Playboy Interview: Michael Keaton

Hollywood insiders figured it had to be a joke. After all, cinematic superheroes had to be as muscled as Schwarzenegger, as square-jawed as Stallone, as sensitive as Costner. What was Warner Bros. thinking when it cast a five-foot-ten, 160-pound goofball as the Caped Crusader? To make matters worse, even before the 1989 release of "Batman," film critics and fans of the beloved comic book cast their votes: There was no way Michael Keaton could convincingly play the title role. First of all, he had never offed a bad guy in his movies; furthermore, he was just a comedian.

But Keaton got the last laugh when "Batman" earned more than $400,000,000 worldwide, becoming the sixth-highest-grossing film in history. As a result, Keaton was catapulted into the ranks of Hollywood's heaviest hitters. It was only a matter of time before a sequel showed up in movie theaters, and that time has arrived. Opening nationwide this month, "Batman Returns"—starring Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman and Danny DeVito as the Penguin—is expected to become another box-office bonanza.

There was no blatantly obvious reason for the success of "Batman." Despite the fiendishly comic capers of jack Nicholson as the Joker and the drop-dead beauty of Keaton's leading lady, Kim Basinger, the film was dark and forbidding. And it was often depressing: Keaton chose to portray Batman—or, rather, multimillionaire Bruce Wayne—as a brooding eccentric in need of psychotherapy. Such characterizations usually don't make for a runaway hit, but moviegoers ate up Keaton's offbeat interpretation and so did most reviewers.

Amid the fanfare, Keaton's checkered film career was all but forgotten, which may have been to his advantage. Things were off to a good enough start in 1982, when Keaton played the world's strangest morgue attendant in Ron Howard's "Night Shift," co-starring Henry Winkler. Then, in 1983, he again won praise—and genuine stardom—with his deft and funny portrayal of an unemployed executive-turned-househusband (to Teri Garr) in "Mr. Mom." But then the well went dry: For five years, Keaton got bogged down in a series of undistinguished comedies. He also had trouble mastering the script-selection process that Hollywood reserves for proven box-office stars (he turned down the Tom Hanks role in "Splash"). He was even fired from Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo." But in 1988, director Tim Burton cast Keaton as the satanically smarmy spook in his stylized horror-comedy "Beetlejuice," and the actor and director hit it off. Burton had intrigued moviegoers with his equally bizarre "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (he would later direct "Edward Scissorhands"), and his unique style behind the camera seemed to blend perfectly with Keaton's singular manner in front of it. "Beetlejuice" was a hit, and Keaton was back on track.

Soon came "Clean and Sober." In his first dramatic role—Keaton played a cocaine abuser—he not only showcased his range as an actor but also reestablished himself as a bankable Hollywood headliner. The next year, Keaton and Burton were reunited with "Batman," and the actor hit superstardom. As Keaton himself might say (and did say in "Night Shift"): Is this a great country, or what?

Born on September 5, 1951, as the youngest of George and Leona Douglas' seven children, Keaton grew up just outside of Pittsburgh. Always an audacious kid, he proved it his first day in high school when he was suspended for throwing a half-eaten apple into a garbage can in the school cafeteria. (Keaton claims the garbage can was 75 feet away from where he was standing, but the apple landed in it.)

After graduating from high school, Keaton put in brief stints at two colleges and soon made his way to Los Angeles. He quickly signed up for acting lessons, but most of his performing was done on the stage of the Comedy Store, where Keaton's fellow hopefuls included David Letterman, Garry Shandling and Richard Lewis.

In those days, Keaton was still known as Michael Douglas. But after he landed his first TV job, the Screen Actors Guild required him to change his professional name—there was already an actor named Michael Douglas. After unsuccessfully rifling the phone book, he settled on his current name when he opened the Los Angeles Times and noticed a photo of Diane Keaton. "I thought, Yeah, Keaton's easy to pronounce and it has a good ring to it," he says. But he never officially changed his name. "I'm still Michael Douglas. I like being able to put the Keaton hat on when I go to work and take it off when I leave."

After appearing in several short-lived TV series, including two with Mary Tyler Moore and one with Jim Belushi, Keaton landed "Night Shift," and that's when the roller-coaster ride began.

To interview the 40-year-old actor. Playboy sent Lawrence Linderman to Warner Bros.' Burbank studios in California, where "Batman Returns" was in the final stages of filming. Linderman reports:

"I had arranged to meet Keaton at his trailer, but he hadn't returned from lunch when I arrived. His assistant told me to make myself comfortable, and took off. As I wandered around the inside of the 50-foot vehicle, I couldn't help but notice Keaton's selection of reading material. It included a stack of scripts he'd been offered, a couple of novels he was considering optioning and copies of Sports Illustrated, Travel & Leisure, Mad and Men's Fitness.

"Keaton showed up about 20 minutes later and we got right to work. We'd met a couple of times before; getting him to agree to do the interview had taken more than three years. His reluctance, he said, was because he doesn't feel he's especially articulate and thinks he can be 'infuriatingly dull to talk with.' In fact, Keaton is an energized raconteur with an abundance of strong, carefully arrived-at opinions. He's also a guy who's never lost his disregard for authority: Although I'd been informed by the production unit that 'Batman Returns' was a closed set, late one afternoon Keaton invited me to come along and watch the filming of the movie's final scene. He handed me a parka—wintry scenes are now shot on refrigerated sets—and we walked over to the sound stage. Between takes, Keaton cast off the character of Batman as effortlessly as if he were taking off a pair of gloves. He seemed as comfortable entertaining the crew with wisecracks as he teas portraying the film's title character.

