it's almost like when no one was looking michael keaton crept onto hollywood's a-list and then
never left except that we were looking keaton's films have collectively grossed billions at the
box office he's played birdman and batman and starred in spider-man the irony is that keaton's
real power is portraying the everyman the salesman the fbi man the put upon newspaperman an actor on
a career-long crusade against typecasting keaton is willfully unpredictable in choosing his roles
but he is consistent in nailing them and at age 70 he's still at it find michael keaton a character
he finds appealing and to borrow a phrase it's showtime the story will continue in a moment
forget about meeting at some precious malibu bistro
or on a movie set michael keaton wanted us to meet him in his element so he did here
on his thousand acre swatch of trout streams and mountains under montana's big sky wow look at that
it's easy to be humbled by the sheer vastness of the place
not that this is a movie star in need of any ego reduction as soon as i bought this
place as soon as i bought it and it was a dream of mine from time i was a little kid
it hit me like it was crystal clear but i don't really own anything you really you we're renters
you know i don't know this it's just i'm just having to make a transaction
passing through passing through yeah after a short drive up a dirt path we discussed range
of a different sort we asked keaton about his staggering versatility the key to his success
and hollywood longevity go down your imdb page and the best possible way you get whiplash i
see this archetype american mail and it's lawyers and newspapermen and doctors i guess that's true
i guess yeah if i went and i've never seen my handy i am db or i am bd which one i know which
which one comes first but i but yeah well if you put it like that i'd go yeah pretty much but it's
a representation of all kind of you know within that like but who's the person in that job you
know what's what's the person in that job right right right right people talk about range there's
you know it's flattering but range doesn't really range means you know really yeah well really i
think you take pride in that i do but i don't think of it in terms of well you played that
then you were funny and then you then you were a sad man and then you know that's not really to me
range you know you go inside the the person you know is there a range with within a character yeah
human beings you know and that includes one superhero this may be the ranch batman built
keaton bought it in 1989 the same year as his biggest blockbuster alright listen
but by then he had already established his mo delivering a certain believability to a broad
array of characters a stay-at-home dad a crazy-haired poltergeist
it's showtime a washed up actor a founder in each of them keaton does well that keaton thing
he projects a disarming intensity his brows arch the eyes narrow the mouth puckers and we are
buying his character i'm here because i think the story is wrong is it even before his trademark
staccato patter kicks in i used to kind of think i had a flea from me you know and then later on
there's something in me that's it's okay i was never afraid to go to dark
or scary or really really really raw places ever ever but also i don't want to look back
and go you kind of kind of wussed out you know and sometimes there's no crime in saying
this is pretty easy just just open your mind let the words come out and tell the truth this
sixth sense for authenticity it first came to keaton in the most un-hollywood of places
keaton's home in western pennsylvania it was a seminal moment in his childhood when his family
won a black and white tv in a raffle so what i watched and learned and and grew up on and loved
was really television and old westerns primarily which i loved and i wanted to be those people
you didn't want to be uh gene autry you'd no you want to be like you want to be the cowboy oh yeah
and you know the thing is i never bought those guys even a young age i said they're too pretty
they're too clean they probably don't smell from the time i was young i had to believe everything i
was seeing michael keaton grew up the youngest of seven kids raised in a working-class town outside
pittsburgh his father was a civil engineer his mother ran the show at home keaton was an
altar boy literally and he says a decent student as long as there were nuns around he attended
kent state university for one year and then seriously committed to what had till then been
vague designs of acting and performing stand-up comedy i mean everybody has the hard memories in
the embarrassing tough times and the down times you know no no money or no you know living in
places but that's like that's like not a big deal to me you know that's that's just part of the deal
but his nostalgia has its limits he recalls the perils of the open mic i heard a story when you
followed an irish folk singer up on stage oh yeah what happened well first of all this
guy would wear like one of those knit sweaters like in july you know like fisherman's sweater
committed to the role yes totally committed to a role you know he's gonna sing that song where
like all the kids in the family went down in the ship you know in a cold irish sea and i'm
gonna go hey everybody how you doing so much of a warm-up fact no you reading the magazines you go
in los angeles keaton sharpened his improv chops in the clubs on sunset and on the small screen
i do then his big break he caught the eye of a seasoned comedy writer who recommended him to a
hot director in town i got an audition then i got a call back another callback another call
back another i think five or so for the role of billy blaze yeah billy blaze yeah how you doing
i'm bill blazejawski you're coming billy blaze you must be chuck right
nice shoes night shift directed by ron howard mark keaton's first movie an
electric breakout comedic performance one that still holds up i need the car keys you got it
thank you with license to improv he steals scene after scene as bill blazjowski the antic frantic
morgue attendant moonlighting as a pimp brocade you seem to get that guy yeah i got that guy it
was kind of there on the page you know like i'm an idea man that was that was the fundamental thing
this is bill idea to eliminate garbage edible paper and they were welcoming in all the improv
you could bring your improv channel yeah yeah yeah they were good that's kind of the best of
both worlds you're not doing stand up but like 100 he would lean on those skills one year later
in mr mom rip these walls out and uh of course rewire it yeah you're gonna make it all 220.
