DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Thu, 24 Apr 2025
In this first companion episode of DC High Volume: Batman, host Coy Jandreau sits down with the voice of Batman, Jason Spisak, to discuss portraying the Dark Knight, finding the character’s voice, and more. Then, Coy is joined by Mike Pallotta — DC Creative Director, Animation & Audio Content and Executive Producer for DC on this audio series — to talk about directly adapting Batman: Year One and Batman: The Long Halloween for audio, and working with the cast and crew to create the immersive sound of Gotham City. © & ™ DC. Listen to DC HIGH VOLUME: BATMAN: https://lnk.to/DCHighVolume Learn more at: https://www.dc.com/highvolume Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Coy Jandreau and what is the DC High Volume series about?
hi i'm coy jandro and welcome to dc high volume batman in these very special monthly episodes i'm going to be sitting down with the talent behind this first of its kind audio series as well as the comic creatives who brought us these stories that we're for the very first time directly adapting i As I said, I'm Koi Jandro. I love comic books. I read 50 to 70 comics a week.
I travel doing comic cons for a living. I'm a comic consultant, a comic historian. I'm a comic book correspondent. I love this world. Whether you're a newcomer that has never read a comic in your life, or if you're a veteran like me that has Batman year one tattooed to the back of his mind, you can discover new things in these stories. And I can honestly say I have.
I am so excited that we have covered Batman Year One. Batman has now been formed. He has emerged from the cave. We have seen that turmoil. We have seen what Jim Gordon has gone through. We have heard all of this in a powerful new way. And as of yesterday, we have literally just survived the explosion that will change the dense life forever, that will change Batman lore forever.
We are now into Batman The Long Halloween, which is incredible.
in my opinion one of the best long form stories of all time so i am so honored to say that we have jason spezak the voice of batman himself we have bruce wayne in the studio today as well as a man who is so responsible for getting this show together the executive producer of dc high volume the great mike pilata is sitting down with us today and he is as big of a batman fan as i am or even bigger so i'm very excited to talk all things batman with him so without further ado
Let us light that bat signal. Let's dive in. Let's talk to Jason. Let's talk to Batman. I am sitting down with Bruce Wayne, Batman himself, Jason Spisak. You may also know him as Wally West. You may also know him as Joker in both Batman Hush the movie and Teen Titans Go. And here he absolutely crushes as one of my favorite characters of all time. Jason, how are you, man?
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Chapter 2: What is Jason Spisak's experience portraying Batman?
I am super surrealed out by that intro because I was just thinking as you're going through those list of credits, I'm like, I don't know. Is that me? I'm just a fan. I just, I enjoy this. These are my heroes. What are you talking about? And then you're like, as Batman, oh man, that is such an incredible responsibility and a joy and a pleasure. So it is an incredible honor to be here.
All right, Jason, you are well acquainted with this world as both a Batman fan and as the voice of Batman as an actor. But for you personally, what's it like to be Batman, man?
It is insane. It is incredibly humbling. And when I think about Batman, my childhood and when I think about having watched Batman throughout the years and taken in the content that Batman has come into my brain through my life, it's impossible as an actor, you never come to the work just empty as a vessel.
And that's what I love about when they gave me the opportunity to play Batman, I thought, oh, wow, what a gift. I better not mess this up. That was my thought. And I'm super glad that this opportunity is unique in the scope of things that have been done in the DC universe and in Batman, because it is finally a telling that stays true to the original words. And that is such a gift, man.
Chapter 3: How does Jason Spisak find his voice as Batman?
there's moments in these first four issues that I've waited my whole life as a Batman fan for that I've not gotten to fully experience in this way. The transformation elements and the voice work that is those. And you as an actor get to do firsts as Batman.
Yes, which is crazy. We were talking about that in 2025, that when I go back in my mind and I think of all of the elements of the personality of Bruce Wayne and Batman and the action sequences and the things that have happened, And then I've, you know, you read these comics and, oh, I've never seen that done. Yeah. I've never heard what that sounds like.
What is it like when for the first time that Bruce gets the idea to be Batman? And like, what does that sound like? And you were saying that. And I'm like, it is incredible to create. We take lots of care and gentleness and care. It is a large responsibility to make those moments because it's new. It's actually new.
Even though the panels have been around for decades, the images have been around for decades. DC High Volume Batman is an immersive audio experience. What does that immersive audio experience sound like for that word, that sentence, that moment in Batman and Bruce's existence? Is Bruce vulnerable here? Have we heard that? Have we heard how much he feels about this? He's not telling anyone.