"As for the film's ending, it came as a real surprise to me. To this day, I'll never understand why the producers decided to kill off Batman....

"Just kidding."

[Q] Playboy: You have defined yourself as an actor who has a side job as Batman. What do you mean by that?

[A] Keaton: It's just that the productions are so huge and the experience is so unlike making other movies that Batman actually feels like a different job. One day on Batman Returns, I started working on a scene, then we broke—and it wasn't until a month later that I was asked to come back and finish it. The scene consisted of me walking around the Batmobile and looking down into an abyss where the Penguin—Danny DeVito—is supposed to be. Danny, meanwhile, was wandering around somewhere, wondering when he'd be coming back. All movies have a stop-start quality to them, but no movies are stop-start like this—with all the special effects required, all the technical intricacies. As an actor, I'm always trying to hang on to my character, and by now, that's become second nature—but I can't do it on a Batman movie.

[A] On the first one, I had to learn really fast how to fit into what feels like an enormous painting. That's kind of difficult when you come into it cold. Michelle Pfeiffer told me, "This is the hardest thing I've ever done." In fact, when I first met with Danny and Michelle, I warned both of them to be ready for something a little different. I could see the look of confusion and fear in their eyes. They reminded me of Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis when they did Beetlejuice. It was tough for them because they never quite knew what [director] Tim Burton was going to have them do, or when. I didn't have that problem.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Keaton: Probably because they had to maintain a sense of reality and I didn't. In Beetlejuice, I had such an unusual role to play, and I came in with a game plan that Tim liked. Within a couple days, we were rolling like tanks over a desert. He'd tell me what special effects he was going to put into a scene—my head was gonna spin, things like that—and I'd say, "OK, fine." In Tim, I saw a guy who had guts and imagination, and I was immediately on board. Even if I was out of sync with exactly what the movie was going to look like, I had the general notion.

[Q] Playboy: Is that the mark of a Burton picture—organized chaos?

[A] Keaton: Absolutely. Tim puts together a tapestry. His process may not be as fluid as other directors', but once you understand Tim and trust him, you realize that he's unique and original.

[Q] Playboy: How is he unique?

[A] Keaton: As a person. Tim has no choice but to be in touch with the child inside of himself. That's reflected in his movies. He likes things that are off balance and rough-edged, and I do, too. If Tim and Steven Spielberg were in the same class in school and it was class-project day, my guess is that Steven's project would be unbelievable. It would have tiny air compressors and little battery-operated things that worked on the money. Tim's would have glue hanging off the side, it might be held together by hair, it would come in late, and it would work—but not perfectly. Still, if I were in the class, I probably wouldn't be able to take my eyes off Tim's project.

[Q] Playboy:Batman Returns is your third film collaboration with Burton. Do you anticipate others?

[A] Keaton: Yeah. Some actor-director combinations work really well. Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack made several movies together. I think Tim and I are the twisted version of Pollack and Redford. I really feel best when I'm working with him. Tim looked rested and relaxed at the beginning of Batman Returns, and that made me a little nervous. But as we neared our deadline, he got totally pale, his hair stood out like electricity was shooting through it and his arms were flailing. He was pacing around, trying to explain what he wanted. Other people might have looked at him and worried. I figured I had him just where I wanted him. I thought, Here we go, now we're in the groove. This is the Tim I know and trust.

[Q] Playboy: After working with you in Beetlejuice, Burton approached you to star in Batman, but you were reluctant about doing the movie. Why?

[A] Keaton: I was dumbfounded when he first called me. I think I tapped the receiver a few times and said, "You sure you have the right number?" But that didn't last long because it was Tim, so I knew there must be something to it. I said, "Yeah, of course I'll read it," thinking no way would I do it. I pictured Batman as one of these arms-akimbo super-heroes. If he'd been written that way, I would have been the first to admit I was the wrong guy. I was also really tired. I had done a few movies back to back and didn't want to be away from my son for four months. [Keaton is single with a son from a previous marriage.—Ed.] And one other thing: I had always wanted to work with Jack Nicholson, and I thought, Damn, if this is going to be my only shot, I don't know if I want to take it. I felt that it would be better to work with Jack where we're two people dressed in some sort of normal garb.

[A] But when I read the script, it made sense to me—it was pretty damn good. When I talked to Tim again, I said, "I don't think you're going to agree with this, but here's my take on Bruce Wayne: He's essentially depressed and a little nuts, real dark and a couple of steps oft. Yet, at the same time, he's not off at all. And he's focused."

[Q] Playboy: Focused on what?

[A] Keaton: Bruce Wayne gets real focused when he sees a woman he's interested in. In the first movie it was Kim Basinger—Vicki Vale—and in this one it's Michelle, who plays Selina Kyle, the Catwoman. That focus doesn't always last because Bruce Wayne has a lot of other things on his plate, which is why he's always a little absentminded and preoccupied. Tim agreed with my take on Bruce Wayne. I saw that Batman had the potential to become a franchise, but the risk was that it might look really stupid, and I'm sure that Jack felt the same way.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you wait until after Nicholson signed to play the Joker before you agreed to become Batman?

[A] Keaton: It was kind of simultaneous. I was holding out to see what he was doing. If Jack is doing the part, then it's a whole other movie.

[Q] Playboy: Was that reassuring to you?

[A] Keaton: Yeah. When Jack and I talked about the movie, I felt even better. You could see that he was thinking, formulating. Playing the Joker wasn't a casual choice on his part.

