Mister Freeze Interview Tape Transcript

Tape 1

 * TYGER Guard: Prisoner's here, sir.
 * Hugo Strange: Very good. Send him in.
 * TYGER Guard: But we haven't got the suit off him yet. He's dangerous. Are you sure?
 * Hugo Strange: Of course. Victor Fries and I have much in common. We will be fine. Welcome to my facility. Please, take a seat.
 * Mister Freeze: I prefer to stand. Why am I here?
 * Hugo Strange: Oh, Victor, there will be plenty of time for that later. Right now I wish to get to know you. Discover how you came to have such a... frosty outlook on life.
 * Mister Freeze: I have nothing to say to you. You may have taken my weapons, but my suit still has considerable offensive capabilities. I will freeze the marrow in your legs. Each bone will shatter and fracture while you remain completely aware of your impending paralysis, begging me to end you.
 * Hugo Strange: I don't think that you will do that, Victor.
 * Mister Freeze: Really. Why not?
 * Hugo Strange: Simple. If you hurt me, your wife will die.

Tape 2

 * Mister Freeze: Where is she? Where is my wife?
 * Hugo Strange: Nora is in safe hands. Now, let's discuss an incident from your childhood...
 * Mister Freeze: No.
 * Hugo Strange: Then this is over. Guard!
 * Mister Freeze: Wait! What do you wish to learn?
 * Hugo Strange: Your early years were troubled.
 * Mister Freeze: I was not a sociable child, but that is all.
 * Hugo Strange: Even your parents disowned you. They sent you away to a reform school, correct?
 * Mister Freeze: They did not understand my work.
 * Hugo Strange: Your work? According to a police report, you froze over a dozen of your neighbors' pets.
 * Mister Freeze: I've always had an interest in cryonic preservation. I didn't understand why my parents allowed our sick pets to die instead of attempting to save them. So I set about finding my own way. I intended to revive all those creatures.
 * Hugo Strange: But you didn't. Which brings us to Nora.

Tape 3

 * Mister Freeze: Have you ever seen a flower die? Watched something that was once so beautiful, so full of life, collapse and rot from within...
 * Hugo Strange: You refer to Nora's illness?
 * Mister Freeze: It seems like yesterday when I first found her. It all happened so quickly. Suddenly, I was losing her.
 * Hugo Strange: Did you seek help? What about your employer, GothCorp?
 * Mister Freeze: I hid it from them, diverting resources from GothCorp's research in an attempt to find the cure, but in the end, I failed. Time was running out. I knew that if I was discovered, Nora would die.
 * Hugo Strange: Why take that risk?
 * Mister Freeze: Do you know what it is to love someone? To really love them?
 * Hugo Strange: No.
 * Mister Freeze: Nora was all I could think of. I re-ran the diagnostics, re-examined every detail from every angle, certain that I had missed something. I cursed myself for being so blind, so stupid. Surely there was a cure, I just needed more time. Then I realized what I had to do.

Tape 4

 * Mister Freeze: I had worked without sleep for a week. My needs didn't seem important. Sleep didn't matter. Food didn't matter. There was only her. I looked at Nora and I told her that I loved her. She told me there was nothing I could do, that I... we should just accept fate. She smiled her beautiful smile as she said it. I promised to cure her. And then I pressed the button.
 * Hugo Strange: You cryogenically froze her. Keeping her on ice, so to speak, while you worked on a cure. It broke your heart but now you had all the time in the world. Did you feel relieved?
 * Mister Freeze: I went home and fell into a deep sleep. For the first time since we discovered Nora's illness, I dared to dream. But... for weeks I had ignored my superiors' attempts to contact me. The next morning, I overslept. And by the time I got to the lab, Ferris Boyle, the CEO, was there waiting.
 * Hugo Strange: What did he do?
 * Mister Freeze: He accused me of industrial espionage, which I denied, but then his guards found Nora. Boyle told me that, like all of my "research," she belonged to him. I was enraged. I attacked him, but his guards beat me back and in the struggle, I was drenched by the cryogenic chemical I had created. I lay on the floor helpless watching the guards steal Nora away. Boyle told me it was a tragedy for such a promising mind to perish in a lab accident. Then he left me to die.
 * Hugo Strange: But you survived.
 * Mister Freeze: The chemicals absorbed into my body and... transformed my metabolism. My body went numb. I felt a strange tingling, then searing pain all over... Each breath ignited my lungs. I clawed my way back to a refrigeration unit and as I closed the door behind me, I felt the icy chill calm my aching body. Things suddenly seemed clear.
 * Hugo Strange: What seemed clear? Finding a cure for Nora?
 * Mister Freeze: No. Revenge. Boyle would pay.

Tape 5

 * Hugo Strange: You failed to kill Ferris Boyle, though, didn't you?
 * Mister Freeze: Yes.
 * Hugo Strange: Why?
 * Mister Freeze: You know why. Batman. Though he did return Nora to safety - until you got her.
 * Hugo Strange: See, there you go. Blame me. Blame your parents because you failed to revive the neighbors' pets. Blame Ferris Boyle for spoiling your plans to cure Nora. Blame Batman for stopping your revenge against Boyle. And now your Nora is in danger...
 * Mister Freeze: Because of you.
 * Hugo Strange: No, Victor. Because of you. You have always had a heart of ice. You stole peoples' pets, you stole GothCorp resources, and since then you've stolen so much more for your own selfish, scientific inquiries. If you had shared your genius with others, devoted your energy to medicine instead of crime, perhaps your ice princess would be at home now, preparing you a hot meal - instead of being delivered to the Joker.
 * Mister Freeze: No...
 * Hugo Strange: You could have saved Nora a long time ago, Victor.
 * Mister Freeze: It's all for her. Everything. I will get her back. And when I do, I'm coming for you.
 * Hugo Strange: Thank you. We are done now.
 * Mister Freeze: Nora...