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Michael Keaton is the perfect example of an artist who likely won’t get the true praise he deserves until after he’s gone. Because while the 73-year-old actor is certainly beloved, he isn’t spoken about in the context he should be, and that’s one of the greatest actors and movie stars of the last 50 years.
Having been the victim of one of the all-time tragic Academy Awards robberies — as Eddie Redmayne’s already-poorly-aged performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything won out over his work in Birdman in 2014 — Michael Keaton’s career hasn’t been formally crowned in the manner it warrants.
What makes Keaton’s career, which began in the 1970s, so special is that he’s done it all. He got his start on TV and made a name for himself as a comedy star in films such as Mr. Mom, Night Shift, and Beetlejuice.
He’s been a movie star thanks to his iconic portrayal of Batman in both Batman and Batman Returns. He’s done beloved dramatic work in films such as Jackie Brown, Clean and Sober, Birdman, Spotlight, The Founder, and even acclaimed TV series like Dopesick.
And still, to this day, he continues to do all of those things, most recently reprising his role as Batman in The Flash, headlining Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and starring alongside Mila Kunis in the upcoming comedy Goodrich. He even directed the 2023 crime thriller Knox Goes Away.
Keaton’s career, of course, wouldn’t be the same without Batman, as the film not only changed the trajectory of his career but also reshaped Hollywood and modern blockbusters. At the time, however, Batman was far from a sure thing, so much so that Keaton believes they didn’t crack the code on the project until it was being filmed.
During a recent interview on the SmartLess podcast, co-hosts Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes were giving Keaton credit for the way that Batman laid the foundation for the superhero genre as a whole. The trio made the case that the format used in Batman, such as injecting it with humor despite being a serious story, is still deployed by the genre today.
Keaton, however, clarified that there wasn’t much humor in the original script and that he and director Tim Burton infused the film with it during shooting, which he believes ultimately cracked the code to the character.
“There was very little humor in it, in the original script. That pressure on Tim [Burton] was so big. The pressure was on all of us. And you felt it every day, because this was a big swing for everybody,” Keaton explained of the seminal 1989 film.
“So, as an example, in that scene with the big long table where Vicki Vale comes over to have a date, and I’m so nervous. ‘Do I tell he? Do I not tell her? I can’t let her know but I really like this woman.’ And she’s sitting there, and she asks me about the room, and I said, ‘Tim, you know what would be funny?’ And there were a couple of these moments. If he were to go, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah…’ And then he realizes, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in this room before.’ And it says everything about the character. You go, ‘Who’s this lonely guy rambling around the house?… Kind of a weird dude.
As mentioned above, Keaton will next be seen starring in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which hits theaters on Friday, September 6, alongside Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, and Willem Dafoe. Check out the official trailer for the film below.