Michael Keaton wants to start using his real name — Michael Douglas.
The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star, 73, hasn’t been allowed to go by his birth name due to it being the same as 79-year-old Oscar winner Michael Douglas, 79, and late daytime host Mike Douglas, a decision cast by the Screen Actors Guild.
However, he has come up with a way around it and plans to be credited as Michael Keaton Douglas.
Recalling how he picked his fake surname, Keaton – who was born Michael John Douglas – told PEOPLE magazine: “I was looking through — I can’t remember if it was a phone book.
“I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable’.”
The Batman star had intended to use Michael Keaton Douglas for his director credit for 2023 crime thriller Knox Goes Away, but didn’t manage to sort it out on time.
He explained: “I said, ‘Hey, just as a warning, my credit is going to be Michael Keaton Douglas’.
“And it totally got away from me. And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create that. But that will happen.”
The Jack Frost star – who is credited as Michael Keaton for his latest movie, the Beetlejuice sequel – previously denied choosing Keaton because he had a crush on actress Diane Keaton, 78.
In an interview with the now-defunct sports and pop-culture blog Grantland, he said: “I feel bad. She’s probably badly bugged by that story. The truth is I’m trying to figure out how John Cougar Mellencamp did it, because I like my name, I’m proud of my name. Douglas, you know, it’s my Dad’s name.”
