Voice actors always have an important role to play in animated media franchises. Their job is to express the emotions that their characters are feeling only with their voices and it requires an incredible amount of skill and perfection to be able to do it consistently.
Live-action roles are very different from voice-acting roles and there are some in which the latter is arguably even harder. Superman is definitely one of those roles.
Tim Daly did not base his Superman voice on any other previous actors
Superman: The Animated Series will certainly go down in history as one of the best DC animated series of all time. The series was the 2nd show of DC Animated Universe after Batman: The Animated Series and revolved around the story of the titular hero and his adventures as Superman.
Tim Daly is one of the most established stars in the industry at the moment. The American actor first rose to fame for his portrayal of Joe Hackett on the NBC sitcom Wings. As a result of his success on Wings, Tim Daly was picked as the voice actor for Superman in Superman: The Animated Series, and the actor did an absolutely phenomenal job.
Some legendary actors like George Reeves, Kirk Allen, and Chris Reeves have already tried their hands at portraying Superman in live-action movies. However, when it came to voice acting, only Bud Collyer and Danny Dark voiced Man of Steel in previous animated series, none of which came close to the success of Superman: The Animated Series.
Once in an interview with Bleeding Cool, Tim Daly was asked if he tried to base his Superman voice on the previous portrayals of the character and Daly denied it. He said,
“What I was going on script. I’m sure that is kind of like music. You hear a lot of music and if you’re composing music, it affects how you write. I didn’t go and do a lot of research on what other people did and try to learn from mistakes or copy. I just let it be my Superman and saw it as a blank slate.”
Tim Daly’s stellar performance as Superman was one of the reasons why Superman: The Animated Series turned out to be such a massive success.
Tim Daly opens up about voicing Superman in Superman: The Animated Series
Superman is arguably one of the tougher characters to voice act for as he does not have that much of a difference in voice between his alternate personalities. Other than the fact that Superman is way more confident than Clark Kent, there is not much to go off of for the voice actors.
Once in an interview with Bleeding Cool, Tim Daly was asked how he went about voicing the characters of both Superman and Clark Kent and the actor replied that it was all about the attitude. Unlike Batman voice actors who can change their tones between Bruce Wayne and Batman hugely, Daly explained it was more about the difference in personalities of Clark Kent and Superman. He said,
“Honestly, it’s really in the script and it’s in the attitude because Clark was written very differently than Superman. I didn’t feel the need to change the voice so much as to embrace the attitude. Clark is a little more bumbling, and the most socially awkward.
He’s not the guy who’s out there saving the world and confronting these horrible villains. He’s just, as in his description, a mild-mannered reporter. I took that to heart and was hopefully more mild-mannered. He also had that nice sort of flirtation with Lois, which is always really fun. “
Superman: The Animated Series was a massive critical success among the fans and largely received positive reviews. The series also had a huge impact on the DCAU as a whole as multiple characters from the series went on to appear in future series like Justice League.
All episodes of Superman: The Animated Series are currently streaming on HBO Max.