[A] I'd met Jack only once before, years ago, real fast somewhere. He's probably the only person I've ever seen who literally knows how to sidle. I was at a party and he saw me looking at him. He kind of backed up to me on an angle, faked left, went right, threw me a compliment and then continued the conversation he was having.

[Q] Playboy: Are any of Nicholson's acting choices casual?

[A] Keaton: I'd bet you anything that they're not. Jack is so intelligent. I once heard him asking himself questions about the Joker: "How far does he go? What is he going to look like?" Jack knows so much about moviemaking that I figured he'd be a real important force in Batman. And he was. He added a lot to the mix. For every four things I added, Jack probably added eight. He was a big help, especially given the time, the budget and the insanity of that movie. Things were often very tense. People were risking their careers on Batman. We were in London and executives were flying back and forth and making big deals. We worked under a lot of pressure.

[Q] Playboy: A good deal of that pressure was on you. After Warner Bros, announced that you were going to play Batman, approximately fifty thousand fans of the comic strip wrote letters of protest——

[A] Keaton: Do you know how I found out about that? We were probably halfway through shooting Batman when I took the Concorde from London back to Los Angeles for a quick visit. On the plane, I started reading The Wall Street Journal, and there on the front page was my picture—I still wonder how those little drawings are done—and an article about how Batman fans wanted somebody like Sylvester Stallone or Clint Eastwood to play the character. The fact was, a lot rode on this choice. After that, I went back and finished the movie knowing it was out there. I just kind of dug in.

[Q] Playboy: When it was released, Batman pulled in a quarter-billion dollars in the U.S. and Canada alone. Were you surprised by its success?

[A] Keaton: I didn't know because I couldn't tell what kind of movie it was. I was almost as surprised as anyone else when I first saw it. I had no idea about some of the things that were in there. There are scenes in Batman Returns that I haven't seen, either. While we're working, the second unit is off filming Batmobile shots, special effects and explosions. There will be a ton of things in Batman Returns that I won't know about until I see the first cut. So in that sense, I feel disconnected. Working on these movies is like being in the middle of some huge machine.

[Q] Playboy: Did the success of Batman change your life?

[A] Keaton: I'm going to say something that I've never said in an interview before: I'm so tired of this fucking question, I can't stand it. [Laughs] Look, anytime you're in a hit, it changes your life in the sense that people who don't necessarily have any taste become aware of the amount of money the movie made. They associate a lot of that with you. Consequently, their desire to work with you goes up proportionately. Dig it? If it made a hundred million, they like me a lot. A hundred and fifty million, they love me. Two fifty? Well, if I said, "Come and hold up my house for a week on your shoulders," they would figure out a way to do it. So you have to know that.

[Q] Playboy: Why did Batman work?

[A] Keaton: Well, first of all, the character—Bruce Wayne—is powerful. He has power because he has money and because he saw his parents killed, which sent him into serious introspection and illness. But he still functions as a major force in society. You have to be powerful from that. It finally comes down to the whole look of the picture, especially the look of the damn Batsuit. It just emanates power.

[Q] Playboy: According to various press reports, working in that suit wasn't a picnic for you. True?

[A] Keaton: It was difficult. I'm bolted, pasted, glued, strapped and tied all through the Batsuit. It's made out of neoprene, latex and rubber, and it also has some metal parts. Mostly, it's like being on the inside of a rubber band: It gives, but there's this constant pulling. If I get too thin, I rattle around in it. If I put on a few pounds, it becomes too tight and everything takes twice the exertion. I also sweat a lot in it. And I can't drink any coffee when I'm in it—and I truly have a caffeine addiction—because they didn't build it with a fly and zipper. They put what amounts to a portable bathroom in there. But it's a safe suit. When I'm wearing it, I feel like I'm the poster boy for safe sex. It also makes me feel isolated, which is perfect for the character.

[Q] Playboy: Are you worried that by playing Batman you might get identified with the character in the same way that Christopher Reeve became identified with Superman?

[A] Keaton: Well, to start with, I didn't sign a sequel deal, and I don't know if Reeve did, either. I think the real problem Reeve had is that he hadn't done many other things people had seen, so they knew him only as Superman. I say that in his defense. However, I remember Reeve being interviewed on the set of the fourth Superman movie, and he made a big point of saying, "I'm tired of being identified as Superman." I thought, Really? You know what, Chris? Unless you signed a sequel deal, you never had to make four of them.

[Q] Playboy: Are you saying you won't make four Batman movies?

[A] Keaton: I don't know what I'll do. The way I'm feeling right now, if somebody says, "Hey, by the way, Tim and I are going to do another one in two or three years and you've got to tell us if you're going to do it," I'd say, "Yeah, I'll be there." But two years down the road, if I look at a script and it's awful, or if Tim's not around, or if some key elements aren't in it, I'm going to say I'm out. From a business standpoint, sequels make absolute sense, but so many movies are being made with sequels in mind that the whole thing's getting stupid. Gandhi 2 would have been in big trouble: "We put him on intravenous—and he's back!"

[A] In any case, there's hope for us sequel folks: Harrison Ford did the Star Wars films without hurting himself, and now he's going to make movies based on Tom Clancy's novels.

[Q] Playboy: One more item about Batman Returns: You originally wanted Annette Bening to play Catwoman. Why?

[A] Keaton: She has this really great off-center quality, and I'd just seen her in The Grifters. So when Tim said to me, "We've got to think about Catwoman," I mentioned Annette and he said, "What a good idea." It was that simple. No one else was discussed. But then Annette became pregnant and had to drop out.

[Q] Playboy: From what we've heard, the hunt for her replacement didn't exactly-rival David O. Selznick's search for Scarlett O'Hara, but it certainly had its dramatic moments.

