Michael Keaton is dying out there.
In his latest movie, that is. Called "My Life," it's about a man who discovers he has inoperable cancer while he and his wife await their first baby.That title for that synopsis might lead one to expect an ironic black comedy - like Keaton's morgue-set first movie, "Night Shift" (1982), or "Beetlejuice," with his manic portrayal of an afterlife exorcist. But "My Life" more aptly describes what Bob Jones does with his remaining months. While making a videotape of himself for his unborn son, Jones is forced to come to terms with all the unresolved angers and broken relationships of his past.
Obviously, "My Life" is another of Keaton's attempts to establish dramatic credentials. Though he won widespread critical acclaim for his intense portrayal of a recovering addict in "Clean and Sober," audiences did not respond to that film - or to his low-key "One Good Cop," or his nightmare renter in "Pacific Heights" - as enthusiastically as they do to his "Batman" or comedy performances.
Which is nothing to be ashamed of. Indeed, some have credited Keaton's gross and goony portrayal of Dogberry as a key reason why Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing" is one of the most successful Shakespeare movies ever. And although he is proud and confident of his dramatic abilities, Keaton is not reluctant to bolster them with humor.
Especially so, in the case of "My Life."
"The saving grace of this movie is that it's also funny," said the 42-year-old Keaton. "Otherwise, the trajectory of the character is just straight down. Not to say it wasn't funny before I was attached to it, but it became funnier."
Keaton's comic abilities were a major factor in his being cast by writer-director Bruce Joel Rubin.
"I knew I needed a guy who could make the material entertaining," said the admittedly death-obsessed Rubin.
"It's hard to separate on-the-page and not-on-the-page, but a lot of Michael's jokes are not on the page," said Zucker, who directed "Ghost" and has a background in comedy that ranges from "Kentucky Fried Movie" to "Airplane!" to the "Naked Gun" spoofs. "He added a lot to that. He always had a little extra line, a way to play it or something to do that came right out of himself."
But "My Life" is hardly a comedy. As his health deteriorates, Keaton's character has to open up emotionally to his wife, Gail (Nicole Kidman), reconcile old estrangements with his Ukrainian immigrant parents and generally search for meaning in a life he is has dedicated to, of all shallow pursuits, a Hollywood public relations career. Whatever humor there was in the film served comic as comic relief, rather than straight laugh-getting, purposes.
"Michael brought great range to the movie," Zucker observed. "So much of the purpose of the movie is the character's growth. He was able to play, at the beginning, someone with a lot of edge, who's holding a lot of anger inside, but at the end of the movie is vulnerable and warm and loving. I don't think we've ever seen that from Michael Keaton before, and it's a tremendous gift to the movie."
But not an easy one to give.
"In ways, this was easier than `Clean and Sober' but in ways it was harder," Keaton revealed. "We shot, more or less, in sequence, and for the first three or four weeks, I thought this was a breeze. After a while, it started getting tougher as the disease advanced. What I was dealing with every day started to take its toll.
"Bob was going deeper and deeper down, and I lost 18 pounds for the job. Since I didn't have that much fat to start with, I started losing muscle, so I was feeling extremely weak. Which was great for the role, but it doesn't leave you with much strength on any level. You're quicker to react emotionally because, basically, you don't feel very good.
" `Clean and Sober' was more of a great release, a more active purging or something - plus, I knew I wasn't a drug addict. This movie is about cancer, a life-and-death situation. This movie is, literally, about life and death. It was tough to rebound after this one; I didn't have to check into a hospital or anything, but it took about 10 days of fishing before I could come back."
Keaton admits that his preparation for the film did not involve contact with cancer victims. While he makes the argument that knowing too much about the condition might have made his performance appear self-conscious, he also confesses that such an approach would have been "hard to take."