“Just 25 years ago, Baldwin’s quiet growl was so uncommon that The Larry Sanders Show made a running gag of it, with Larry wrestling the upper hand from the much more attractive Baldwin by insulting his ability to project. Nowadays, Talking Like This is so ubiquitous that Will Arnett is about to launch a new children’s franchise based entirely on Batman’s harsh whisper. How did Talking Like This take over the male acting world?” Slate talks to voice (and stage and screen) actor James Urbaniak, something of a historian of acting styles. (includes video)