So much of Frank Miller's writing in year one is thought bubbles. And that's what I love about this. We get an insight into Bruce Wayne's psyche and mind that we don't often get presented with. And you get to feel that, oh, wow, he really does have a little bit of worry. He thinks he's messed this up. He's not sure this is the right choice.
And we don't often get times to feel Batman in that space. We often get presented with the gothic Batman. We get presented with this very big stoic thing when in reality, you just have to read your one to know that it wasn't always that way.
Well, we often talk about how Batman is the true face and Bruce is the mask. But I feel like Batman's always presenting by that nature. Right. He's presenting as Bruce. He's presenting as Batman. What's really unique about this format is you get to be the true voice of Bruce in his own journey. And that's why I think the Joker similarities. I feel more because he's not doing a thing.
And I feel like Batman's got a little madness always percolating. Joker obviously lets his out.
So were there any things that surprised you? And Bruce is very guarded in that way.
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Chapter 4: What are the unique elements of the immersive audio experience in DC High Volume Batman?
Yes.
How do you find that line in the sand in the image where you're playing the equalizer of your toolkit to know which one to play up?
Well, it's very interesting because the imagery is helping us understand what is that situation? Is Selena standing there? Who's in that room? Is it him and Gordon now just alone on the roof of the GCPD building? If that's the case, then, well... We know it has to be the Batman who Jim is used to seeing. Bruce has to make this congruent for Jim.
You know, he has to make sure this fits in Jim's reality. And okay, well, if that's the case, but they're alone and now they're talking about something super intimate and oh, Harvey Dent's there. Okay, well, how does that change it? Does he know? How well does he know Harvey?
How has he heard him?
Right. That distinction. Right. So you have to honor that perspective
presence of voice and then on top of that the circumstance i mean obviously emotionally where is bruce and batman where i mean you know batman has this very narrow emotional range and that's one of the things that we love about that that stoicism because he has to be to be this you know dark knight of gotham you can't you don't get to be emotional and make that work
But inside that range, there's all these shades and it has to land right in that moment. And those emotional cues are then layered on top of what I would say the circumstances. And you get those things together and what your ear is gonna hear is you're gonna hear a different shade of Batman in each of those things. And what's interesting is vocally, I am dropping into a Batman voice,
But I don't have a Batman voice because that to me would be betraying the reality of what's going on in the story.
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Chapter 5: How does the adaptation of Batman stories differ in audio format?
I really like that point. I'd never considered the brevity as a strength for Batman, that mirroring a stoicism, but also because of the medium itself, art is such a stranglehold of the visual experience that you have to add that. That's interesting.
That's correct. Yeah. You're not going to find an over-wordy Batman comic when Bruce is talking.
Yeah. Aaron Sorkin is not out there just typing up. Right, right, right.
You're not dictating into your phone and then just throwing that up on panels. But I feel like Bruce's emotional content lends itself very well to that. It lends itself very well to that brevity, that there is this weight when he even arrives first at year one and he's, you know, I should have taken the train. And there's this sense of responsibility. There's regretfulness at times.
Could I have done this better? And as humans, where do we get those voices? Do we get those voices from our father? Do we get those voices from our mother? Where do those things come in? What makes us have this sense of internal responsibility? And on top of that, he's had to live his life without them. So yeah, I think it has that weight because of the story.
And we see the responsibility grow because we meet you as such a young Bruce and an even younger Batman. We see Batman happen.
We experienced the birth of the cycle. I was frightened about that, by the way, because like the first time you get to do the Batman voice, having it be such a young version of Batman, such an inexperienced version of Batman. I didn't want the audience to reject it because it's not what they typically hear.
Right.
Right. And so like in the back of my mind, I'm like, just trust it. Just trust it.
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges of balancing multiple voices in portraying Batman?
They have a vision of what they want this to be. But it's a collaborative effort to kind of do that on purpose. Maybe he's unsure in this moment. And I don't think anyone's ever gotten that privilege. Because to me as an actor, that's a privilege to get those opportunities.
It's a pretty one of one moment to get to become Batman in all senses of the word. Now, mediums is something I want to discuss because as a comic book person in this age of comic book, it's a golden age because we have so many different ways comics are being adapted. But this medium to me feels like a one of one new thing. And it is. 2025 don't get to live a lot of firsts in art.
And so it's really special.
Yeah.
What was it like adjusting your performance as someone who's done voice work in so many other mediums that are a little bit more, you know, storied? Like we've had video games for a while. We've had animation. This to me is something brand new. How do you adjust your performance to nail something that is brand new to the world?
