David Dastmalchian on Voicing Penguin in Batman: The Long Halloween

(Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)

Actor David Dastmalchian can currently be seen in Batman: The Long Halloween Part One as Calendar Man, but he’ll also be voicing Penguin in Part Two. The animated film is out now on Blu-ray and digital. It’s a bit of a rarity for two characters to be voiced by the same actor in such a star-studded cast, so ComingSoon asked Dastmalchian how that came to be.

“I can’t believe it,” said Dastmalchian to ComingSoon. “I really can’t believe I got to become Oswald Cobblepot, and I can’t believe I could be any of the things that I’ve gotten to be, but that was truly special. We were working and recording and I was doing some things in between takes with my voice, just some vocal exercises, and warmups. I was demonstrating some different characters for Wes and the rest of the team. Whatever I did, they said, “You know what, we’d like to hear your take on the Penguin for this scene here. What do you think, do you want to give a try?” I had such a blast doing it and luckily they liked and kept it. Now I am a part of two amazing characters in Batman: The Long Halloween Part Two. So my goodness, it’s like Christmas every day for me in the comic shop that I can’t believe I’m getting to do these.”

Dastmalchian holds the source material in high regards and says that every reader should own a copy of the comic.

“I think that anybody who loves great stories, whether you’re a comic book collector or not, you should order Batman: The Long Halloween and just own it. I think everyone should have that book on their bookshelf. It’s like one of those iconic pieces of lit that you should just own and then read it, enjoy it, and ingest it and find the things about it that you love, and the characters that you’re excited about. The way that Batman gets through this level of evolution that he has to go to them to be able to solve this really intense mystery, and then go watch our film because you’re going to be so pleased with how incredibly, lovingly, masterfully the team brought both the animation, the sound environment, and the world of the comic to this film. I think it’s going to really blow people away.”