Name: Michael Keaton Wasn't Sure He Wanted To Be In "Batman" With Jack Nicholson | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-06-14T22:01:27.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Michael Keaton Wasn't Sure He Wanted To Be In "Batman" With Jack Nicholson | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-14. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Michael Keaton Wasn't Sure He Wanted To Be In "Batman" With Jack Nicholson | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-06-14. Transcript available.

our first guest a talented actor uh this man's recent films include clean and
sober and also the
dream team uh and now yes ladies and gentlemen he is the new batman uh the
motion picture opens i
believe friday which is tomorrow right all across the country here he is ladies
and gentlemen michael
how are you doing great hey you know that tick boy thing is serious
you know what i love about you really committed to the whole piece oh yeah back
off oh yeah you
gotta go what are you gonna do i'm kidding about the tick boy a bit the thing
about tick that people
don't realize the reverse of that is if you eat too many lines you actually get
ticks so oh i didn't
realize that there is that problem so we should maybe launch a whole other
campaign uh congratulations
on uh all of the success uh before the film and of course now accompanying the
film it's unbelievable
yeah and how do you respond to that has it just changed you at all changed your
life do you feel
differently you know i wouldn't guess i was following george bush into the city
they kept going batman
i kept going and uh how about the well the merchandising is like now do you get
a piece
of the merchandising yeah oh well there you go so you're looking at that big
time you know it's
they've gone a little well you know it's not my judgment but in my opinion they've
got a little far
do they ever ask you michael uh what about the uh the batman socks or what
about the you mean my
approval yeah oh that's hysterical when you have to approve your own stuff and
you get your likeness you
know and it's just hysterical and i keep you know putting jay leno's picture in
there because of the
jaw you know no but they've gone nuts now because it's extended into other
areas tongue depressors
everything medical supplies exactly medical supplies they got the new uh batman
oxygen tent right
reflex hammers you're fine just let me take off my bat hat you know it was
interesting we were talking
just briefly in the makeup room before the show and you had an interesting
thought i asked you
i asked you if if you thought that batman could beat mike tyson and what'd you
say from here to gotham
city and back uh i have a feeling although you and i have never discussed this
before that for you being
in a movie any movie with jack nicholson was probably like the achievement of
of a small dream he had
someplace absolutely i mean this is a guy you know i can name a bunch of actors
that i would always
want to work with but i gotta say jack was probably the number one and in fact
i almost didn't do the
movie because i thought you know he when he did a movie called missouri breaks
with brando he had
always loved marlon brando and wanted to work with him but he almost didn't
take that movie because
he thought i'm not sure i want to blow it on this one if this isn't the right
one and i almost didn't
do this movie because i thought i want to do just the right thing with jack and
because the chance may
not come around exactly so i didn't want to blow it and i thought you know what
it might not come
around again i'm going to do it and take my chance he's as good he's as great a
guy and as good an actor
as uh as it gets and he's truly one of a kind man and when he one day he you
know he looked over at me
we're both being made up in our our suits and he just looks at me and says well
we just gotta let
the wardrobe do the acting kid and that's true after a while man you just work
the suit you know
did you uh uh were you uh frightened or intimidated at all a little bit like
the first day you meet him
when you're when you're yeah no the idea of it a little bit because i thought
you know i'm not sure
what he's like and and and this could be because he's huge he's he's just he's
he's huge and and and
and he uh but the first day i whenever talked to the with him about the script
and we had some dinner
and the first day that was gone it was he's he's you know not unlike me or
people i grew up with he's
he's and i just like a regular guy yeah is that true now people say that no he's
no no i mean he
if a if a regular guy is i i don't know who would be a regular guy i'm a
regular guy all right no he's
not regular at all in that case in that case no hey now wait a minute no i mean
on one hand he
is very i mean one day at night we're coming home from dinner and we're
discussing real the best ways to
make vanilla milkshakes and what we like about and he can turn around literally
and discuss uh you know
the picasso and uh then how did picasso like his milkshakes he actually you
know he actually like
them thin but he was cheap he just didn't want to pay for the extra and short
he'd like him sure was
there a friendship molded here do you think yeah we're kind of pals i mean
everybody keeps asking me
that it's not like we hang together all the time but we go out and see each
other and and uh and
you know so i don't have some dinner everyone's talking to me you know what was
the surprising
