Anyone else think that Michael Keaton could have been a great Joker?

[Vampfox]

Rewatching Beetlejuice in October made me realize that Michael Keaton could have been a great Joker. There are a few similarities between the Joker and Beetlejuice.

Don't get me wrong I love Keaton as Batman, and Jack Nicholson as the Joker, but I think that Keaton could have been a great Joker.

Anyone else agree or disagree.

[GBglide]

I think that Keaton could play just about anything he puts his mind to.

[The Dark Knight]

Anyone else agree or disagree.

I think there's something to the argument that a good Batman actor could also play the Joker. Both are intense roles with similarities, but the characters took different directions when they hit their fork in the road.

[Gotham Knight]

Anyone else agree or disagree.

I think there's something to the argument that a good Batman actor could also play the Joker. Both are intense roles with similarities, but the characters took different directions when they hit their fork in the road.

I think you hit the nail on the head. The depictions of Batman and Joker in Batman (1989), which shows them as characters fighting to maintain control over the shades of their personalities, emphasizes that. The only real difference between them is Wayne manages to keep a firmer lid on it while Napier just lets go. Much of the first act or so is replete with scenes of the Bruce Wayne/Napier sides of the coin struggling to appear normal. Even when Napier becomes the Joker, he often presents himself as Napier. The application of make up to cover himself enhances the terror because is entirely incapable of doing it.

Pacific Heights and even Beetlejuice are movies where Keaton presents one way only for the illusion to degenerate into madness. Keaton, a naturally comedic and charismatic actor, is also laced with enough kinetic energy to have easily played the Joker.

[The Dark Knight]

I think you hit the nail on the head. The depictions of Batman and Joker in Batman (1989), which shows them as characters fighting to maintain control over the shades of their personalities, emphasizes that. The only real difference between them is Wayne manages to keep a firmer lid on it while Napier just lets go. Much of the first act or so is replete with scenes of the Bruce Wayne/Napier sides of the coin struggling to appear normal. Even when Napier becomes the Joker, he often presents himself as Napier. The application of make up to cover himself enhances the terror because is entirely incapable of doing it.

Pacific Heights and even Beetlejuice are movies where Keaton presents one way only for the illusion to degenerate into madness. Keaton, a naturally comedic and charismatic actor, is also laced with enough kinetic energy to have easily played the Joker.

One thing I like from King's Batman arc 'I Am Suicide' is the revelation young Bruce held a razor blade to his wrist and considered ending it all. But he didn't go through with it, and instead committed himself to a war on crime. In effect, a living death as he sacrifices his life completely to that cause.

This is where the Joker comes in, and it's something the Joaquin Phoenix JOKER movie nailed. The Joker is a man who walks a fine line in terms of his own mortality. He considers suicide on Murray's show, but at the last moment chooses Murray instead. And in turn embraces his persona completely. But if he ever dies during his antics, so be it.

King adding that small but powerful detail about young Bruce may be off-putting to some people, but I think it did a lot to push the parallels between the two characters.