Finally, the origin story of the voice fans of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy either loved or hated, the voice of the Batman is revealed! In an interview with MTV,  Christian Bale-who’s promoting his new film Out of the Furnace-revealed some tidbits about how he first auditioned for the cape and cowl in Batman Begins and how he came up with that deep growling, scruffy voice for the franchise.  Here’s what he told the former music video playing network:

“I got there. They put me in Val Kilmer’s suit. It didn’t even fit properly, and I stood in it and I went ‘I feel like an idiot.’ What kind of guy walks around, dressed like a bat? And is then going to go ‘Hello, how are you? Just ignore that I’m dressed as a bat.’ Of course, he’s meant to be doing this. If you look at the history of the guy and the pain that he went through. I went ‘I can’t do this in a normal voice. I have to become a beast in order to sell this to myself. I went home that evening, and my wife said, ‘How’d it go?’ I went, ‘I kind of did this.’ And I showed her, and she went, ‘Oh, you f***ed that one up, didn’t you?’ Thank God they went for it.”

Thankfully, the audition worked out and the rest is history. In addition to revealing how he got the role and found Batman’s voice, Bale had some advice for the new Dark Knight Ben Affleck who’ll be donning the cape and cowl in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman film.

 “[The voice] ain’t for everybody. Ben’s obviously going to have to do his own thing, but it was the only way that I could find how to get into that and to justify wearing the fricking Batsuit. Otherwise, he’s just loopy beyond belief. He’s loopy, but he’s loopy with a method to his madness… I look forward to seeing what Ben will do with it.”

So am I Mr. Bale, so am I.