Jack Nicholson Stopped Michael Keaton From Going Full Bodybuilder For Batman
By JOE ROBERTS
During a GQ interview, Michael Keaton recalled how he was "training to be really fit" to play Tim Burton’s "Batman," when he suddenly had an epiphany courtesy of Jack Nicholson.
Nicholson famously played the Joker in "Batman," and traveled to England to shoot the movie, where he encountered his co-star in the midst of his physical training.
"We were just starting to shoot and I was kind of working on this [punching] bag, and [...] he walks by me and he goes, 'What are you doing?,'" Keaton recalled.
"I said, 'You know, just working out,'" Keaton said, "and he goes, 'What are you doing that for?' I didn't have an answer for him. He just walked off and went into his trailer."
Keaton said this was the first time he'd questioned his approach to the role, and realized he was wrong. He decided it was “better to be real small and little and thin."
He had failed to recognize what Nicholson had known all along: that working out to play someone who's encased in sculpted rubber for most of the movie wasn't all that necessary.