Michael Keaton

Many actors have evolved from specializing in comedy to acclaim for dramatic performances, but few in his generation have accomplished it with a more distinctive touch than Michael Keaton (birthname: Michael John Douglas). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he reached a stratosphere of global fame for the outlandish title character in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (1988) and again with Burton in Batman (1989), and in Batman Returns (1992) as Batman/Bruce Wayne. 

Michael Keaton has arguably never matched this double-play, but in between his two blockbusters, he first suggested his dramatic range in Clean and Sober (1988). Keaton’s attempts to expand beyond his identifiable brand as a dynamic, physical comic actor finally made a real impact in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997), as FBI agent Ray Nicolette (which Keaton revived a year later in Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (1998)). Despite prestigious turns in projects with such masters as Don DeLillo (Game 6 (2005), Keaton’s only major box-office hits were such animated features as Cars (2006) and Toy Story 3 (2010), in which he did voice work. 

A new phase of Michael Keaton’s career happened in 2014, with his lauded performance as Riggan, a struggling veteran actor in Birdman (2014), for which Keaton was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. Keaton starred in back-to-back Best Picture Oscar winners, Birdman and Spotlight (2015), further solidifying his dramatic credentials. Other vehicles designed to cash in on Keaton’s Oscar cache—most prominently his portrayal of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, in The Founder (2016)—were box-office duds.

Yet Keaton has cleverly jumped on the superhero bandwagon (one which he helped launch in the late ‘80s) in roles in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Morbius (2022), and reviving his Batman/Bruce Wayne in both The Flash (2022) and Batgirl (2022). His most recent prestige assignments involved portraying real-life figure Ramsay Clark in Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) and as a troubled doctor in Hulu’s streaming limited series, Dopesick (2021). 

Michael Keaton was the director and star of the crime thriller, Knox Goes Away (2023), co-starring Al Pacino, Marcia Gay Harden, James Marsden, Suzy Nakamura, and Joanna Kulig, was released to minuscule ($0.65 million) returns for distributors Saban Films and FilmNation Entertainment after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.

Keaton revived his vivid character of Betelgeuse (aka Beetlejuice) for his reunion with director Tim Burton for the sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024), co-starring Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, and Willem Dafoe, and which premiered at the Venice Film Festival before a wide release by Warner Bros.

Keaton starred in the title role in director/writer Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s contemporary Los Angeles comedy, Goodrich (2024), co-starring Mila Kunis, Andie MacDowell, Carmen Ejogo, and Kevin Pollak, and released by Ketchup Entertainment.