[A] Keaton: Oh, boy, talk about really knowing you're in Hollywood. One day after Annette was out of the running, I was talking to Mark Canton, who was then in charge at Warner Bros, and heading up the Batman project. We were in his office and he said, "I'm getting calls about Cat-woman from every actress you can name." He began going down the list for me when his phone rang. He picked it up and said, "Yes, fine, but no, I can't right now. I'm busy." Just as we started talking again, there was another phone call. "Please do me a favor," he said. "Tell her I can't see her now. I'm in a meeting." About thirty seconds later, the door flew open and in walked Sean Young, who was a woman on a mission—but on a level the likes of which I'd never seen before.

[Q] Playboy: What did she do?

[A] Keaton: Sean came in and said, "How could I not be Catwoman? It's so obvious that I'm supposed to be Catwoman." It was so strange and bizarre. Sean was dressed catlike. No actual fur was involved, but I recall her hair being tied up with a ribbon that kind of picked her hair up. At a fast glance, it looked like she had ears on the back of her head. She was dressed all in black—big high boots, leotard and shorts.

[Q] Playboy: And she made her pitch for the role right then?

[A] Keaton: Yeah, on the move. She went on for about two and a half minutes with what seemed like one sentence. It was a lot like Bob Dylan's book Tarantula. While Sean was talking, I noticed that she had a metallic object in her hand. I flashed on it for a second and prayed to God it wasn't a gun. I wasn't alone in that—Mark had the same feeling. But it wasn't a gun, it was a walkie-talkie. I thought I would diffuse the situation by bringing her back to earth. I said, "Hey, first of all, how you doing? I haven't seen you for a long time, and you look great"—which was true. That threw her for a couple seconds, and then she went on again. I asked her what she was doing with the walkie-talkie. She said—nicely, she wasn't mean—"I'm talking to somebody." The walkie-talkie was crackling, and I heard things like "Roger." I said, "Why don't you shut it off? Let's have a conversation." And I think she did shut it off. For a moment, I felt that might straighten her up. I said, "Hey, do me a favor, I'm talking to Mark about something. Let me finish up here—we're just about done—and then I'll leave and you guys can have your meeting." Sean talked for another minute and then went out and waited. I left and she came back in and talked with Mark. I don't know what happened after that. But it was wild and totally eccentric and great fun. I'll tell you something: If the woman could bottle that drive with a sense of humor, she'd be unstoppable.

[Q] Playboy: Is the sense of humor missing?

[A] Keaton: For the most part, yes. She's talented, but talent notwithstanding, I laughed very hard after that. It was one of those great Hollywood moments.

[Q] Playboy: Young's campaign to become Catwoman—she dressed the part on Joan Rivers' TV show—received a good deal of attention. Did she do anything beyond that?

[A] Keaton: Lots, yes, but I didn't really see it, so I'm not gonna say what it was.

[Q] Playboy: How did Michelle Pfeiffer feel when finally asked to do the role?

[A] Keaton: At the time, she was preparing to do a movie. I'm sure that what happened—I haven't actually asked her—was that Michelle said, "OK, send me the script," read it and felt it was not to be passed up. Her name could have popped up just as easily and just as fast as Annette Bening's. In a weird way, she was the most obvious choice, if you think of it. I think it's going to end up being one of those cases where Michelle turns out to be the only actress who could have played Catwoman. She's so good.

[Q] Playboy: It's difficult to recognize you beneath all the makeup and costuming in Batman and Beetlejuice. Do you like being unrecognizable?

[A] Keaton: No, not consciously, but there's great fun in that. On a very primary level, dressing up wild is kind of where it all starts. When I was five or six, I began doing things like putting on silly hats, making faces, combing my hair crazy and walking in ways that looked stupid. I cut out Hershey-bar wrappers because they were just the right tone for Elvis sideburns. I used to lick them and stick them on and perform for the family.

[Q] Playboy: Was that your role as a child?

[A] Keaton: Only in the sense that when I was a kid, I received a lot of attention because I was the youngest of four brothers and three sisters. Early on, I established that I was pretty imaginative and funny. Families always look to the youngest child for that. All my brothers and sisters were quick-witted and creative, but they all knew that, ultimately, they were going to have to find jobs. They never had the opportunity to follow a looser lifestyle like I did. While I was growing up, they were moving out of the house, which made the financial burden on my parents lighter. As a result, I didn't grow up telling myself, "I better forget about any fun aspirations I have. Eventually, I'll have to think about a job."

[Q] Playboy: When did you become aware of that?

[A] Keaton: By the time I was eight years old, I knew I'd never have a straight job. And I always assumed I'd live in New York City. I would watch old gangster movies on television, and New York is where gangsters all seemed to live. I used to think that crime made more sense for me. I figured that what Jimmy Cagney did was a lot smarter than getting up, going to work, coming home and having dinner. And sometimes what I do feels criminal, so I guess I kind of achieved that.

[Q] Playboy: At what point did you first sense that performing might someday become part of your life?

[A] Keaton: Probably when I was about thirteen and attending Saint Malachy's, a classic Catholic grade school full of colorful, funny guys. I'd watch things on TV and compare notes with my buddies. The next day we'd do Get Smart or imitate Richard Pryor, which usually got us in trouble with the nuns. But I recognized that something was happening there.

[Q] Playboy: Which was?