thing is how you know you see people be funny in movies and then you meet them
and they're not
necessarily very funny right they just have somehow figured out how to do this
thing he's genuinely
funny i mean genuinely will make you laugh he says funny things and does funny
things yeah
entertaining to be around he's extremely entertaining yeah yeah but i think it
was miscast
me i mean it's obvious yeah of course i don't see the problem no he's i mean
man so so now what is
the deal he's obviously the joker yeah and you're you're batman yeah and what
happens you you uh what
has he done to to irritate you yeah just generally no he uh he is uh he's
enough he i witnessed batman
bruce wayne witnesses the uh the murder of his parents when he's a kid and the
joker had done that
yeah but he doesn't know it till later i'm kind of blowing the plot here yeah
but yeah like nobody's
gonna go see it now well we saw that it's raiders of the ark again or whatever
uh that's right but now gotham city is where ohio gotham city is right outside
on the lake
what where did the cameras go all right we'll uh do uh we a commercial and then
we'll be back
here with uh michael keaton now the thing about the merchandise you know what
never really took off
those rain man lunch boxes didn't really work did they i don't know i'm staying
out of this one
uh you know i mentioned that uh i saw last summer i saw you in clean and sober
yeah and uh geez i thought you were terrific in that i thought that was
i mean you laughingly mentioned that in in batman it was in some measure okay
to let the suit kind of do
the acting which i know you were jesting about a little bit but not in clean
and sober that was
just you out there uh 90 minutes of tough stuff yeah which is great you feel
great when you come home
from a thing like that you know it's just a you just work and you come home and
you're you're tired
you know you feel like you used it up yeah which you know actually you're gonna
love this segue
no really you are watch this watch this yeah you go and you just work you feel
like your work
which is something that my dog doesn't really experience because
no you know what i'm saying material now i believe here we go get ready anton
no i'm not i
just saw you mention i saw you do a thing about uh border collies being nuts
and all that oh yeah
they're crazy no i have one you have a border fabulous dogs yeah but they're
there
yeah they said is there anything i can do anything at all yeah is there
anything i can do in the house
i'll just do anything have you have you seen sheep have you heard about sheep
anybody call here just
put the sheep outfit on for me and run around just for a couple of minutes and
then what i want you
to do is be a maverick of the group i want you to direct but they always i can
remember and i've told
this story several times when we had them on the show some were we were using
on the show some had to
wait in the in the dressing room like many of our guests and the ones who had
to wait in the dressing
room the whole time we're like that looking out the door like i may be called
any second that's right
that's the idea were a lot of them going over this stuff yeah they were quizzing
each other on it like
those labradors sitting around all the time do you now do you have them indoors
you let them run
i mean he does he does it all he does it what's his name dusty sean named my
little boy named him dusty
and yeah now this is i think this is interesting your six-year-old son this is
probably the low end of the
target audience for batman right yeah yeah that's about the bottom now does he
have any connection
now that dad is this big super yeah but what's great about it is he's he gets
what i do he mostly
gets what i do he once told people at school and they asked him what their dad
did for living he said
he sleeps in a trailer so he's very proud of dad's work no because he's seen me
do other things he knows
what i do so so he puts together he now knows i mean had this been my first
movie i think he'd say
is he batman or is he my dad i'm not sure but you know what he did he brought
his bat suit to the
premiere the other night and in a plastic bag it was his idea his idea stuck it
under the thing i sit
down next to him like major there's a bat he put it in his i had one made for
him by the costumer you
know and he actually brought it like if there's trouble i'm ready you know i
can sleep in this thing
and go out and do some damage well a long difficult life yeah maybe uh well
that's great that's cute
that must make you feel terrific yeah he's having a great time yeah and uh take
some time when did you
finish this thing because i think people have started i started reading about
the film like six months ago
um i finished it about three or four months ago i guess but you know there was
stuff to do it after
after it and uh and now i'm done this is in fact this is the final thing and i'm
real happy about
yeah what are you gonna do my brothers and i do an annual uh how many brothers
do you have three
brothers yeah three sisters but me and the boys do a do an annual fishing trip
where do you go for
well out west um um generally i hesitate to uh say where because things you
know oh yeah they'll hunt you
down in wyoming well no i mean odd things that happen so i don't i'll never say
where yeah so what do you
go for marlin blue yeah blue marlin out there in wyoming tuna too there's a lot
of tuna there and
right out in the tetons oh boy sailfish rocky mountain tuna
