‘Batman Beyond’ Lead Not Interested In Returning To Neo-Gotham Without Kevin Conroy: “Being Terry And Not Having Him Answer As Bruce, I Don’t Think I Could Do It”
Though DC has yet to announce any such formal plans to do so, Batman Beyond lead voice actor Will Friedle says that any future attempt by the Warner Bros. subsidiary to revive the animated series will have to be made without him, as he no longer feels right voicing Terry McGinnis without the late Kevin Conroy providing the voice of Bruce Wayne.
RELATED: Iconic Batman Voice Actor Kevin Conroy Passes Away At Age 66 Following Brief Battle With Cancer
Friedle, whose extensive voice acting career in the years since his time as Eric Matthews on Boy Meets World has included roles like Kim Possible‘s Ron Stoppable, Batman: The Brave and the Bold‘s Blue Beetle, and Seifer in Kingdom Hearts II, opened up about his decision to hang up the cowl during a recent panel appearance at 2025 Animate! Columbus fan expo.
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Asked by a fan, “If they did green-light a Batman Beyond movie, namely a Batman Beyond movie in the Spider-Verse style, would you be willing to hop back into Terry again? [ostensibly a reference to the rejected pitch for such a project from Across the Spider-Verse visual development artist Yuhki Demers, as circulated around social media last year]”, the storied voice actor admitted that while he once would have jumped at the chance to revisit Neo-Gotham, he no longer felt that enthusiasm following the late Conroy’s death in November 2022.
“If you asked me that question three years ago, [I would have said], ‘Oh my god, yes. Get me in front of the microphone right now,'” Friedle somberly admitted. “Now that Kevin’s gone, I don’t know if I could do it. I think they would need to recast both roles because being Terry and not having him answer as Bruce, I don’t think I could do it.”
Notably – and understandably – Friedle is not the only member of the DC animated series’ cast to essentially retire from their role in the wake of Conroy’s passing.
Speaking on the topic during a 2023 interview with Empire Magazine, Mark Hamill admitted that without Conroy to serve as his Dark Knight, he no longer had any interest in bringing his signature brand of laughter back to the role of the Joker.
“They would call and say, ‘They want you to do the Joker,’ and my only question was, ‘Is Kevin Batman?'” he told the magazine. “If they said yes, I would say, ‘I’m in.’ We were like partners. We were like Laurel and Hardy. Without Kevin there, there doesn’t seem to be a Batman for me.”
As note above, there currently exists no publicly announced plans for any sort of Batman Beyond revival.
And in a particularly interesting aside, with Friedle’s de facto retirement from the cowl, the Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths trilogy now stands as the final performance for both him and Conroy in their DCAU roles.