[A] Keaton: When the nuns punished us, I knew they thought we were funny and that a lot of them liked us. Not the older sisters—they didn't have a clue about what was going on. But the younger sisters were kind of hip to us, and that was encouraging. And their punishments weren't meanspirited. They would ask us to come up in front of the class and sing a song. The first few times I did that, I got embarrassed and my face turned beet red. But I remember that at some point I said to myself, "I have to sing Mary Had a Little Lamb? Fine, but don't expect me to hang my head and mumble." I belted that sucker out.

[Q] Playboy: Were you a defiant kid?

[A] Keaton: Yeah, there was some defiance there. But I wasn't nearly as gutsy as some of the other guys. They would yell and scream at the nuns and actually push them around. Which wasn't too smart: The nuns would kick their asses.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds like a tough school. Did you get into a lot of fights?

[A] Keaton: Actually, yes, but I wasn't necessarily all that tough. I was scrappy and I established my position.

[Q] Playboy: You grew up in a poor town just outside of Pittsburgh. Was your childhood especially severe?

[A] Keaton: Oh, no, in most ways Robinson Township was a terrific place to grow up because there was so much going on. My dad, for instance, always hunted when he was a kid, so my brothers and I all hunted. After school, with a couple of hours of light left on those fall afternoons, I'd throw on a hunting jacket that was handed down through three other brothers—the kind you can now buy in Ralph Lauren for about four hundred dollars. My shotguns were also hand-me-downs. I started out with a little .410 single-barreled shotgun and then graduated to a 20-gauge double-barrel. I'd grab my gun and a bloodstained game bag and take off, sometimes with a dog, usually not. I still remember what the sun looked like, what the ground felt like, what the leaves smelled like in the woods. You can hunt legally in Pennsylvania when you're twelve years old, and when I was thirteen or so, my dad would let me go out by myself. I think I was one lucky dude—not too many kids have that. All of that started to end as I was growing up. It seemed like the whole area became a development. But there are still some things about it that haven't changed.

[Q] Playboy: Such as?

[A] Keaton: About seven years ago, I went back to see some of my friends from high school. Mostly, we played basketball and went drinking. One night we went to a private after-hours place called the Polish Falcon's Club. Me and some of the guys were in there late, drinking and talking, and there's old Father O'Connor in there with us—doing shots, pouring 'em back. I started drinking straight whiskey when I was fifteen, and I could drink far more of it then than I can now. My friends and I drank a lot; you come from Pittsburgh, that's what you do.

[Q] Playboy: Is that how you spent your high school years—drinking and getting into trouble?

[A] Keaton: Yeah, but we were never malicious. We were just running around being guys. At fifteen, I quit playing sports and started chasing girls, which is all fine. That's OK. I just wish I could have had somebody around to say, "Everything you're doing is totally cool, but there are all these other things you can be good at, like school." To this day, if I have one major resentment, it's about teachers. When I look back at my high school years, I feel totally cheated. I think all kids are cheated. Most of the teachers were a joke, and I think most of the teachers across the country are in it because they can't do anything else. Yet we still ask kids to be enthusiastic—based on what? We still ask kids to be good students—based on what?

[Q] Playboy: You didn't have any teachers who fired up your imagination?

[A] Keaton: When I was fourteen—by then I was already spiraling downward—I had a wonderful English teacher named Mr. Whitehead who liked a short story I wrote for his class. One day he called me over and said, "You know that story you wrote? I sent it to a youth magazine to see if I can get it published for you." Well, let me tell you: My fucking world changed for the next two weeks. I couldn't believe it! Nothing ever happened with the story, but he was the first guy who got me even close to the idea of drama. And then I forgot about it until I was nineteen.

[Q] Playboy: What happened then?

[A] Keaton: I was going to Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh and took a course called Introduction to Drama, taught by a man named Tom Gaydos. Mr. Gaydos spoke with a commanding voice and taught us how to read drama. That sounds simple, but I'd never read anything before that was strictly dialog.

[Q] Playboy: Did you do any performing in class?

[A] Keaton: No, I wasn't ready for that. To me, that was all part of the arty, bullshit group my friends and I made fun of. The next year, I went off to Kent State and was in a little play there, but I still didn't accept the theater crowd or become a part of it. The theater kids—people always referred to us as kids, which right away bothered me—were nice enough, but they weren't my kind of people.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Keaton: A lot of the guys were gay. I'm not proud of this at all, but the truth of the matter is that we ridiculed the whole group. Even the women weren't interesting to me, and what's odd about that was that theater girls were notoriously easy. I had a friend who was doing plays, and theater girls were the only reason he did plays. He kept telling me that and I kept missing the point. I thought I saw some sort of art in it, so I acted.

[Q] Playboy: Did you like being onstage?

[A] Keaton: Yeah, but there was no magical thing that I understand happens to certain people. At that time, I was as interested in writing as I was in performing, and that's when a lot of stuff started kicking in. At that point, I quit school, began working for a public TV station in Pittsburgh and started hanging around some theater groups in town.

[Q] Playboy: Did you finally begin going out with theater girls?

[A] Keaton: Absolutely! You want me to wear tights? Will it get me laid? Bring me the tights! I was in some plays and musical reviews and did standup comedy in a couple clubs in Pittsburgh. It was an interesting time for me.

[Q] Playboy: Did you feel as though you were making your move?

