Michael Keaton Turned Down ‘Beetlejuice’ A Number Of Times, Saying He ‘Had No Idea’ What Tim Burton Was Talking About

To some, Michael Keaton is best known as the second big-screen Batman, after Adam West — the role to which he’ll soon return. To others, his greatest triumph is Beetlejuice, the previous movie he made with Tim Burton. But it almost didn’t happen. In an older interview unearthed by The Hollywood Reporter on his 70th birthday Sunday, the Oscar-nominated actor said it took some doing for Keaton to say yes to playing the devious poltergeist.

In a 2014 interview, Keaton talked about his first semi-disastrous meetings with the eccentric filmmaker. “I had no idea what he was talking about, but I liked him,” Keaton said. “I said, ‘I wish I could do it. You seem like a really nice guy and I know you’re creative, but I don’t get it.’

“When you see [the movie], you understand probably why it was hard for him to explain,” he added.

It took three meetings for Keaton to click with the part, but there was one more thing he had to do: help come up with his look. “I said, ‘Give me the night or two days’ and I called the wardrobe department at the studio and said, ‘Send me a bunch of wardrobes from different time periods, randomly. Just pick a rack,’” he said. “And then I thought of an idea of teeth and an idea of a walk.”

But he kept his costume ideas away from his director. “Here’s the amazing part about it: He never saw any of it. We discussed it. I said ‘I want hair that looks like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket.’ And I said ‘I want mold because Tim said he lives under rocks,’” Keaton said. “So I showed up for work and I walked on the stage and said, ‘This is either going to be way off the mark, or he’s going to — I don’t know what he’s going to do.”

Luckily, Keaton said, “He got it immediately.”

You can watch the full video below.