Michael Keaton Came Up With the Line "Let's Get Nuts!" in Tim Burton's BATMAN
Tim Burton’s Batman is one of the best comic book movies in history. It came at a time when we hadn’t seen a lot of superhero movies yet, and it went dark and big, and has remained a fan favorite all these years. Star of the film Michael Keaton has also remained one of the best actors to don the cape and cowl, and it turns out that the actor, mostly known for comedies before making the comic book film, happily leaned into the darkness that Burton envisioned for his story.
Keaton recounted the iconic scene where the Joker, played famously by Jack Nicholson, descends upon Vicki Vale's (Kim Basinger) apartment, only to find Wayne along with her. In shooting the scene, Keaton suggested a rewrite. He explained in Les Daniels' Batman: The Complete History (via /Film):
"Part of Bruce Wayne and Batman was a little crazy, but you hadn't seen it because I decided to play it very contained." Up until that point in the film, Keaton's hero had only confronted Joker as his superhero alter ego. Suddenly, he was caught off-guard, facing the homicidal Jack Napier without any of his body armor or, "wonderful toys," as the Joker had called them.
For Keaton, this was the perfect opportunity to display some of Bruce Wayne's repressed rage and mental imbalance, which had attracted 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 flamboyance around me, if need be, I could come up to it. So I actually kind of rewrote that scene."
The rewrite involved a startling outburst from Wayne, who suddenly matches the manic energy of Nicholson's Clown Prince of Crime when he smashes a vase and explodes with the line, "You wanna get nuts? Let's get nuts!"
In the original script, Bruce Wayne brings 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 knocked down by one of his goons.
But in the scene that was shot, not only do we get a monologue from Wayne which reveals he's familiar with Joker's background as mobster Jack Napier, Wayne actually learns Joker is the one who killed his parents, after Nicholson delivers the "Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?" line. That's all before Keaton's changes, which, as the actor put it, involved Bruce Wayne, "using a kind of psychological ploy," where it seems as if he's given in to his anger. Once Joker shoots him, it's revealed that Wayne hid 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 introspection," but Keaton undoubtedly added so much by giving us a brief glimpse at what lies beneath Bruce Wayne's mask. And the fact it was all a distraction ploy also emphasizes his character's cunning, adding further layers to his portrayal and the scene itself.
Keaton will always be known as one of the great super hero actors, and it’s awesome that we are seeing him return to play Batman in The Flash. What’s your favorite scene or line from Keaton’s Bruce Wayne?