you can't beat no no you can't rocky mountain uh blues uh anyway you got into
the wilderness you're
out there fishing yeah yeah we take off and we go my brothers are wild my
brothers are funny man
they they they are uh well wait that's it no no no no no no this is a nice just
a nice thing we do
over here and i'm really looking forward well maybe some year you'll invite me
i doubt it but you
know maybe oh no no of course you can well it's a familial thing it's a family
kind of well no i don't
have a family but maybe vicariously i could experience the phone yeah me and
dorothy be out there with
you in waiters looking for mackerel out there in wyoming yeah uh are we done
does he have to leave
no you don't have to leave does he does he have hey morty can you do the show
and i'm staying
he'll see isaiah huh yeah he's correct michael keaton says we'll be right back
no no no no you don't
want to leave me i don't want to ask you yes sir were you in the original
company of cats or were
you just in the road the road the truck and bus yeah we went all over the midwest
yeah i was out
for 18 weeks really oh yeah without a break makeup thing the little whisk oh
sure well like you you
get up early and they put it on and you're in it all day very good yeah but i
enjoyed it thank you
very much midnight and the kitties are sleeping uh tomorrow on the program uh
sandra bernhard will be
here also also on the program uh 10 000 maniacs will be here and uh the 10 000
no it's just not the
10 000. is it the batman no and uh new york city parks commissioner henry stern
will be here
and boy crowd is getting grumpy and also insect wrangler steve kutcher is that
right that'll be
tomorrow so now uh we have just a couple of more minutes here explain to me
about you and your
brothers in addition to going fishing you go no we don't we're just going
fishing trying to behave
ourselves but you have to understand my brothers now are all older than me and
they were
in a sense they were why we were all kind of went through our wild phases these
guys were nuts you
know they actually when i was a kid built me a they built a boxing ring in the
yard and were like
stage bouts and it was me it was me and i was guys would come in farm workers
come into town
like take them i was like a tiny kid we would literally have boxing matches and
a lot of these
guys i liked you know i didn't have any grudge i don't have to go out and fight
these guys you know
so one thing my brother and i this my brother paul we used to get in some wild
fights what does paul do
now paul is in the uh building construction uh business selling building
construction materials
and one day we're down we used to take big sweat socks and stuff them we had a
bag of socks in the
basement where we used to use for sled riding stuff and we used to stuff them
full of rolled up socks
and then stick your hand in there make you gloves he was a lot bigger than me
in time because i was a
little guy and he he uh would get on his knees and fight and used to pummel me
just used to and your
hand would slip through the gloves either the socks and you know you'd catch a
knuckle everyone's on
so this one night he's just beating me up and there were these windows in the
basement and i'm fighting
and i finally had had it and i said oh wait time up i said who's that up in the
window he turns to look
up in the window i take the glove off and i get one of these guys going like on
those bolo things i go
i heard this thing i smack him across i think he chased me for like a week out
the yard boom
and then i rated up the steps and i was and he hit me and then i chased him up
the solar steps
and he got this is how i got ready for batman he ran me up the step i chased
one of the steps
he got the top solar steps and turned around and went and kicked me all the way
back oh i mean
it was wild so one night we go out and we we stay out all night and then we end
up uh going
skydiving which is the thing going skydiving yeah like taught by a guy who had
literally no teeth
taught us how to do it but we don't have time but hey for the next show huh
yeah but i don't
want to go fishing now thanks anyway i don't want any part of this paul guy
beat me with socks in the
middle of the night i don't think so uh anyway this uh this monster what it
opens friday friday yeah
well geez congratulations and good luck yeah and uh i'm sure it'll be like the
runaway hit of the
decade that's what they're saying we'll come back again sometime all right good
to see you michael
batman what

Michael Keaton Wasn't Sure He Wanted To Be In "Batman" With Jack Nicholson | Letterman

our first guest a talented actor uh this man's recent films include clean and
sober and also the
dream team uh and now yes ladies and gentlemen he is the new batman uh the
motion picture opens i
believe friday which is tomorrow right all across the country here he is ladies
and gentlemen michael
how are you doing great hey you know that tick boy thing is serious
you know what i love about you really committed to the whole piece oh yeah back
off oh yeah you
gotta go what are you gonna do i'm kidding about the tick boy a bit the thing
about tick that people
don't realize the reverse of that is if you eat too many lines you actually get
ticks so oh i didn't
realize that there is that problem so we should maybe launch a whole other
campaign uh congratulations
on uh all of the success uh before the film and of course now accompanying the
film it's unbelievable
yeah and how do you respond to that has it just changed you at all changed your
