When a Morgan Freeman tantrum inspired Michael Keaton’s greatest performance: “Everybody was getting too comfortable”
In 1988, Michael Keaton took the first major risk of his career by starring in Clean and Sober, a harrowing drama about a drug and alcohol addicted estate agent entering rehab to turn his life around. It was Keaton’s first attempt at a dramatic film, having been known exclusively for comedy up to that point. The film paired him with Morgan Freeman, who was nominated for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ that very year for Street Smart, and the more experienced actor did something on-set that Keaton would never forget.
While shooting the film, Keaton and his co-stars had to plumb some extremely raw emotional depths. It wasn’t a fun movie to make, nor should it have been, and when it was released, some critics admitted to struggling to get through it. While they appreciated the acting and felt the subject matter needed to have a light shone on it, the movie itself was depressing and grim, almost to a fault. However, it had a realistic and unpredictable edge that couldn’t be ignored, either.
In truth, one actor on Clean and Sober was responsible for a lot of the film’s edge, and that was Freeman. He recognised that tone was vitally important to whether the film worked or not, and he knew what kind of atmosphere the set needed to have to foster that tone. Admittedly, though, the method he used to achieve that edginess from his fellow cast members was unique, to say the least.
“We were in between setups for a scene,” Keaton revealed to Dazed in 2014. “The cast were all laughing and joking together and enjoying themselves, when all of a sudden Morgan gets loud and upset about something. He throws this tantrum, and it’s like, ‘Whoa, Jesus!'”
When Keaton approached Freeman a little while later and asked, “Hey, are you alright? Are you upset about anything?” the elder actor looked confused and asked, “What are you talking about?” A bemused Keaton reminded him of his volcanic outburst, to which he smiled and said, “Nah, I just did it on purpose”.
Keaton grinned as he remembered, “He thought everybody was getting too comfortable, which you don’t want on a movie like this. You need to have a little bit of edge. So, he threw a fake tantrum, which is really cool.”
Fast-forward 26 years, and echoes of Freeman’s explosive tantrum may be found in a pivotal scene from Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman. In that ‘Best Picture’ winner, which put Keaton back on the map as an A-list star and notched him a ‘Best Actor’ nomination to boot, Keaton played an over-the-hill actor attempting to make a comeback by directing and starring in a Broadway play. Unfortunately, he’s plagued by visions of the Birdman, a superhero he played in his early career, who seems to be haunting his attempt to return to legitimacy. The movie neatly riffed on Keaton’s Batman past, while also pointing to his future.
Most interestingly for our purposes, though, the film featured an epic tantrum sequence in which Keaton epically lost his shit. Was he imagining Freeman’s manufactured anger, which still brought the entire set “to quite a standstill”? Or was he also taking inspiration from a second unnamed icon he witnessed throw a fit? He noted, “I think they just felt they had to lay down the law. It was somewhat uncomfortable.”
Whatever the case, it seems likely that he infused this alarming energy into his own on-screen freakout in what many consider his greatest role.
