Actor Michael Keaton shares acting tips he uses for his acting career.
From Playing Batman to Being Particular, Michael Keaton, on Why He Can’t Call a Role “Incapable of Phoning in.”
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Mr. Keaton may not have had the same number of high-profile parts as his contemporaries, but he cannot be faulted for being serious about those he takes on. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter about his career, Mr. Keaton explained why he is so picky about his roles and how deeply he gets involved in each character he portrays.
Keaton explains that he picks his parts carefully because he is hesitant to commit to one project for too long. “phoning” a role. He explains, “Probably because I’m too frightened, I’m incapable of phoning anything in, I would love to phone something in. Trust me. I would like to go, ‘Hey, I don’t know what the f—k we’re doing. Let’s just have some laughs.’ But I take what I do for a living seriously.” Keaton questions his acting skills even more at this point, later stating, While I was working on it for years, believe it or not. “I have this thing like, ‘I wonder if I can pull that off? How much longer can I fool people?”
For example, Keaton featured in a minor role in the 2010 film The Other Guys, playing a police captain who (ridiculously) works as a Bed, Bath & Beyond clerk. Even though Keaton’s character utters one-liners throughout the film, he wanted to talk with Adam McKay and Chris Henchy about it. He remembers, “I said, ‘Hey, man, can I just spend an hour with you guys? Can we talk about my character?’ I’m sure they thought, ‘Oh, no. Is he crazy?’ [McKay] is like, ‘Look at the role. Don’t sweat it.’ But I thought, ‘I don’t care if I’m playing an amoeba, I have to know something, just give me anything. I promise you, after we spend 15 minutes, it’s all I need.'”
For Keaton, each film’s uniqueness is essential. The Protege, his 2021 action thriller, is one of his first all-out action thrillers and contains a lot of fight sequences. He remembers that saying, “I haven’t done that specifically, so I went, ‘Oh man, I don’t know. Go do it.’ I’d blow my brains out if I had to play the same thing all the time. I don’t think I’d be doing this anymore.
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