life do you feel
differently you know i wouldn't guess i was following george bush into the city
they kept going batman
i kept going and uh how about the well the merchandising is like now do you get
a piece
of the merchandising yeah oh well there you go so you're looking at that big
time you know it's
they've gone a little well you know it's not my judgment but in my opinion they've
got a little far
do they ever ask you michael uh what about the uh the batman socks or what
about the you mean my
approval yeah oh that's hysterical when you have to approve your own stuff and
you get your likeness you
know and it's just hysterical and i keep you know putting jay leno's picture in
there because of the
jaw you know no but they've gone nuts now because it's extended into other
areas tongue depressors
everything medical supplies exactly medical supplies they got the new uh batman
oxygen tent right
reflex hammers you're fine just let me take off my bat hat you know it was
interesting we were talking
just briefly in the makeup room before the show and you had an interesting
thought i asked you
i asked you if if you thought that batman could beat mike tyson and what'd you
say from here to gotham
city and back uh i have a feeling although you and i have never discussed this
before that for you being
in a movie any movie with jack nicholson was probably like the achievement of
of a small dream he had
someplace absolutely i mean this is a guy you know i can name a bunch of actors
that i would always
want to work with but i gotta say jack was probably the number one and in fact
i almost didn't do the
movie because i thought you know he when he did a movie called missouri breaks
with brando he had
always loved marlon brando and wanted to work with him but he almost didn't
take that movie because
he thought i'm not sure i want to blow it on this one if this isn't the right
one and i almost didn't
do this movie because i thought i want to do just the right thing with jack and
because the chance may
not come around exactly so i didn't want to blow it and i thought you know what
it might not come
around again i'm going to do it and take my chance he's as good he's as great a
guy and as good an actor
as uh as it gets and he's truly one of a kind man and when he one day he you
know he looked over at me
we're both being made up in our our suits and he just looks at me and says well
we just gotta let
the wardrobe do the acting kid and that's true after a while man you just work
the suit you know
did you uh uh were you uh frightened or intimidated at all a little bit like
the first day you meet him
when you're when you're yeah no the idea of it a little bit because i thought
you know i'm not sure
what he's like and and and this could be because he's huge he's he's just he's
he's huge and and and
and he uh but the first day i whenever talked to the with him about the script
and we had some dinner
and the first day that was gone it was he's he's you know not unlike me or
people i grew up with he's
he's and i just like a regular guy yeah is that true now people say that no he's
no no i mean he
if a if a regular guy is i i don't know who would be a regular guy i'm a
regular guy all right no he's
not regular at all in that case in that case no hey now wait a minute no i mean
on one hand he
is very i mean one day at night we're coming home from dinner and we're
discussing real the best ways to
make vanilla milkshakes and what we like about and he can turn around literally
and discuss uh you know
the picasso and uh then how did picasso like his milkshakes he actually you
know he actually like
them thin but he was cheap he just didn't want to pay for the extra and short
he'd like him sure was
there a friendship molded here do you think yeah we're kind of pals i mean
everybody keeps asking me
that it's not like we hang together all the time but we go out and see each
other and and uh and
you know so i don't have some dinner everyone's talking to me you know what was
the surprising
thing is how you know you see people be funny in movies and then you meet them
and they're not
necessarily very funny right they just have somehow figured out how to do this
thing he's genuinely
funny i mean genuinely will make you laugh he says funny things and does funny
things yeah
entertaining to be around he's extremely entertaining yeah yeah but i think it
was miscast
me i mean it's obvious yeah of course i don't see the problem no he's i mean
man so so now what is
the deal he's obviously the joker yeah and you're you're batman yeah and what
happens you you uh what
has he done to to irritate you yeah just generally no he uh he is uh he's
enough he i witnessed batman
bruce wayne witnesses the uh the murder of his parents when he's a kid and the
joker had done that
yeah but he doesn't know it till later i'm kind of blowing the plot here yeah
but yeah like nobody's
gonna go see it now well we saw that it's raiders of the ark again or whatever
uh that's right but now gotham city is where ohio gotham city is right outside
on the lake
what where did the cameras go all right we'll uh do uh we a commercial and then
we'll be back
here with uh michael keaton now the thing about the merchandise you know what
never really took off
those rain man lunch boxes didn't really work did they i don't know i'm staying
out of this one
uh you know i mentioned that uh i saw last summer i saw you in clean and sober
yeah and uh geez i thought you were terrific in that i thought that was