[A] Keaton: You know when I really knew that? When I was twenty-two, I spent a summer at Chinle, Arizona, on the Navaho reservation. A girl in this review had a boyfriend who had worked in a school out there. I remember her telling me about it backstage and I found it a very interesting thing to do. I called the school, got a summer job teaching drama out there, quit the show and flew to Farmington, New Mexico. When I got there, I was picked up in a jeep by a big Navaho guy named Percy Joe. I'd never been West before and I wasn't ready for the amount of physical space out there, so a sense of agoraphobia immediately set in. I arrived late in the afternoon, and by the time we got to the school, it was dark—and the sky had lit up. I honestly didn't know there were that many stars in the sky. I was overwhelmed and noticed that my heart was beating a lot faster. Turned out to be one of the single greatest things I ever did in my life.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Keaton: A couple of reasons, one being that I learned firsthand what it's like to be a minority, which was a strong experience. The Navahos didn't give a shit that we were there, and good for them. Their reaction to the Anglo teachers who showed up—most were missionary types—was, "This is all very nice, but do you expect us to thank God you're here?" I ran into some reverse prejudice, but I also got into long conversations with the Navahos and came away knowing that we have to allow these people to regain the self-esteem that we helped to fuck up and take away. It's just a matter of understanding and then moving on, as opposed to doing this patronizing thing that drives me crazy.

[Q] Playboy: What patronizing thing are you referring to?

[A] Keaton: The idea that Native Americans are enlightened beings more in tune with nature and the earth than anybody else. This has to be said carefully: The general perception that whites now have about Native Americans is based on things like Dances with Wolves. I really liked the movie, but it had nothing to do with the way things were or are. The reality of the Navahos' lives is that they live in poverty that's as bad as anything I've ever seen in Mexico or Ireland. That's what we have to concentrate on, and not the whole fucking white liberal myth we have about them.

[Q] Playboy: What was the other reason that that summer was so valuable to you?

[A] Keaton: I got totally blown away walking around these mesas and the desert for the summer. All the usual stimuli were gone. I was out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and nowhere to go except inside myself. That's when things started to come into focus for me. I started to tell myself that I had to follow my heart. When I came back to Pittsburgh, I had a clear view of what I wanted to do: I knew I was going to be an actor and I was excited about having a goal. I worked two jobs and saved up my money because I realized that I was going to move.

[Q] Playboy: To Hollywood?

[A] Keaton: No, the logical thing for me was to go to New York, study acting during the day and work the comedy clubs at night. For most of the next year, I ran up there on weekends, stayed with actor friends from Pittsburgh and got onstage a couple of times at the Improv and Catch a Rising Star. I still think that plan could have worked, but then a buddy who had moved to Los Angeles convinced me there were more opportunities for me there than in New York. So in 1975, I went West.

[Q] Playboy: How long after that did your career begin to take off?

[A] Keaton: I started getting some television work a little more than a year after I got out here. I played a hip joke writer for the President on a sitcom called All's Fair. By then, I was part of a couple of comedy workshops—Betty Thomas of Second City ran a good one—and I started doing standup at the Comedy Store.

[Q] Playboy: Care to tell us about Louis the Incredible Dancing Chicken?

[A] Keaton: You know, people often come up to me and say, "Excuse me, please explain Louis the Incredible Dancing Chicken to me." Actually, no, they don't. When I first started out, I went through a period of using props, including a rubber chicken. To be honest with you, I can't remember what that bit was—I've probably blocked it. Louis the Incredible Dancing Chicken lasted fifteen or twenty seconds onstage one night and then I threw it out—it was really pretty stupid. The worst thing about being a prop comedian, I discovered from that one experience, is that if you die—and the odds are certainly in your favor of dying—you have to stay onstage that much longer to gather up all your props while the audience stares at you in silence. I've seen it happen to many a prop comedian. So I concentrated on set pieces.

[Q] Playboy: How did you do as a standup comic?

[A] Keaton: For a while, the word on me was that I was "too hip for the room," so I started making it work for a broader audience. Most of the things I did were conceptual pieces that were really tiny one-act plays with a few jokes thrown in. One of the first was a piece on the auditions for Taxi Driver, which gave me the chance to play three or four characters, as opposed to saying, "I need a joke here, I need a joke there." I love great jokes. If I had one that I thought was a little gem, I'd pepper it, as they say. But I don't think I ever believed I was in standup for the long run, though the more I did it, the more I loved it and the better I got at it. But I never did it long enough to get great at it.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Keaton: I consciously removed myself from that scene and that world. I didn't want to be identified as a comedian-actor. I wanted to be perceived as an actor, period. I guess I really wanted to be taken seriously. Boy, do I hate that expression, but that's all I wanted at its most basic level, to be taken seriously. In retrospect, it worked, but sometimes I think I could have done all the standup I wanted and my career wouldn't have been affected in any way.

[Q] Playboy: In the late Seventies, you were in a string of TV series that bombed, including two Mary Tyler Moore shows and Working Stiffs, in which you and Jim Belushi played janitors. How discouraging was all that?

[A] Keaton: I didn't get frustrated until I did a series called Report to Murphy, because that was my own show and I owned a piece of it. Before that, it didn't matter to me. But Report to Murphy had been a hit, I could have made a ton of money and I would have become a household name. I was a little shattered when it was canceled, but by then, Night Shift was ready to come out. I wanted to do both, to have my own TV series and also do movies.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of expectations did you have for Night Shift?

[A] Keaton: Oh, I was psyched and thought what everybody thinks in that situation: I'm in a movie! I sure hope I'm good in it so I can be in other movies! Really that simple.

[Q] Playboy: Was doing it that simple?

[A] Keaton: Mmmm...no. When we started filming, the producers wanted to fire me. They didn't get what I was doing the first few days. I was kind of wild and appeared to be unfocused, but that was because the character I played, Billy Blare, was hyperactive and unfocused. They were used to a conventional kind of rhythm, and I was doing rock-and-roll comedy. I thought I was on the right road so I stuck to it, and then I started getting a lot of good feedback from them and from [director] Ron Howard. Night Shift wasn't a major-major movie—it was an infield hit as opposed to a clean single—but it made a profit and I was offered a lot of movies as a result of it.

