definitive voice of the character for the fans?
CLANCY BROWN: What I do with Lex, to me, is no different than how I always viewed Lex. I thought the early Super Friends animation of Lex was kind of lacking in many aspects. It's fun to watch – it’s campy and all – but Lex wasn’t quite what I thought Lex should be. So when this started, you had this accident of everybody kind of being on the same page about what the story was and who the characters were. I just went in and did what I've thought Lex always should sound like. I totally enjoyed Gene Hackman's portrayal of Lex Luthor, but it wasn’t a Lex that I was ever afraid of. I enjoyed Kevin Spacey in the newest film, but again, that wasn’t the Lex that I thought made a good opposition to Superman. Lex is the bad guy. He's the archetype. He's everything that's ugly about who we are as people. But he is also what is seductive about that side, which is the wealth and the power. He's Darth Vader. Oh man, there’s the one I should've played – Darth Vader.
Darn. Missed opportunity. Okay, so what do I bring to Lex? I don’t know. I'm just lucky enough to have a low voice and the highfalutin idea to play Lex where I think he should be. After that, it’s all about the quality of the scripts.
QUESTION: Where did you get that idea of what Lex should be?
CLANCY BROWN: The vision was so clear in the original comic books and throughout the '40s and '50s and '60s, as you saw him develop and become what is frightening about all the things that we want, and the sins that we have to commit in order to achieve that money and power. Of course, Lex has no problem with any of those sins – he’s quite at ease with running a corporation that has no conscience. What is seductive about Lex is that he is unremorseful. He is simply doing what he thinks is best. Does he think he's a bad guy? No, of course not. But he doesn’t pretend to be a good guy. To him, it's an immoral world anyway, and that people try to lay morality and ethics over the human action is just foolish. You can't accomplish anything that way. The only way you accomplish something is to jettison all of that spirituality, all of those morals and ethics, and get on with business.
QUESTION: Tell us about this voice cast reunion.
CLANCY BROWN: Working with Tim and Kevin is so much fun. Tim's got a day job (ABC’s Private Practice) and so he couldn't be there when we started recording. I don’t think I've seen Kevin for 10 years because he lives in New York and Lex and Batman didn’t do much together anyway. But I always enjoyed it when Kevin was in town because I kind of knew him from even before Batman. He's a great guy and I love him, so I'm always glad to see him. Kevin has a terrific energy, and I always loved what he did with Batman. I always enjoyed the times that we've actually been able to mix the worlds. Tim is a different story. We had a few years together doing this material, and there was a rapport there that kind of instantaneously came back.
What was interesting is that Kevin and I were there early and we recorded most of the script. And then Tim came in later, and we ran through the script for some filmed publicity materials. We sort of pretended to do a rehearsal for the camera. And as I'm sitting there listening to Tim and Kevin, I'm thinking, “Wow, they're better. (he laughs) Kevin's actually doing it even better. And I'm listening to myself and I'm thinking, “Wow, I'm actually better because Tim's in the room.” The energy of having everybody there from so long ago was tremendous – we had this wonderful performance rapport with each other. So we ended up staying and recording the whole thing again. And I’ll tell you what – anytime Tim Daly or Kevin Conroy wants to join me for any job, I'll be happy to have them on the set, behind the mic, whatever. I've got to read some stories to my son's kindergarten class and I’m thinking I may have to call up Tim or Kevin and see if they want to come in because I know, just because they're in the room, that I'll do a better job than if I tried to do it alone.
QUESTION: The fans call you the quintessential voice of Lex Luthor. Do you feel some sense of ownership for the role?
CLANCY BROWN: I respect it, but I think it goes like this: when I was growing up, the greatest basketball player was Julius Erving or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. For my daughter, it was Michael Jordan. And now, for my son, it's going to be Kobe Bryant or Lebron James. Whatever comes next for this generation, that's going to be the greatest voice. I think it's the greatest iteration of this cartoon, and I'm immensely grateful and feel very fortunate that I'm part of it. I think it's going to be tough to top this version of Superman, even by any other medium. I don’t think you'll get a live action version that could be as good as this world.
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I had no idea that Clancy Brown was so well versed in his Luthor-mythology. I loved hearing his take on all the different versions of Lex we've seen in the media. I always image Brown's voice when I read the comics and I can't wait to see him portray Luthor again in "Public Enemies".
For more info: Check out "The Batman Universe" for more stories and interviews.
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