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Many youngest kids turn out to be the class clowns, the born entertainers. Were you
ever punished severely as a kid? Or did you get away with everything?
No . . . I was punished appropriately. [Laughs.] I went to a classic, hard-nosed, tough
Catholic school from the age of six till I was thirteen. Some of the nuns were great
and some were very mean. Man, I was just talking about this the other day with some
friends. I remember I had this one friend who was really big for his age, and he was a
really bad kidas bad as you can be at thirteen. He used to get in trouble all the time. And
there was this one nun who was big and toughshe was physically tough. She wouldn't
take anything from any of us. One day he pushed her too hard, and she ends up whacking
this kid. Boom! All of a sudden he goes, boom! Hits her back. Then she hits him back.
They're throwing punches at one another. I mean, it only lasted three or four exchanges,
but it was wild.
Then at fourteen you went to public school for the first time. How did you adjust to
that change?
It was a huge change for me. I became a bad student. It's too bad, because I was a pretty
decent student up until then.
What was it? Too much freedom?
Yeah. All of sudden . . . wait a minute . . . girls! There were girls at my old school, but
then it was like, different girls, all kinds of girls. Also, there was a whole new group of
kids to hang out with, and I was intimidated. I was physically small, so I felt like I had to
prove myself. I got detention the first week, then it was just a struggle for me to maintain
after that. My high school career just wasn't that stellar.
There's talk of you putting on the Batcape once again and making an appearance as
Batman in Tim Burton's Superman Reborn project. Any truth to that?
There's been kind of an overall discussion about the subject of Superman. But you know
what, that movie is a good ways off and a thousand things could happen.
What was your goal when you first started out in this business?
To get hired. [Laughs.] More than anything, I just wanted to be really, really good. But
my goal is still to be as original as I can be. Filmmaking to me is one of the more
interesting art forms, if not the most interesting because it combines so many different
elements. So, since I feel like I'm in a legitimate art form, I try to be an artist. Sometimes
you are, sometimes you're not. But I always try to go for that. I mean, I'm realistic about
it. Some movies are just nice movies and you pretty much show up, behave yourself, and
go home. But even in that, you want to be good in it.
Michael Keaton's Article's | |