[Q] Playboy: Do you recall any movies that you turned down?

[A] Keaton: Ron Howard wanted me for the role Tom Hanks did in Splash, but I wasn't interested in playing that particular character. I also turned down the Richard Dreyfuss part in Stakeout. It was shot in Vancouver and I didn't want to be away from my son. Let me say that I think that Dreyfuss is probably one of our most intelligent actors, which is one reason he's so good. I liked the Stakeout script a lot, and I think I would have kicked that role right in the ass, but I just had to give it up. At the time I thought I was missing out on something. Anyway, I did Mr. Mom, and that movie really put me up there.

[Q] Playboy: Was that easier for you to do than Night Shift?

[A] Keaton: No, it was much, much harder. I wasn't working with people whom I related to as well or as easily. There was a lot of fighting and disagreeing, and they wanted to get rid of me on that one, too. I think [producer] Aaron Spelling wanted to make a kind of TV movie version of an ineffective, asexual kind of guy hanging around the house doing silly things. It was bullshit, and people wouldn't have gone to see it. I was sure there was a funny movie in there, and I knew I was right in not allowing my character to be a bumbling househusband. Having said that, I can tell you that when we finished it, I had no idea the movie would become a big hit.

[Q] Playboy: In combination with Night Shift, Mr. Mom made you the hottest comedy actor in Hollywood. But after those two, you appeared in a string of losers. Were you worried that you might turn out to be a flash in the pan?

[A] Keaton: No, not at all, probably because I wasn't too career conscious back then. I was just going from one movie to the next, making a lot of money and living great. When something failed, it was disappointing, but it didn't throw me.

[Q] Playboy: Were you thrown when Woody Allen fired you from The Purple Rose of Cairo?

[A] Keaton: I was a little bit embarrassed, but something like that will always feel embarrassing. I was clearly seduced by what Woody Allen had previously done because, truthfully, the Purple Rose character wasn't very interesting on paper. But I took the part of the matinee idol—the one Jeff Daniels wound up playing—because I thought something would come of it. Several weeks after I started working on the picture, we got to a point where it looked like I wasn't going to be very good—and that's what I was thinking. Apparently, Allen was feeling this more strongly than I was, because he called and he was very nice about it. Woody Allen doesn't talk a lot. He told me, "I really feel icky about this whole situation, but I don't think this is working out." I don't know what he said next because I was still working on "icky." I could hear a cheerleader in Fort Worth saying, "This field is just too icky to cheer on." He was uncomfortable and genuinely seemed to feel badly, and that was that. But it didn't crush me as it might have if I thought I was in something terrific.

[Q] Playboy: Did you go see The Purple Rose of Cairo?

[A] Keaton: Yes, I did. Not a great movie. I felt a whole lot of sweat dry up on my forehead, but I honestly didn't shout "See!" Had I felt mistreated, I would have said a lot more to the screen and to the world than "See!"

[Q] Playboy: What were you saying to yourself when your next several movies didn't go anywhere?

[A] Keaton: I told myself I had to go about choosing them differently. After Johnny Dangerously, Gung Ho, Touch and Go and The Squeeze, things pretty much dried up for me. I was still getting offers, but they just weren't as good, and I started backing away from pictures. I had to pick carefully now, and I was catching on to what happens: Do a couple of bombs and you don't get the good offers, so you really have to watch what you say yes to. And then I started falling into that particular trap where somebody would say, "Hey, wanna do this movie?" and I'd go, "Uh, let me look at it. Wait a minute—let me look at it again. I don't know. I don't think so." I was too nervous about the whole thing. What I finally did, thank God, was tell myself, "Hey, throw all this stuff out the window. You think Beetlejuice"—that was the next movie I was considering—"will be really good? Then do it. True, you may fail again, but you may not. Forget about success or failure. Just get back to what you do, which is acting."

[A] But the selection process is harder now than it's ever been. And it'll keep getting harder because so much attention is put on how much money a movie makes. That's a legitimate concern. And if you're an actor, it transfers to you in how responsible you're going to be for the success or failure of a movie. So I have to think about that, and that ain't much fun. But I've decided not to make it a pain in the ass; I've developed a certain amount of perspective.

[A] So after Beetlejuice, I was offered Clean and Sober and went for it, even though I knew that if I didn't do it correctly, I'd be a dead man.

[Q] Playboy: Before playing a yuppie coke freak in that film, every movie you'd made—with the exception of Touch and Go, a love story—was a comedy. What attracted you to do Clean and Sober?

[A] Keaton: It was like a big hunk of meat on my plate. I felt like a cartoon wolf seated at a table with a napkin tied around my neck, a fork in one hand, a knife in the other, and with my tongue hanging down and a little drop of saliva flying off to the side. When I read the script, I said, "I can really dig into this thing." There was just so much to sit down to. But I was still trying to be too careful about my choices, and at first I didn't want to play a guy whom I didn't really like. But then I realized I was thinking the wrong way, so I just dove in.

[Q] Playboy: You received the National Society of Film Critics Award for best actor after doing Clean and Sober. Did that encourage you to go after other dramatic roles?

[A] Keaton: Sure it did, but that was always my plan. I think I'm capable of becoming a great actor, but mostly I think I'm just a very good actor who's been lucky. I love my career because I'm also technically a movie star. Yet I don't feel like a movie star in the sense that Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kevin Costner are movie stars. And I'm not. I think if early on I'd picked some more movie-star-type pictures, maybe there would have been more of that.

