Dermot Mulroney makes his cartoon/super hero debut as Green Lantern in this Saturday's premiere of "Ring Toss," the latest episode of 'The Batman.' The episode airs on Dec. 8 at 11:30 a.m. ET/PT as part of the Kids' WB! top-rated Saturday morning broadcast lineup on The CW.
Mulroney has starred in nearly 60 films and television series, including "My Best Friend's Wedding," "About Schmidt," "The Family Stone" and "Must Love Dogs." He said he enjoyed the voiceover experience and hopes to work in the medium more often. He also voiced a character in Bill Plympton's 2007 animated film "Hair High." He particularly enjoyed the specific direction and recording with an ensemble cast on "The Batman."
"It's a really comfortable environment, especially recording with the entire cast and working with the pros that was the most fun," Mulroney said. "It all came pretty natural, but then again, you're really helped through it. It's not like on a film set, where you don't really want the director to give you a line reading. Here, I rely on it. It's a different medium.
Unique to Mulroney's previous acting experience was his ADR (additional dialogue recording) session, where he recorded to picture more lines and fixed some old dialogue, as well as adding all the physical sounds that go with the fight sequences. Renowned voice director Andrea Romano guided Mulroney through both of his "Ring Toss" sessions.
"Doing all the grunts and groans has its charm, too," Mulroney said. "There are experts here in the studio who know exactly which type of groan goes with which picture, so I pretty much just do what they say. It's too difficult without the expert guidance. (Andrea) knows exactly what the sound is that you make when there's an impact and what's the sound of you throwing a punch, when you're getting blown up or when a ceiling falls on you. That may sound funny to say, but it sounds good in the recording."
The interplay between Green Lantern and Batman was another enticement in luring Mulroney to the project.
"I really liked the dynamic between Green Lantern and Batman that was my favorite part of the storyline," he said. "With the Justice League, we're talking about a whole league of super heroes so how is everybody supposed to get along? They're fighting for the same cause, but there are some personality conflicts. That was a fun part to play."
Mulroney's distinctive voice is a natural for animation. To him, though, the experience was somewhat surreal particularly in comparison with his usual on-camera roles.
"I've always had this voice," Mulroney said. "Most of my brothers had their voice change, but I was absolutely Froggy you know, Froggy from "Our Gang." I've sounded like this since I was 5. I'm used to it, so it's fine.
"In live-action, it's funny to see yourself on the screen; but to only hear your voice coming out of a cartoon character is still like it's somebody else's voice sometimes. It's a little bit of a surreal experience. I was fine working on (Batman) originally, just recording the script into a microphone. But to come in to fill in the gaps and to watch the TV screen and hear my voice recording coming out of the character, and not coming out of my mouth, is a bit of a peculiar experience."
As reported in TV Guide last week, Dermot's brother and sister-in-law are Kieran and Michelle Mulroney, the screenwriters on "Justice League of America," the upcoming Warner Bros. live-action film. Mulroney sees symmetry to their current projects.
"Kieran and I grew up reading DC comics," Mulroney said. "We had a whole system where, once a week, we'd take a trip to the little store that sold the comics. I have a couple of brothers, and we'd all fight over who got which issue. So there's a long history of comics in the family."
Mulroney is going to keep the super hero theme running through the family he plans on watching the episode with his 8-year-old son.
"He's going to love it," he said.
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