The cast of The LEGO Movie spinoff LEGO Batman grows more and more impressive with the announcement that Ralph Fiennes has signed on to voice the role of Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler and adviser. The actor is the two-time Academy Award nominated star of Schindler’s List, the Harry Potter and James Bond franchises, The English Patient, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and many, many others.

Fiennes joins a cast that includes Will Arnett once again taking on the Batman role he played in The LEGO Movie, Zach Galifianakis as Batman’s greatest rival Joker, Rosario Dawson as Batgirl, and Michael Cera as the Boy Wonder, Robin.

This will be the first voice acting gig for Fiennes in ten years, last voicing a character in the 2005 feature Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which beat out Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle that year to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

LEGO Batman is set to be directed by Chris McKay, who was an animation supervisor on The LEGO Movie and has directed episodes of Moral Orel, Titan Maximum, and Robot Chicken, including the Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III special.

The screenplay is penned by Seth Grahame-Smith, whose previous writing credits include Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows and the not yet made Beetlejuice 2. He’s also the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, among others.

Producing LEGO Batman is Dan Lin and Roy Lee, as well as Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who wrote and directed The LEGO Movie and are currently working on an animated Spider-Man movie and a young Han Solo Star Wars spinoff movie.

Fiennes can currently be seen in the latest James Bond installment, Spectre, and can soon be seen in the next movie from Joel and Ethan Coen, titled Hail, Caesar!

[Source: Heat Vision]