But to unleash the full power of his snap-at-any-second unpredictability, that dangerous comic quality Keaton had displayed in Night Shift, he’d need to team up with another comedy weirdo — director Tim Burton.
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!
Like Splash, Keaton originally turned down Beetlejuice.
“I didn’t quite get it,” Keaton told Rolling Stone, “and I wasn’t looking to work.”
The script’s original spook was more evil, less funny — but Burton invited Keaton to give it his own manic spin.
The Geffen Company/Warner Bros.
“I went home and thought, ‘Okay, if I would do this role, how would I do it?’,” Keaton says. “It turns out the character creates his own reality. I gave myself some sort of voice, some sort of look based on the words. Then I started thinkin’ about my hair: I wanted my hair to stand out like I was wired and plugged in, and once I started gettin’ that, I actually made myself laugh. And I thought, ‘Well, this is a good sign, this is kind of funny.’”
Critics agreed. “The nuthouse Keaton not-so-surprisingly steals the show in his field-day performance,” said the Hollywood Reporter’s review. The Guardian praised Keaton’s “scene-stealing gusto … he is a bundle of scuzzy, lecherous, manic energy – somewhere between Robin Williams, Jack Nicholson and Krusty the Clown.”
“I’ll tell ya,” says Keaton, “I feel very good about being part of a project that has broken some rules and is at the very least innovative, imaginative, creative – just plain funny.”
The manic smile, the sunken eyes, the wild, stringy green hair — it’s hard to believe Keaton’s Beetlejuice didn’t inspire some later performances.
Warner Bros.
Yeah, Beetlejuice was basically the Joker causing mischief in the afterlife. So it wasn’t a surprise when Burton came calling again when it was time to make his Batman. The shocker was that he wanted Keaton to play the hero.
“Michael Keaton is basically an ordinary guy, a regular human being,” Burton told the Wall Street Journal about the casting. “I thought it would be much more interesting to take someone like that and make him into Batman. I met with a number of very good, square-jawed actors, but the bottom line was that I just couldn’t see any of them putting on a bat suit.”
It was an inspired choice, although one that put an end to a long run of massively popular comedy roles. The reimagining of who Keaton could be was likely tremendous for the actor’s career. But it may have also cost us a few more years of the high-wire comedy act that defined him for a decade.
Related: Reminder: Michael Keaton’s Batman Was A Crazy Dick
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Source: Pinoy Daily News
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