-Our first guest tonight is an Academy Award-nominated actor
you know from films like "Batman,"
"Birdman" and "Spotlight."
You can see him in "The Trial of the Chicago 7,"
which is available on Netflix now.
Let's take a look. -Hey, Bill.
Ramsey Clark.
-Pleased to meet you, sir. This is Leonard Weinglass.
-Mr. Weinglass. -And Tom Hayden.
-Oh, I know who Tom Hayden is. The FBI used to work for me.
Those two men are senior deputies
with the Justice Department.
That's Mr. Calley and Mr. Ackerman.
-Well, I don't know why these men are here.
-I invited them. -You invited them?
-I don't want the appearance of impropriety.
-There isn't any impropriety.
-And now there are witnesses to that.
-Please welcome back to the show
one of our favorites, Michael Keaton.
How are you, Michael? -Hey, man.
How are you doing? -I'm good.
You know, it's -- -Before we start, just be fair.
-[ Laughs ] Okay. You know what?
I'm glad you said that. You know what?
Because these were going to be real tough ones.
[ Laughter ]
-Round the corner, round the corner and be fair.
Sorry, I have this on. I just went out for a minute.
Look at this. I want to show you something.
-Great, I can't wait.
-Speaking of being fair, can you see that?
-Yeah, look at that.
-Yeah, but look at you, speaking -- Wait, wait.
How do I do this? -The other way, the other way.
What are you trying to show me?
-I'm trying to say look at you,
speaking of being fair, you're trying to hypnotize me.
-[ Laughs ]
-Look, look at you, man.
Some kind of Spock hand gesture.
-It's been really --
I should say, it's a great disadvantage
because I'm having no luck hypnotizing over Zoom, nothing.
-Man, tuna fish,
half a tuna fish salad sandwich in a briefcase.
Oh, man, that's funny.
Oh, man, that's good. That's strong.
-Thank you, Michael. -This is odd to do --
By the way, can I say this? -Yeah.
-This is odd to do -- Look at those hands, by the way.
That's just way too much.
-[ Laughs ]
-In the afternoon, it feels funny.
It feels like this show should be at night.
-I know.
-So I had to get some coffee to kind of wake up a little bit.
-I mean, you're coming off as a guy who is fully awake.
-Oh, good. Oh, good. [ Laughter ]
Good.
That's the standard. "Yeah, he looked awake."
-Hey, I want to talk about --
-This barista -- barista?
-Yeah, yeah, that's it. -Yeah, yeah.
So, I went and she was -- Yeah, I was wearing this.
And I'm very cautious out there,
so I ventured out to get some coffee.
And she was really perky, like, way too perky for me
and really loud when she took my order.
And there was a plexiglass thing in the front and everything.
She was nice enough, but she kept going "Hi!"
Like, "Hi!"
And she kept saying, "What's your name?
What's your name?"
Kind of like one of Santa's helpers would say it.
You know, "What's your name?"
And it freaked -- and I'm kind of --
when I'm out there, I'm very --
you could just see, like, the COVID splashing against --
[ Laughter ]
It was just hitting the plexiglass.
You just want to walk out.
Anyway, it made me very, very nervous.
But you know what?
We're good because we've got Scott Atlas on top of it.
-[ Laughs ] That's true. Everything is under control.
-Is that not the greatest name?
Does that not sound like -- the only thing better
than Scott Atlas would have been like Johnny Atlas.
But Scott Atlas sounds like a teen star
from the '80s, doesn't he?
-Yeah, it's like they gave Trump a list of doctors
and he just picked the name
that sounded like the coolest-looking dude.
-Yeah. "Hi, I'm Scott.
Hey, gang, I'm Scott Atlas.
I'll be at the Fairhaven Mall
this week promoting my new album."
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, my God. The girls are going crazy for Scott Atlas.
They're lined around the block.
Hey, this movie is so great.
And it's an Aaron Sorkin script.
-Yep. -And I have to imagine
as an actor, there are just certain writers
where it's just a delight to do their dialogue.
And not only do you get to do Sorkin dialogue,
you get to do Sorkin courtroom dialogue,
which is maybe -- -Yeah.
-Maybe his highest tier. -That's right. That's right.
That's right. That is -- That's a bump up.
And you know what else? If you watch --
First of all, this cast in this movie is so good.
But if you noticed, that's exactly right.
When you get in the courtroom or anything like that,
it actually bumps up.
When you watch this movie and what he does is,
you'll be right in the long stretch
of a dramatic, tension-filled scene.
And he'll just drop a gem of a joke, a gem of a funny line
and kind of, you know, boop, lifts everything up from it.
He was really fun to work with.
