Michael Keaton may not be known by his famous moniker for much longer.
The actor, 73, recently revealed that he hopes to revert to his birth name, Michael John Douglas, after opting not to use it in Hollywood for almost 50 years. He noted he was unable to use his actual surname due to the Screen Actor Guild’s rules against union members sharing the same professional name, which would have him using the same name as fellow actor Michael Douglas.
“I was looking through — I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” Keaton recalled of picking out his stage last name in an interview with People published on Wednesday, September 4. “I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.’”
Keaton revealed that he planned on being credited as Michael Keaton Douglas in his 2023 film, Knox Goes Away, but simply forgot to make the change.
“It totally got away from me. And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create that,” he explained before teasing, “But that will happen.”
According to the outlet, Keaton is credited by his stage name in the upcoming film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which hit theaters on Friday, September 6. In the sequel to the beloved 1988 film Beetlejuice, Keaton reprises his role as the titular scheming demon who teams up with Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz to save her daughter (Jenna Ortega) from the wacky world of the afterlife.
In a video interview with People released on Wednesday, Keaton admitted that was initially hesitant about taking the role of Beetlejuice, who has since become one of his most iconic characters.
“I told [director Tim Burton], ‘Give me the night. Give me the night to think about.’ And I called the wardrobe department and I said, ‘Send me a rack of clothing from all different periods of time,’” he shared. “I remember walking around this empty house saying, ‘I want to create a walk.’ I don’t know. It just started to evolve and I just said, ‘This could be fun. I have no idea if this is anything.’”
He continued: “[Tim] knew what he was doing. He had it in his head, clearly. He had the imagery in his head of the sets and the world. I just had to go fit into it.”
Burton, 66, returns to direct the sequel, which also stars Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe and Ortega, 21.
Keaton is not the first celebrity who has returned to using their birth name. His former Birdman costar Emma Stone revealed that she had begun going by her actual first name, Emily, on sets a few years ago. “For some reason, I was like, ‘I can’t do it anymore. Just call me Emily,’” she said told The Hollywood Reporter in April.
Stone also corrected Kinds of Kindness director Yorgos Lanthimos about her birth name after a reporter referred to her as Emily during a Festival de Cannes press conference in May. “My name is Emily, thank you,” the Oscar winner told the reporter, adding, “Very nice.”
