Michael Keaton came up with the phrase “Let’s Get Nuts!” in Tim Burton’s BATMAN

Tim Burton’S Batman it’s one of the best comic book movies in history. It came at a time when we hadn’t seen many superhero movies yet, and it got dark and big, and it’s remained a fan favorite all these years. Protagonist of the film Michael Keaton he also remained one of the best actors to don the cape and cowl, and it turns out that the actor, best known for comedies before making the comic book movie, happily leaned into the darkness Burton had envisioned for his history.

Keaton recounted the iconic scene where the Joker, played by famous Jack Nicholsondescends on Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) apartment, only to find Wayne with her. In shooting the scene, Keaton suggested a rewrite. He explained inside Les Daniels’ Batman: The Complete Story (via /Movies):

“A part of Bruce Wayne and Batman was kind of crazy, but you didn’t see it because I decided to play it very restrained.” Up until this point in the film, Keaton’s hero had only faced Joker as his superhero alter ego. Suddenly, he was taken aback, facing the murderous Jack Napier without any of his armor or “wonderful toys,” as the Joker had called them.

For Keaton, this was the perfect opportunity to showcase some of Bruce Wayne’s pent-up anger and mental derangement that had drawn him to the role in the first place. The actor continued:

“At that point I needed to show another color. I wanted to show you that, with all that glitz around me, if needed, I could get there. So I actually rewrote that scene.”

The rewrite resulted in a surprising outburst from Wayne, who suddenly equals the manic energy of Nicholson’s Clown Prince of Crime when he breaks a vase and explodes with the line, “Are you going crazy? Let’s go crazy!”

In the original script, Bruce Wayne takes his utility belt to Vale’s apartment intending to reveal himself as Batman. As the scene was written, Wayne was supposed to charge The Joker before being taken down by one of his henchmen.

But in the scene that was filmed, not only do we get a monologue from Wayne revealing that he’s familiar with Joker’s past as mobster Jack Napier, Wayne actually learns that Joker is the one who killed his parents, after Nicholson uttered the “Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?” line. This is all before Keaton’s changes, which, as the actor said, involved Bruce Wayne, “using a kind of psychological ploy,” where he appears to have succumbed to his anger. Once Joker shoots him, Wayne is revealed to have hidden a metal tray under his shirt which stopped the bullet and allowed him to escape.

As Les Daniels noted, the scene has “layers of irony and insight,” but Keaton undoubtedly added so much by giving us a brief glimpse at what lurks beneath the Bruce Wayne mask. And the fact that it was all a ploy of distraction also underscores the cunning of his character, adding further layers to his portrayal and the scene itself.

Keaton will always be known as one of the great superhero actors, and it’s great to see him return to play Batman in The flash. What’s your favorite Bruce Wayne scene or line from Keaton?