Why does Michael Keaton only direct if he casts himself as an ageing hitman?
Michael Keaton has been enjoying a hugely successful third act in his career in the last decade. The iconic star has returned to two of his most famous roles — Batman and Beetlejuice — and become as relevant in pop culture as he’s been in decades. On top of that, he took on villain duties in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, turned his hand to dramatic roles in the likes of Birdman and Spotlight, netting Academy Award recognition in the process, and tried prestige TV in the very timely form of Dopesick.
In amongst all these heavy hitters, though, Keaton has still found time to work on the smaller projects that speak to him. He played the lawyer who allocated the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund in 2021’s underrated Worth and Ray Kroc, the morally fluid businessman who “created” McDonald’s in The Founder. Keaton also found the time to return to directing in 2024’s Knox Goes Away, something he’s only done once before in 2009’s The Merry Gentleman. What tempted him to return to the director’s chair after 15 long years – and why does he play ageing hitmen in both films?
The fact that Keaton has only seen fit to direct twice is interesting in and of itself. However, it becomes even more fascinating when you consider that he also chose to star in both films, playing a seemingly similar character in both, too.
In The Merry Gentleman, Keaton is Frank Logan, a professional killer who strikes up a friendship with a woman who stops him from committing suicide. He is experiencing an existential crisis after years of taking people’s lives and tries to achieve redemption before he shuffles off this mortal coil by killing the woman’s abusive husband.
In Knox Goes Away, Keaton is John Knox, a professional killer who helps his estranged son cover up a murder, all while his faculties are failing him due to the onset of a fast-moving form of dementia. Before his mind disappears completely, Knox tries to achieve redemption by doing one last thing to show his son that he always loved him.
Already, it’s easy to see huge similarities between Frank Logan and John Knox. Is it possible Keaton is fascinated by the complex inner workings of the minds of contract killers? Or could it be that he simply really loves hitman movies? Well, this is where it gets strange. According to Keaton himself, he doesn’t particularly care for the genre. While promoting Knox Goes Away, he told Backstage magazine, “I never saw this as a hitman movie because it’s not, really. You can’t make hitman movies better than they’ve been made, and I don’t really have a particular interest in them at all. Never have, really.”
Okay, scratch that idea, then. The man doesn’t have any particular affinity for hitmen. Why has he committed so much of his time and effort to make two movies about them? If he’d just agreed to act in the films but not to direct, then it would maybe be easier to understand. But, as Keaton admitted, acting and directing simultaneously is majorly complicated. He mused, “It’s complex to direct and act, for one thing, but also to tell the story. I keep describing it as a Jenga movie—like the Jenga game. I knew if you pulled one part out or one part didn’t work, the entire thing would fall apart.”
The key to understanding Keaton’s seemingly quirky decision to return to the hitman well on two separate occasions is fairly obvious – he doesn’t care about the characters being hitmen. To Keaton, these two scripts were simply character studies that compelled him, and even when he tried to ignore them, they kept coming back to him. For instance, he was attached to Knox Goes Away for many years before it was finally greenlit, and he told IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, “I read the script, went away, did a movie, came back, went away, did another movie, and then thought I’d pick it up and read it again.”
Eventually, both movies reached a point where Keaton figured that if he wanted to make them a reality, he’d probably have to make them himself. He spent time getting inside each character’s head and started to imagine how the movies would look and feel. In that case, why hand them over to another director who may not share the same vision?
On top of that, Keaton is a sensible man. He has been on enough movie sets to know that a ton of time and money can be wasted if people aren’t prepared. He explained, “There are a lot of pluses to directing yourself. You have a head start and a big advantage in terms of time—there’s less discussion because you don’t have to have the discussion with yourself.”
So, there you have it. Why does Michael Keaton only direct if he casts himself as an ageing hitman? You’re really asking the wrong question. To him, it’s all about the character and the writing. The rest is just pragmatism.