[Q] Playboy: In Pacific Heights, you played a villainous psychopath. Do you think you have a special aptitude for that?

[A] Keaton: Well, I hadn't played evil and heartless before, and any actor will tell you that's always fun. But it was also frightening and it scared me. It made me sit down and think about myself long and hard. I'm proud of my heritage, which is essentially Scotch-Irish with some German and maybe a little English thrown in somewhere. Unfortunately, that part of the world also passes on something very dark and cold. The Irish are a people of words and spirit, but they have a thing about shame that's sent itself down through generations. I grew up with a certain amount of that, and I hate it. There's some meanness in my heritage, and as proud as I am of the Irish, I'll be the first to tell you they can make you sick with their indulgence. Ever see The Field, a movie with Richard Harris? Every frame is filled with angst, suffering and people weeping and screaming. The Irish revel in that kind of excess. You could probably trace that back to some wild Viking who landed on the shores of Scotland or Ireland.

[Q] Playboy: Let's stay with Pacific Heights for another minute. Aside from allowing you to play your first bad guy, what else did that movie do for you?

[A] Keaton: It was the first time I experimented with going to work relaxed and just letting it happen. I'd never done that before, and something told me it was time to try it. I didn't have a lot of experience really internalizing a performance, and to a certain degree it worked. I really respect actors who do that well. The best example I can give you is Jeremy Irons in Reversal of Fortune. I aspire to that kind of grace. Again, it comes down to that question of choosing pictures. So with Batman Returns, once more I find myself in a position that I really like and also wonder about, which is: Now what?

[Q] Playboy: Ever since the cameras started rolling on Batman Returns, Hollywood observers have been predicting that it will be the biggest movie of the summer and maybe of the year. Do you agree?

[A] Keaton: Well, I can tell you that there's a lot more of everything in this one than there was in Batman and that the Penguin is far more evil than the Joker was. But other than that, I really don't know. One of the reasons I hesitate to talk a lot about what I do and the medium in which I work is that I honestly don't know much about them. And I'm not being humble here, because there are things I do know a lot about and don't feel at all constrained to discuss. But I just don't know that much about acting and movies. Most people who've done the amount of work I've done think they know a lot about it. Usually, when I read what they have to say, I find them totally pretentious and incorrect, so I hesitate to say anything because I think I'm still figuring out a lot of things.

[Q] Playboy: What things?

[A] Keaton: I don't think I've done enough movies to say wholeheartedly, specifically and unequivocally certain things about acting. I don't know enough about it. Some areas I do. I trust my instincts and my intelligence to figure out the best way to portray a character, but a lot of times I know I don't have definitive answers. There's only a handful—probably less than a handful—of people who do. Talk to guys like Coppola, Scorsese and Fellini, they'll tell you all about film making. Most everybody else is full of shit.

[Q] Playboy: It's now been ten years since you appeared in your first movie. Did you ever imagine you would come so far so fast?

[A] Keaton: Oh, man, I'm light-years ahead of where I thought I'd be. I'll let you in on something: If, in the beginning, someone had said to me, "You're going to play a heroic character from pulp fiction, and while you'll be popular and successful in America, the rest of theworld will know you only as Batman. Can you live with that?" I'd have said, "Yeah, I can handle it." And I can.

[A] The only part I don't like is what happened when I went fishing in Patagonia, on the southern tip of South America just before you hit Tierra del Fuego. It takes about fifteen hours—not counting stops in Miami and Buenos Aires—to fly down there. After the plane lands, there's an hour-and-a-half drive to a hotel, and then another forty-minute drive to the place where you're going to fish—great trout-fishing there. You get the picture? Not a lot of folks around. Patagonia is probably one of the most deserted sections of civilized land mass in the world. Anyway, I was fishing on the river, watching my fly float on the water, and time was passing. I saw this trout working its way upstream and I was trying to catch him. A couple of hours went by and then I started to feel something. I looked back, and there were eleven kids standing behind me on the riverbank—they'd heard I was in town. It was kind of sweet, but it was also a little disappointing. It's pretty hard for me to get lost, but in another ten years, if I go fishing again in Patagonia and I don't see anybody on the riverbank, I'll probably turn around and yell, "Hey, where are you guys?"

[Q] Playboy: Aside from acting—and fishing in Patagonia—are there any other things you would prefer to be doing?

[A] Keaton: Periodically, there are about a hundred things I'd rather be doing, and that's one of my problems. I'm so bad at managing my time that I miss a lot of opportunities. But I keep myself real busy because I figure I'm here for about a flash. One of the things I like to do best is to stare at the moon. I'm totally in love with it, but not on any scientific level. It's sexy, it's mysterious, it's beautiful, it only comes out at night: The moon is all the great things that the sun isn't. I have a ranch in Montana and the last time I was there, I was driving home at night on this gravel road, and the sky was filled with stars on top of stars. Some of them were actually telling other stars, "Can you get out of the way for a minute? I can't see the earth from here." Above them all was a full moon. When I came across a rise that looks down into an enormous valley, I stopped my truck. I told myself I'd be a fool not to relax for five minutes and take a peek at all that, so I parked the truck, climbed up on the roof and just laid there looking up at the sky. I'm not always this homey and earthy and swell. And what really happened when I looked up was that I saw the face of God looking down at me. He said, "What the hell are you doing on the roof of your truck? Go home and go to bed!" So I did.

"I pictured Batman as one of these arms-akimbo superheroes. If he'd been written that way, I would have been the first to admit I was the wrong guy."