i mean you laughingly mentioned that in in batman it was in some measure okay
to let the suit kind of do
the acting which i know you were jesting about a little bit but not in clean
and sober that was
just you out there uh 90 minutes of tough stuff yeah which is great you feel
great when you come home
from a thing like that you know it's just a you just work and you come home and
you're you're tired
you know you feel like you used it up yeah which you know actually you're gonna
love this segue
no really you are watch this watch this yeah you go and you just work you feel
like your work
which is something that my dog doesn't really experience because
no you know what i'm saying material now i believe here we go get ready anton
no i'm not i
just saw you mention i saw you do a thing about uh border collies being nuts
and all that oh yeah
they're crazy no i have one you have a border fabulous dogs yeah but they're
there
yeah they said is there anything i can do anything at all yeah is there
anything i can do in the house
i'll just do anything have you have you seen sheep have you heard about sheep
anybody call here just
put the sheep outfit on for me and run around just for a couple of minutes and
then what i want you
to do is be a maverick of the group i want you to direct but they always i can
remember and i've told
this story several times when we had them on the show some were we were using
on the show some had to
wait in the in the dressing room like many of our guests and the ones who had
to wait in the dressing
room the whole time we're like that looking out the door like i may be called
any second that's right
that's the idea were a lot of them going over this stuff yeah they were quizzing
each other on it like
those labradors sitting around all the time do you now do you have them indoors
you let them run
i mean he does he does it all he does it what's his name dusty sean named my
little boy named him dusty
and yeah now this is i think this is interesting your six-year-old son this is
probably the low end of the
target audience for batman right yeah yeah that's about the bottom now does he
have any connection
now that dad is this big super yeah but what's great about it is he's he gets
what i do he mostly
gets what i do he once told people at school and they asked him what their dad
did for living he said
he sleeps in a trailer so he's very proud of dad's work no because he's seen me
do other things he knows
what i do so so he puts together he now knows i mean had this been my first
movie i think he'd say
is he batman or is he my dad i'm not sure but you know what he did he brought
his bat suit to the
premiere the other night and in a plastic bag it was his idea his idea stuck it
under the thing i sit
down next to him like major there's a bat he put it in his i had one made for
him by the costumer you
know and he actually brought it like if there's trouble i'm ready you know i
can sleep in this thing
and go out and do some damage well a long difficult life yeah maybe uh well
that's great that's cute
that must make you feel terrific yeah he's having a great time yeah and uh take
some time when did you
finish this thing because i think people have started i started reading about
the film like six months ago
um i finished it about three or four months ago i guess but you know there was
stuff to do it after
after it and uh and now i'm done this is in fact this is the final thing and i'm
real happy about
yeah what are you gonna do my brothers and i do an annual uh how many brothers
do you have three
brothers yeah three sisters but me and the boys do a do an annual fishing trip
where do you go for
well out west um um generally i hesitate to uh say where because things you
know oh yeah they'll hunt you
down in wyoming well no i mean odd things that happen so i don't i'll never say
where yeah so what do you
go for marlin blue yeah blue marlin out there in wyoming tuna too there's a lot
of tuna there and
right out in the tetons oh boy sailfish rocky mountain tuna
you can't beat no no you can't rocky mountain uh blues uh anyway you got into
the wilderness you're
out there fishing yeah yeah we take off and we go my brothers are wild my
brothers are funny man
they they they are uh well wait that's it no no no no no no this is a nice just
a nice thing we do
over here and i'm really looking forward well maybe some year you'll invite me
i doubt it but you
know maybe oh no no of course you can well it's a familial thing it's a family
kind of well no i don't
have a family but maybe vicariously i could experience the phone yeah me and
dorothy be out there with
you in waiters looking for mackerel out there in wyoming yeah uh are we done
does he have to leave
no you don't have to leave does he does he have hey morty can you do the show
and i'm staying
he'll see isaiah huh yeah he's correct michael keaton says we'll be right back
no no no no you don't
want to leave me i don't want to ask you yes sir were you in the original
company of cats or were
you just in the road the road the truck and bus yeah we went all over the midwest
yeah i was out
for 18 weeks really oh yeah without a break makeup thing the little whisk oh
sure well like you you
get up early and they put it on and you're in it all day very good yeah but i
enjoyed it thank you
very much midnight and the kitties are sleeping uh tomorrow on the program uh
sandra bernhard will be
here also also on the program uh 10 000 maniacs will be here and uh the 10 000
no it's just not the
10 000. is it