The actor’s planned credit change makes reference to his birth name, which SAG regulations prevented him from using.
It looks like Michael Keaton is renaming himself professionally.
The Screen Actors Guild forbids its members from using the same name professionally as other actors, so when the actor started his career, he was unable to use his birth name. He had to come up with a new surname because Michael Douglas and Mike Douglas were already taken.
It was inadvertent that he chose his now-famous nickname. The actor said to People magazine, “I was looking through—I can’t remember if it was a phone book.” “I guess I thought, ‘Let me think of something here.'” “Oh, that sounds reasonable,” I thought to myself.
He tells People that he is prepared to change his stage name to Michael Keaton Douglas after more than 30 years. The plan was for the name to have its premiere in the movie Knox Goes Away, which he recently directed, but that plan fell through.
“Hey, just to let you know, Michael Keaton Douglas will be getting credit. And I completely lost track of it. Furthermore, I neglected to allow them enough time to create that and put it in. However, that will occur,” he stated. He will, however, be credited as “Michael Keaton” in the upcoming Beetlejuice sequel.
In the same way that Keaton is going back to his roots by changing his professional name, he is playing one of his most famous roles in Tim Burton’s upcoming movie. At a press conference held at the Venice Film Festival, the actor expounded on the evolution of Beetlejuice in the latest film. “I believe it’s evident that my character has developed,” he remarked. “I believe he is even more sensual and elegant in this one than he was in the first. Just his all-around kindness, social conscience, and political correctness.