Well, it's all acting, I'll tell you that. And I think if I've done anything across my career, it's to try to ignore the medium as best as I can first. First and foremost, I'm part of a storytelling troop.
I'm from a group of people who want to tell you the story, want to get you to feel where the character is and to disappear into that as best I can, that there's no more Jason, that's unimportant. What is it like to be in this story in this moment? But you can't completely ignore the fact that this is an immersive audio experience for a thing that already exists.
We get to have... I don't know if anybody who's watching this or you remember radio plays, but there was this thing in the days of the golden age of radio where... that you would have this audio experience of what it was like. And prior to that, you were reading. You were either watching theatrical performances or you were reading books.
And when you're reading books, your imagination processes that and makes it real for yourself. But in an audio experience like this, you don't have the visual. So your imagination is on board in a completely different way. You're not reading the words, you're listening to the words and your imagination gears up in a completely different way and begins to paint these beautiful pictures for yourself
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of the emotional depth in Batman's character?
And I love that we get to experience a comic that is a direct experience that we have lived if we've read it. But this is also a great way for people that haven't read comics to discover the way the Batman is.
We were talking about that, how there are people who like true crime. And for the genre of podcasts of which this is, I would like to say, an evolution. I think DC High Volume Batman is an evolution of the podcast medium. Yeah. You have people who love the true crime podcast and you have people who love the fiction sort of narrative podcast, but haven't read the comics.
That's not part of their lived history. So you get these folks who are, for them, these stories are going to be brand new. Yeah. They get to have that first time Batman what? Wasn't always Batman experience, you know, or like what? You know, and he's unsure of himself. What? You know, and I think that is such a gift to anybody who goes and grabs this on their, you know, in their podcast feed.
They're going to be so pleasantly surprised by this. And then maybe, you know, they might go out and grab some comics. They might go out and it might take them into a different place that they've never explored.
And I want to sit down with people that listen to this and then ask them what they think Gordon looks like, what they think Bruce looks like. Yes, who haven't read the comics. Please, please, please.
Or give them like a sketch pad and be like, just draw, just draw. What's your crime sketch of the culprit here? Draw Selena right now, what you think she looks like, you know?
And that's so unique because we're comic people.
Yes, yes. And I would love to see people's interpretation of the auditory experience into their own version of a visual experience. That would be fascinating to know. And then have them, you know, open the comic and be like, wow.
wow, that is so interesting. And that's like being an artist, right? Like you get to interpret what the writer wrote. I would love to see that. And speaking of your work, the booth itself, man, that experience to me is like alchemy. Were there any memorable moments for you as a fan that gave you chills that got that? Like we, we, you said the glass slipper.
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Chapter 8: What memorable moments stood out during Jason Spisak's performance?
at night i would want to go for these long walks and i always wanted something to listen to so i found myself listening to audiobooks and consuming so many audiobooks and just being drawn towards stephen king audiobooks listening to salem's lot and carrie and again anything i could um just to just to give my mind something to listen to.
I am always like drawn to narrative and I loved it, but I found myself wanting to marry comic books and graphic storytelling with This audio, and it's not an original idea to me. I think it's an idea so many fans have had, which is why not develop these stories for audio? And the idea of doing them word for word, the way that an audio book is word for word.
So that's really where it's stemmed from. And then, you know, working at DC, I'm a creative director at DC, and I've worked at DC for about nine years now.
And when I got the opportunity to start working on the podcast business and the audio business, I got to dive into the world of Batman and all of these characters with projects like Batman The Audio Adventures and Batman Unburied and other series related to that. And I found working on those shows was incredibly fulfilling and incredibly valuable, but those were original stories.
And with something like this, I wanted to work with the teams at Realm and with my co-pilot on all these projects, Victor Diaz, to take what we've learned from those projects and use it to adapt the stories that people know and love from the comics.
I love that we opened this conversation talking about Batman being something that is so flexible and versatile. And even in that experience, your direct experience is adapting a story, making it new, adapting a story, making it new, and now giving us the story of your one. And I think that's really something special, but I'm curious, what is an EP in this capacity on this show?
Like what's it like to actually be kind of, you know, pulling strings with the character in the direct way?
Yeah, there's a lot involved with being an EP on this show. Yeah, Victor, who I mentioned before, he and I will weigh in on everything from the scripts, making sure that we're
adapting it as closely as possible to audio but not missing anything we're trying to keep verbatim as word perfect as possible with the original text in the in the original artwork but there are moments where even reading the script you're like how is this going to work in audio and are we hitting those points so it's really it's part of our job to think with that specific lens when we're reading through the scripts and then we'll weigh in on the cast you know finding
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