Michael Keaton: It was a ballsy move to cast me as Batman

Michael Keaton admits it was a "ballsy move" by Tim Burton to cast him as Batman.

The 72-year-old actor first played the Caped Crusader in Burton's 1989 superhero film 'Batman' and acknowledged that the filmmaker had taken a risk by selecting him for the part after it was met with an angry backlash by fans.

In a career retrospective interview for GQ magazine, Michael recalled: "When they said, 'We're thinking of doing Batman', I said, 'Wait, you're thinking of making a movie about Batman?'

"The fact that Tim said, 'That guy, I want that guy'... The fact that people cared one way or another so much is still baffling. But this was a ballsy move on his part.

"We also had a nice working relationship from 'Beetlejuice', so he felt that he and I could get along and would work well together."

Keaton went on to reprise his role as the superhero in the 1992 sequel 'Batman Returns' and the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) flick 'The Flash' in 2023 although he regrets training so hard for the part at first as it left him uncomfortable in his costume.

The 'Mr. Mom' star said: "I was training to be really fit. One day Jack Nicholson walked by me and goes, 'What are you doing?' I said, 'I'm working out.' And he said, 'What are you doing that for?'

"I didn't have an answer for him and he just walked off. I approached it totally wrong. It's better to be really small and little and thin inside the thing. You can move, you can breathe inside.

"I don't know what I was thinking, I just thought, 'I'm an actor, I'm gonna do all this stuff!'"