Michael Keaton gives up his stage name for his real name

Originally published on E! Online

Just don't say his name three times.

Michael Keaton is ready to return to his roots, more specifically to his birth name. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice The star shared that after five decades in show business, during which he has played several iconic characters such as Batman and Beetlejuice, he wants to use his original nickname –Michael Douglas-again.

Due to the Screen Actor's Guild's rules that no two members may have the same name, Keaton was forced to find a solution, as both Wall-Street Actor Michael Douglas and talk show host Michael Douglas.

“I leafed through it – I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” the 72-year-old recalled to People in an interview published on September 4. “I must have thought, 'I don't know, let me think of something.' And I thought, 'Oh, that sounds reasonable.'”

In the future, Keaton plans to work professionally as Michael Keaton Douglasa combination of his stage name and his real name.

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The Oscar-nominated actor said he plans to use the new name for his 2023 film Knox leaveswhich he directed and starred in, but noted that he simply “forgot” about it in the chaos of filming.

“I said, 'Hey, just a heads up, my name is Michael Keaton Douglas.' And it completely slipped my mind,” he said. “And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create it. But that's what will happen.”

Keaton is not the first Hollywood star to decide to return to his birth name in a professional setting. Emma Stonewho coincidentally starred alongside Keaton in 2014’s “ Birdmanhad previously announced that she wanted to return to her first name Emily.

“That would be so nice,” she said The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published on April 24. “I would like to be Emily.”

In fact, Stone says, several of her colleagues are already doing so.

“When I get to know them, so do the people I work with,” she explained. “I freaked out a few years ago. For some reason I thought, 'I can't do this anymore. Just call me Emily.'”

Read on to learn more about celebrities who have changed their real names.

Katherine Elizabeth Hudson