Batman's Michael Keaton Reveals What About the Project He Did "Totally Wrong"
Don't worry, Keaton had another chance to correct what he thinks was a mistake.
Michael Keaton's Batman may have changed the game for blockbuster filmmaking, but the actor says there's one thing he now thinks he did "totally wrong" -- and ironically, it's something that all superhero actors are now expected to do. Speaking with GQ in a video about his biggest roles, Keaton revealed that during production on the 1989 superhero classic, he wanted to bulk up so he could look more like the jacked Dark Knight from the comics. Along the way, co-star Jack Nicholson couldn't wrap his head around what Keaton was going for, and years later, Keaton thinks Nicholson had the right idea.
The star famously had a difficult time moving in the Batman suit, and in the video, Keaton acknowledges that on The Flash, being smaller and less muscular actually helped him to be a lot more flexible inside the heavy suit.
"I was training to be really fit," Keaton explained. "One day, Jack Nicholson walked by me. We were jsut starting to shoot and I was working on this bag, and I had been training to get fit. He walked by me and he goes, 'What are you doing?' I said, 'You know, just working out.' He goes, 'What are you doing that for?' I didn't have an answer for him. He just walked off and went to this other trailer. I approached it totally wrong. It's better to be really small and little and thin inside the thing. You can move, you can breathe, there's room inside. I don't know what I was thinking, but I was like, 'I'm an actor, I'm going to do all this stuff.' I mean, it helped in terms of carrying the whole thing around all the time."
You can see the full video below.
The interview is worth a watch. In it, he also talks about his time as Beetlejuice -- saying that he thinks the new movie is so good that it will elevate his performance -- and his relationship with Batman and Beetlejuice director Tim Burton more generally.
Per its official synopsis, in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, "After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia's life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened. With trouble brewing in both realms, it's only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice's name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem."
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is heading to theaters on September 6.