Legacies must rise to unearthly challenges as the children of Batman and Superman are charged with saving their famous fathers… And the world – in Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons. Warner Bros. Animation’s first-ever all-CG animated, feature-length film is available from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on DVD and Blu-ray, and Digital Download right now. To celebrate it’s release, we had the absolute priviledge of talking to legendary voice actor Laura Bailey who voices Lois Lane. We discussed DC, voice acting, the pandemic, and the importance of Lois Lane as a character. It truly was a gift and we’re so excited to share this with you.
J: Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons is almost here. I watched it last night and it is so good! I absolutely loved the animation style and I adored Lois’ role in it, she’s brilliant in it! To kick things off, I was wondering if you could, for those getting ready to watch the film, tell us a bit about where we find Lois and what she’s up to in Super Sons.
L: Well, we see Lois… Oh God, she’s just living her life doing what she does best. But I think it’s really fun because in this iteration you get to see her as a mother which is something we don’t get to see too often in the DC Universe, at least not in animated form. She’s just a blast!
J: Yeah! It sounded like you had a great time with it. The reporting side of her is always there, and she’s such a devoted and caring mother and wife. She has fun, but she knows when to get serious and when to step up especially at home. It was just a great role and she held it together for a lot of the characters, especially for Jonathan.
L: Definitely, yeah. You know… She’s honestly the best of us, right? She’s what I aspire to be as a mother and a person who is juggling a career and family as well.
J: Absolutely! Looking at the DC Universe, this isn’t your first role in that vast world and this isn’t your first bout as Lois Lane either. So I was just wondering how your role in Super Sons differed to some of your other DC roles?
L: Honestly… I feel as if this version of Lois is very close to me personally. She’s very similar to my own personality and just where she is in her life. So it feels very natural to be playing Lois in this film for sure.
J: That’s really nice to hear! The thing I find very interesting about voice acting and even comic books in general is just how many iterations there are and did you ever go around and see what other Lois’ were like in other animated films, or did you aim to bring something fresh to this side of Lois that, like you said, we haven’t really explore before?
L: I wanted to be honest with my performance and, you know Margot Kidder is always going to live in my head as Lois. I grew up with that version of Lois Lane, but I still think it’s important to bring your own flare and personality to any role.
J: I think you did that so well! She’s so much fun and it was so endearing and heartwarming to see the relationship she had with Clark and Jonathan, even Jimmy. There’s so much fun to be had in that film. Obvioustly, you’re working with Travis Willingham which I think is so, so cool! That must have been really neat. What was it like being able to share that role with Travis and being the power couple- THE Lois and Clark.
L: It wa so wonderful. You know, we’re such geeks in this house and we werre just so excited when we got the call to play Lois and Clark. Then there’s Troy playing Batman, so it was the three of us together… It was just wonderful and quite hard to believe really, from the start of our careers to where we are now playing these characters it’s… Pretty crazy.
J: It must get to a point where… It almost stops feeling like work, you know? You’re with these people that you love and admire, and you’re doing the thing that you’re passionate about and so very, very good at. It must be an absolute joy being able to bring these characters to life for so many people around the world.
L: It really is!, you know It feels a lot like getting to play pretend and just running around the playground. You’re just having fun while doing it, right?
J: I’ve spoken to a few voice actors recently which is quite honestly a dream come true, and I’ve always said that in the last few years we’re seeing that people are really not only loving, but also recognising what voice actors are doing and there appears to be a lot of recognition now for this artform. Not only that, but you’ve been able to bring characters to our screens from all different franchises and worlds.
L: Honestly, I have a hard time understanding how it all happened, but I’m just so thirlled to be able to do what I’m doing. I think social media has had a huge impact on voice actor recognition. I think because we can now easily look up those voices and find people on social media channels like Twitter or Instagram, and then they’re able to see a face in addition to a name. There’s definitely more recognition happening I think.
J: Looking at the process of voice acting, especially with technology in mind as well as the fact you’ve been in this industry for a while now and even the pandemic, how has the process changed?
L: Well, I think… That’s a huge question [laughs]. So much of what I do is motion capture, you know? And when I first started that wasn’t a thing that even existed, at least not on a grand scale. So now we get to fully embody these characters which is so wonderful, and then when the pandemic hit everything became very isolated again. It was almost like a relearning experience because so many of us had been recording together and filming together… It was lonely again as a voice actor. But now it’s a reacclimation as everything is being reintroduced after a few years of recording at home… To then suddenly go “oh, we’re going to see people again and record together?”
J: I always found it very interesting to see how studios adapted to that current climate, and I’m glad that voice acting was one that could continue to provide and thrive, especially to those who maybe needed it at the time.
L: Yeah, it was funny to see the quickness with which the voice acting community were able to set up their own home booths to such a professional standard as well. Suddenly, everyone was able to record from their home studio again and it was awesome!
J: To round off, what is it about Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons that fans and audiences are going to love?
L: I just think they’re going to love the banter. The characters are so much fun! Even though the story is great, I think it’s those relationships are what people are going to take away from it.
Jack Dylan Glazer (Shazam!, Luca, It) and Jack Griffo (The Thundermans) lead the voice cast as Jonathan Kent and Damian Wayne, respectively. The supporting cast features Troy Baker (The Last of Us, Batman: The Long Halloween) as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Travis Willingham (Critical Role, Sofia The First) as Superman/Clark Kent, Laura Bailey (The Legend of Vox Machina, Naruto: Shippûden) as Lois Lane, Darin De Paul (Overwatch, Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge) as Lex Luthor & Starro, Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants) as Green Arrow & Penguin, Zeno Robinson (Big City Greens, Pokémon) as Jimmy Olsen & Melvin Masters, Nolan North (Uncharted video game franchise, Young Justice, Pretty Little Liars) as Jor-El, and Myrna Velasco (DC Super Hero Girls, Star Wars Resistance) as Wonder Girl & Lara.
Matt Peters (Justice League Dark: Apokolips War) directs Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons from a script penned by Jeremy Adams (Mortal Kombat Legends franchise). Producer is Jim Krieg (Batman: Gotham By Gaslight) and Supervising Producer is Rick Morales (Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders). Executive Producer is Michael Uslan. Sam Register is Executive Producer.
