Patrick Fabian, known to some for playing Howard Hamlin on Better Call Saul, and others for his unique reading of the “The One Piece is real!” meme, also has some DC voice acting experience under his belt. He previously played Hank Henshaw/Cyborg Superman in The Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen (which are set in the DC Animated Movie Universe timeline), and now he’s back in the DC movies space for the 1920-set Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, where he’s playing Harvey Dent. In order to bring his version of the Batman character to life, Fabian drew inspiration from two classic Hollywood actors, both of whom are excellent choices.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Patrick Fabian about his work on Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, which follows less than two months after the previous release in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line, Legion of Super-Heroes. Having been taken with how charismatic Fabian sounded as Harvey Dent, I asked the actor if he had any particular influences when crafting the character’s voice, and he responded:
I was thinking of the idea of Robert Redford from The Candidate, which is a movie from the ‘70s. I thought of Robert Redford and Paul Newman. These are older actors, obviously, but at the time, they were young men, and they were just full of themselves and full of handsomeness and full of potential and optimism. And I thought, ‘That’s who they are! They’re leading with their chest and they’re here to save you! They’re good!’ Usually that ends up being somebody’s downfall with an ego like that, but in this case, I thought we haven’t seen that part, we’re just seeing the first part. So that’s what I was thinking.
Robert Redford and Paul Newman became Hollywood heavyweights at different times, but as Patrick Fabian noted, these two were among the industry’s most handsome actors during their respective periods, so these are some solid picks for inspiration. Redford and Newman eventually worked together in 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which launched the former to prominence, and they later re-teamed on 1973’s The Sting. While Newman passed away in 2008, Redford is still around, though his last on-camera film appearances were in 2018’s The Old Man & The Gun and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.
In addition to drawing from Robert Redford and Paul Newman, Patrick Fabian was also able to figure out his Harvey Dent voice by envision the kind of physique the character would have, which ended up pairing nicely with how Harvey was animated. In his words:
Also, you look at the animation, they’re wearing these double-breasted suits, and God bless DC animation, they made Harvey Dent look like he’d been going to the gym a whole lot. So I thought of broad shoulders, shoulders back, chest forward, that sort of peacock prom thing.
Patrick Fabian’s version of Harvey Dent is running for mayor when Bruce Wayne reunites with him in Gotham City at a party being held by a drunken Oliver Queen. Without going into spoilers for this movie and the original story written by Mike Mignola and Richard Pace, and illustrated by Troy Nixey and Dennis Janke, while we do see Harvey become Two-Face, it’s a drastically different version compared to how the duality-obsessed villain is usually depicted. Fabian’s co-stars include in Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham include David Giuntoli as Bruce Wayne/Batman (whom he previously voiced in Batman: Soul of the Dragon, Tati Gabrielle as Kai Li Cain (a character created for this movie), Christopher Gorham as Oliver Queen, John DiMaggio as James Gordon, Brian George as Alfred Pennyworth, David Dastmalchian as Grendon, Navid Negabhan as Ra’s al Ghul and Emily O’Brien as Talia al Ghul and Martha Wayne, among many others. Sam Liu directed the feature and Jase Ricci wrote the screenplay.
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham can be purchased from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on Digital, 4K Combo Pack and Blu-ray starting tomorrow, March 28. Break out your HBO Max subscription to stream plenty of DC-related content, and continue visiting CinemaBlend for news concerning upcoming DC movies.
