Michael Keaton on his career strategy: ‘If you get desperate, you’re f—ed’

A Hollywood fixture for several decades, Michael Keaton has seemingly figured out the secret ingredients to staying relevant.

The recipe calls for not entirely caring and not totally buying into his own hype.

“I never panic,” he shared in a profile piece for GQ magazine, on how he’s approached his decades-long career. “If you get desperate, you’re f—ed. Don’t ever get desperate. You can get insecure and nervous, and go, ‘Wow, boy, I’m not doing so great right now.’ But when you get desperate, you’re dead.”

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Keaton’s laissez-faire attitude regarding his career was apparent in the way he talked about his projects. 

In 2014, when he starred in the film “Birdman,” a film many believed would be his big “comeback,” Keaton said he didn’t take kindly to the notion he’d need to have a resurgence. “A really, really, really smart guy, a guy I liked a lot, said, ‘Comeback—that’s the story,’” Keaton explained. “I went, ‘Honestly, it’s kind of bulls—.'” 

“I thought I could make that story up, but I knew I’m going to be bulls—ting every time I talk about it,” he noted of not softening the story. “By the way, I know business. I like business. Doesn’t bother me. You go, ‘This is a business, man.’”

“If you get desperate, you’re f—ed. Don’t ever get desperate.”

— Michael Keaton

Michael Keaton rejected the idea of him needing a “comeback.” (MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images)

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In 2022, Warner Bros. scrapped the film “Batgirl” in which Keaton was slated to reprise his role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. Now, Keaton says the decision didn’t really affect him.

“I didn’t care one way or another. Big, fun, nice check,” Keaton said. “I like those boys. They’re nice guys,” he said of directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. “I pull for them. I want them to succeed, and I think they felt very badly, and that made me feel bad. Me?” he admitted, “I’m good.”

Michael Keaton admits he didn’t care that “Batgirl” was scrapped. (Roy Rochlin/WireImage/Getty Images)

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And this year, when the sequel to his 1988 movie “Beetlejuice,” premieres, you won’t see a ton of Keaton. That was his own decision, and part of the requirement for him to come back.

“The idea was, no, no, no, you can’t load it up with Beetlejuice, that’ll kill it,” the Academy Award-winner said of his limited screentime in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” 

“I think the Beetlejuice character doesn’t drive the story as much as he did in the first one. He’s more part of the storyline in this one as opposed to the first one, which is a case of, this thing comes in and drives the movie a little bit.”

Michael Keaton’s new movie, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” will be released in September. (Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

On how he sees Hollywood now, the 72-year-old star says he’s shocked at the rigidness of being a part of the industry. “I’m a little surprised how many people take it seriously,” he said of being a celebrity.

“I was just with somebody I really liked the other day. This guy’s great, so talented, so funny. A stand-up. We were at a little get-together. And for me, I mean—this guy’s way younger than me, and I felt him behaving himself too much. I was pointing out some stuff that I thought was funny, and I don’t know—I was shocked that there was no sense of mischief.“

Michael Keaton isn’t the type of famous person who cares about his celebrity status. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for WarnerMedia)

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“It’s not like I don’t care about it,” Keaton said of his career. “I care about it to the degree that it’s my job, you shouldn’t be a jerk. But, essentially, it’s kind of all ridiculous,” he stated. “That’s the great thing: It all looks silly. The whole thing looks sillier every day.”