It's a really, really terrific movie, I think.
-I do want to -- because again
there's this scene in the courtroom.
And as an actor, like, is it thrilling or intimidating?
I mean, just the people that are watching you do your thing,
like, Frank Langella, Joseph Gordon-Levitt,
Mark Rylance, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong.
I know I'm leaving people out. -Eddie Redmayne.
-Does it make more fun or even
after doing this a long time you're like,
"Oh, there's some real A-listers here?"
-You know, absolutely. That's a great question.
Absolutely, it makes it more fun now.
You want to be in that.
It's like playing pickup basketball.
You know? When you say, "Yeah,
I'll go down to the park and play a little bit."
But the whole rhythm of everything,
when everybody is so much better or so good around you.
The only thing that happened when I did the first "Batman,"
was I was very --
I was pretty nervous and self-conscious
about being with Jack. -Sure, sure.
-Because he's so strong on film, you know?
And it ended up just being great, you know.
Just being great. We became pals and everything.
But yeah, that's a good question.
It felt pretty good actually.
-Do you think, like, when you think back to "Batman,"
and you saying that, of course it makes sense.
Do you think Jack Nicholson then and throughout his career,
and certainly at that point of his career,
do you think he was aware that people would be,
you know, intimidated to work with him?
Did he have to go out of his way to be disarming?
-That's -- You know, I don't know.
I don't know that I've ever thought of it like that.
That's a great -- That's a great question.
I would say, yeah, he probably --
he probably was pretty aware of his power.
He was so -- He had so much power on screen, you know, has.
But it was just cool.
You know, he made everybody feel really, really relaxed.
You know? Someday in private I'll tell you
how he would greet the crew in the morning.
[ Laughter ]
Certainly can't do it on national television.
[ Laughter ]
Hey, by the way, your pop's name is Larry, right?
-Yeah, Larry.
-Hey, Larry.
-There we go. Now I'm glad we're gonna finish with this.
-They're back, baby. -He'll be very happy.
5-0. We got the 5-0 Steelers against, I think --
I guess, the 5-0 Titans.
How are you feeling about the Steelers this season?
-Great so far. -Yeah.
-I mean, this is fun so far. We'll see.
But, you know, I'm a fan of all those teams -- Pittsburgh teams.
-And I know you've been tweeting a lot
about Pennsylvania politics.
And, you know, we were mentioning Obama
was there yesterday. -Yeah.
-I know you were really politically engaged
as a kid thanks to your parents.
Your dad -- everybody is talking about having a plan for voting.
Your dad gave you
a very specific plan when you were voting.
-Yes, yes.
My dad was commissioner for a while.
He was very involved locally.
You know, he's a working man's Democrat.
And it was -- So it was always in my consciousness.
And just to show you how important it is to vote,
I grew up between two kind of tough little mill towns,
you know, Coraopolis and McKees Rocks, and --
but in the center it was rural.
We were kind of country kids. So it was small.
The population was small in the township.
And my dad, when it became legal to vote at 18,
I could not wait to vote.
But my dad [Laughs] told us how to vote.
He said, "Okay, now's here's who you vote for
in the election today."
So I go, "Okay."
And he told me.
And I went, "Yeah, alright, that all sounds reasonable."
So I go to the polls.
There was no line or anything. This was a smaller town.
I go, "Check, check, check, check, check."
And then it comes to -- I don't remember who it was,
water commissioner or something.
And I go, "Who did he say to vote for?
I can't remember. I'll just leave that blank."
So I go tell my sister, Pam. I go,
"Hey, Pam, who was I supposed to vote for?"
Because I couldn't remember, and she told me.
And I went, "Well, I don't know. I just left it blank."
My hand to God, this is true.
We're sitting at the dinner table.
And there's conversation, and my dad goes,
"How about --" I'll say Mary Smith.
I don't remember.
"How about Mary Smith losing by one vote like that?
[ Laughter ]
[ Bleep ] [ Laughter ]
I swear to God.
I looked across the table at my sister
and she just, like, put her head down and kept eating.
[ Laughter ] So vote.
-Well, that is a good reminder for everybody
to remember to have a plan on Election Day,
because it can all fall apart. -Hey, man.
-There we go. It's upside down.
-Oh! [ Laughter ]
It's a sign.
-Michael Keaton tells you to etov.
[ Laughter ]
-That's code.
That's code for something. -Oh, gotcha.
I'm sorry. I didn't realize.
Hey, thanks for being here, buddy.
I really hope next time in person.
-Thanks, man.
-You can tell me what Jack Nicholson said.
That is Michael Keaton. -I will.
-"The Trial of the Chicago 7" is available on Netflix now.