yeah 220 221 whatever it takes but right before hollywood could corner keaton solely
as a comedic actor he swiveled in the opposite direction with movies like clean and sober
and the thriller pacific heights not a lot of type casting here accident or design i wanted to
set it up so that i had more shots but i want to be able to play a lot of different things because
uh i learned real quickly that they were going oh we like when he does that get him to do that let's
hire him to do that thing i thought oh boy that could i think frankly i'd have been out of the
business people would have been if they're not bored already bored to tears early with me this
overlay of light and dark convinced director tim burton that michael keaton was right for the lead
in his next big budget movie batman keaton would embody bruce wayne as a complicated even tormented
tycoon hell-bent on justice hardcore fans of the dc comic hero were horrified about casting mr mom
as the caped crusader what are you i'm batman you know i have a long memory you know so
a couple occasions where you know people kind of not just maybe did more than doubt you you go okay
i'll wait peers or reviewers or just things that happen a couple times you just kind of clock it
you remember that stuff yeah so you're coming into this role and
there's you know you're you're the new batman yeah yeah you've got no i am the batman you're
the batman yeah but you've got this lady let's be clear about that no kidding batman
first batman i i think tim and i both knew if that doesn't work that one i had an awareness
this could really fail yeah i mean it strikes me that's another risk of a different kind right
yeah yeah a lot of pressure in that movie for everybody holy gamble that paid off batman the
movie made more than 400 million dollars and catapulted keaton to a new plane of stardom
proof that resisting conventional hollywood wisdom had its advantages
keaton continued his game of character hopscotch in another 30 movies from shakespeare to spotlight
some brought more box office success than others but when he wasn't acting keaton was a hands-on
dad to his son sean who is now 38 and a successful songwriter in los angeles and keaton had reached a
point where he could be choosy in 2014 enter birdman and keaton's almost absurdist role
that earned him a golden globe for best actor hardest role you've had mostly yeah it had to
be so specific and so precise you actually had to be like on a certain word or a point of a sentence
and geographically in a spot it'll be fine like in a hallway or down a set of stairs specifically
word perfect and it was really hard scary every day do people in your line of work have rivals
like athletes i mean are you you know hey i don't know don't worry i'm coming for you
i don't know you know that's the thing there's nothing we can do you know we can't go like
box each other you know i mean we're all the brother and sisterhood to some degree you know
like uh you know the criticism of people's performances i find really bush leg you
know it's like what do i know i'm not sure i even know enough and i'm not being humble
i'm being honest i don't i don't know that i even know enough to say well that's not any good in his
latest project keaton is back to interpreting the american mail dopesick out this month is a hulu
mini series about the country's opioid epidemic i would never prescribe a narcotic for moderate pain
keaton plays a doctor in a coal mining town overwhelmed by oxycontin but this time he admits
there's a little more to the part you know that means a lot to me because you know i lost a nephew
to fentanyl and heroin what's it like when you have this kind of personal connection to a role
and you have to remove the emotion and just like i keep saying you know what's what's the job at hand
you know what's i'm just a storyteller befitting a man who pivots from role to role keaton is
especially thrilled by pittsburgh's transition from steel to tech he returns home often
and invited us to a modified steel mill turned innovation center not far from where he grew
up keaton is an investor in a construction company nexi that here in pittsburgh plans to
make eco-friendly alternatives to concrete i get this and i actually like it and if i'm going to
man just look at this summer if i'm going to have an opportunity to do anything and put my money
where my mouth is you can't just have an opinion about climate change anymore it's like here now
that bill's come due that's right the bills the bills come due keaton would happily spend more
time here and in montana if it weren't for that pesky day job he just finished filming the flash
reprising his role as batman 30 years after he left the franchise and we had to know but is
this bruce wayne still the tortured somewhat dark figure he was as we recall ish he's kind of uh
you know i can't give too much of this away i'm one of those guys who goes why
i'm like giving that [ __ ] away go see the movie how's the costume fit proud to
say i slipped right back into it you're seven years old and you're still kicking bad guys's
ass yeah it's got to feel good yeah if you know anybody whose ass needs kick just don't call me