Tim Curry, who passed away at the age of 80, is most recognized for his great on-screen roles like Dr. Frank-n-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and Pennywise in “It,” but for the majority of his acting roles, he didn’t physically appear onscreen at all. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Curry was a prolific voice actor. His characters range from the pollution monster Hexxus in “Ferngully: The Last Rainforest” to the aristocratic documentarian Sir Nigel Thornberry in “The Wild Thornberrys” to Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”
But what could have been his most notable cartoon role is one that got away: The Joker in “Batman: The Animated Series.” Curry was cast as Batman’s arch-nemesis and recorded three episodes before being replaced with Mark Hamill. Speaking to Vulture, voice director Andrea Romano said that she never would have replaced Curry herself but producer Alan Burnett “just couldn’t wrap his head around Tim’s performance.”
Series co-creator Bruce Timm said that, in contrast to other auditioning actors who leaned too hard into Cesar Romero campiness, Curry’s work was “funny and weird but also definitely had some menace to it.” It was “really close” but “just wasn’t quite what we wanted,” he said. Curry himself blamed his recasting on a case of bronchitis while he was recording.
How Mark Hamill replaced Tim Curry as The Joker
Mark Hamill sought out a role in “Batman: The Animated Series” as a fan of the comics. He originally got cast as the CEO responsible for the death of Mr. Freeze’s wife, but he wanted a recurring part — and The Joker just happened to need recasting at the same time.
Filling in for Curry was challenging since the animation in those episodes was already based around Curry’s performance. According to Andrea Romano, “that’s really hard to come up with while introducing a character as intense as Joker — you’re stuck with somebody else’s timing. And Mark was crazy good.” Turns out Luke Skywalker was the perfect Clown Prince of Crime, and history was made.
While Curry is among the actors who almost played the Joker, his voice can still be heard in two different “Batman: The Animated Series” episodes: his Joker laugh was used uncredited for a robot clown in “Be a Clown,” and provided additional voices in “Fear of Victory.” He’d return to the DC Animated Universe as Mutro Botha, the last survivor of the Society of Assassins, in the “Batman Beyond” episode “Final Cut.”
