Michael Keaton has had a long and storied career throughout his time as an actor, including prominent roles in various comic book movie properties. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Keaton spoke about reprising his roles as both Vulture and Batman.
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Keaton is coming back as Adrian Toomes, also known as Vulture, in the upcoming film, Morbius. Viewers first saw Keaton’s Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming. When it comes to the wider scale of Marvel films and the extended Marvel Cinematic Universe, though, Keaton has next to no idea about it.
“I’m nodding like I know what the f— they’re talking about,” Keaton said when he talked about the filmmakers of Morbius explaining the various ongoings of the films universe “I go, ‘Uh-huh.’ And I’m thinking, ‘You may as well be explaining quantum physics right now to me. All I know is I just know my guy. And I know the basics.’ So finally, they were looking at me, and they just started laughing. They said, ‘You don’t know what we’re talking about, do you?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t, no idea what you’re talking about.’“
When it comes to Batman, though, Keaton has a bit more confidence in returning to the role fans love him for. Keaton noted that he was impressed by the script for The Flash, which was written by Birds of Prey writer Christina Hodson, and that he liked director Andy Muschietti’s vision for the film. Despite the strong script, Keaton thought he could go back and “nail” the role of Bruce Wayne.
“Frankly, in the back of my head, I always thought, ‘I bet I could go back and nail that motherf—–,’” Keaton said. “And so I thought, ‘Well, now that they’re asking me, let me see if I can pull that off.’”
However, Keaton did need some time to wrap his head around the parallel universe concept that The Flash will incorporate, however.
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“I had to read it more than three times to go, ‘Wait, how does this work?’” Keaton said. “They had to explain that to me several times. By the way, I’m not being arrogant, I hope, about this. I don’t say it like, ‘I’m too groovy.’ I’m stupid. There’s a lot of things I don’t know about. And so, I don’t know, I just kind of figured it out, but this was different. What’s really interesting is how much more I got [Batman] when I went back and did him. I get this on a whole other level now. I totally respect it. I respect what people are trying to make. I never looked at it like, ‘Oh, this is just a silly thing.’ It was not a silly thing when I did Batman. But it has become a giant thing, culturally. It’s iconic. So I have even more respect for it because what do I know? This is a big deal in the world to people. You’ve got to honor that and be respectful of that. Even I go, ‘Jesus, this is huge.’“