Michael Keaton wants to use his real name – Michael Douglas

After a film career spanning more than four decades, in which he has played everyone from Mr. Mom to Batman, Michael Keaton has decided it’s time to take back 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 doesn’t allow its members to use another member’s name). The son of legendary actor Kirk Douglas, Michael was already in the acting business (you may have heard of him).

Keaton couldn’t shorten his name to Mike Douglas because that name was already taken thanks to the famous talk show host of the 60s and 70s.

Therefore, he looked for another stage name.

“I looked through it – I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” Keaton told People recently while promoting his new film “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” “I must have thought, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.'”

And Michael Keaton was born.

Michael Keaton.

Getty

Keaton told People he planned to finally change his name for his 2023 thriller “Knox Goes Away,” which he also directed. But by the time he finally decided to pull the trigger, it was too late.

“I said, ‘Hey, just a heads up, my name is Michael Keaton Douglas.’ And it completely slipped my mind,” he said. “And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create it. But that’s what will happen.”

His name appears as Michael Keaton in the credits of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”.

Keaton is the latest addition to 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 even though 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 actually Emily and that she would rather be called that than Emma.

“I freaked out a few years ago. For some reason I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore. Just call me Emily,'” she said.