'He’s got two personalities': Michael Keaton was cast to play Batman for one very specific reason
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Michael Keaton is set to suit up as Batman one more time in DCU’s latest superhero flick, ‘The Flash’, which captures Ezra Miller playing the role of Scarlet Speedster. The 71-year-old Hollywood veteran’s performance and his low register voice were one of the key factors elevating the Caped Crusader persona in the DC film world.
Keaton made his debut as the 'Dark Knight' nearly 34 years ago in Tim Burton's classic, 'Batman', which was released in 1989. The second Batman movie also introduced Jack Nicholson as the Joker and turned out to be a blockbuster at the box office. Many critics were left shocked when Burton chose Keaton to play Bruce Wayne, taking into consideration that he used to be a comedy actor before the superhero movie. But, the director previously revealed that he had a very specific reason to choose Keaton as Batman.
Why Tim Burton cast Michael Keaton as Batman?
“I had met lots of the square-jaw type of actors, but it's like, well, why does somebody need to dress up like a bat? They don't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, they're not a big action hero. They're somebody who's intelligent and kind of screwed up,” he said in an interview according to the Thing. Burton went on to say that Keaton got the role because he was adept at understanding Batman's dual personalities. “Michael has such an intensity that it's like, 'Yeah, I could see that guy wanting to dress up as a bat.' It's all rooted in psychology, Jekyll and Hyde, and two sides of a personality, light and dark, and he understood that."
Keaton’s performance undoubtedly left an indelible mark on the audience's heart, which made Burton bring him back for the sequel ‘Batman Returns’ in 1992. The sequel was released nearly three decades ago but the voice of Keaton's Batman is still a standard for all the Caped Crusader in live-action iterations. He brought a new level of darkness and seriousness to the role, which helped set the tone for subsequent Batman movies.
'I have to kill some people'
Keaton recently revealed that the reason behind his very deliberate lower register was to distinguish the voices of Batman and Bruce Wayne. “He’s got two personalities. The guy is not psychotic but not far from it. Controlled psychosis…In order for me to justify all this, I can’t be changing the oil on the Batmobile and then saying, ‘Well, I have to kill some people’ so he probably ends up going into some deep, deep trance, which is a scene that I don’t think ever made it in. How do you justify the voice? It’s cheesy but I figured once he’s in the trance, he doesn’t think like he does like Bruce Wayne, doesn’t act like he does. So the voice came out of that, it was a really practical thing,” he said while speaking with Empire.
