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Michael Keatonis revealing why he hung up his cape after twoBatmanmovies.
The actor, 70, chose not to reprise his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman in 1995’sBatman Foreverafter playing the famous DC hero in 1989’sBatmanand 1992’sBatman Returns,both of which came from directorTim Burton.
Keaton explained his decision in a recent episode ofIn the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast,perCBR, attributing his decision partly to a change in vision when Joel Schumacher came on to directBatman Forever. (Schumacherdiedin 2020 at 80 years old after a year-long cancer battle.)
“It was always Bruce Wayne. It was never Batman,” Keaton said, referring to his understanding of the character. “To me, I know the name of the movie is Batman, and it’s hugely iconic and very cool and [a] cultural iconic and because of Tim Burton, artistically iconic.”
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Keaton continued, “I knew from the get-go it was Bruce Wayne. That was the secret. I never talked about it. [Everyone would say] Batman, Batman, Batman does this, and I kept thinking to myself, ‘Y’all are thinking wrong here.’ [It’s all about] Bruce Wayne. What kind of person does that?… Who becomes that? What kind of person [does that]?”
“When the director who directed the third one [came on] I said, ‘I just can’t do it,’ " Keaton recalled. “And one of the reasons I couldn’t do it was—and you know, he’s a nice enough man, he’s passed away, so I wouldn’t speak ill of him even if he were alive—he, at one point, after more than a couple of meetings where I kept trying to rationalize doing it and hopefully talking him into saying I think we don’t want to go in this direction, I think we should go in this direction. And he wasn’t going to budge.”
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Keaton added, “I remember one of the things that I walked away going, ‘Oh boy, I can’t do this.’ “He asked me, ‘I don’t understand why everything has to be so dark and everything so sad,’ and I went, ‘Wait a minute, do you know how this guy got to be Batman? Have you read… I mean, it’s pretty simple.'”
While Keaton walked away from Batman decades ago, he is reprising his role inThe Flash, which is set to premiere in theaters Nov. 4, 2022.
source: people.com
