- Michael Keaton will start using a version of his birth name, Michael Douglas, in future projects.
- Keaton couldn't use his birth name initially due to another actor: star Michael Douglas.
After a more than four-decade career in movies that's seen him play everyone from Mr. Mom to Batman, Michael Keaton has decided it's time to start going by his birth name.
The 73-year-old Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning actor was born Michael Douglas, but that name was already taken when he began his acting career in the early 1970s (the Screen Actors Guild does not allow members to use another member's name). The son of legendary actor Kirk Douglas, Michael, was already in the acting business (you might have heard of him).
Keaton couldn't shorten his name to Mike Douglas because that, too, was taken, thanks to the famous talk show host of the '60s and '70s.
So he looked elsewhere to decide on a stage name.
"I was looking through — I can't remember if it was a phone book," Keaton told People recently while promoting his new movie "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." "I must've gone, 'I don't know, let me think of something here.' And I went, 'Oh, that sounds reasonable.'"
And Michael Keaton was born.
Keaton told People that he was planning to finally change his name for his 2023 thriller, "Knox Goes Away," which he also directed. But it was too late when he finally decided to pull the trigger.
"I said, 'Hey, just as a warning, my credit is going to be Michael Keaton Douglas.' And it totally got away from me," he said. "And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create that. But that will happen."
His name appears as Michael Keaton in the credits for "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice."
Keaton is the latest in a growing list of stars who have publicly stated how they prefer to be addressed.
In 2021, Anne Hathaway revealed on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" that people should call her "anything but Anne," because although that is her legal name, everyone calls her Annie.
Earlier this year, Emma Stone said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that her first name is really Emily, and would like to be called that instead of Emma.
"I freaked out a couple of years ago. For some reason, I was like, 'I can't do it anymore. Just call me Emily,'" she said.