Michael Keaton doesn’t feel haunted by Batman.
The actor played the superhero in the 1989 Tim Burton movie and its 1992 sequel, Batman Returns. While eager fans might always remember him this way, the star knows there’s a lot more to his career.
"Does Batman follow me around' Certainly it had an effect, because it was so ground breaking. Tim's vision has been copied and changed, but it was the first one,” he mused to BBC News.
"I was part of that and proudly so, and I totally embrace it. I think the big deal was the fact it was the first, and it did change my life.
"When something breaks on an international level, that's a whole new deal, and although I was a known actor, it was primarily in the USA. I think that was the first thing that changed, and the reality is, that is a big thing.
"I'm okay with it, and I'd like to say that Batman doesn't follow me around. Nothing follows me around.”
Michael’s latest venture is Birdman, a comedy drama about a man who once played a superhero and is now pursuing a Broadway role to resurrect his stardom.
Of course there are similarities to the 62-year-old’s life, which director Alejandro González Iñárritu also realised. Michael believes everyone has a part of their past that still has some control over them today.
"Perhaps a part that I wasn't very good in follows me sometimes, and even that doesn't go on for very long. I would like to say, though, that we all have a Birdman in our life. We just can't allow him to have the driving seat in our life,” he reasoned.
"I think Alejandro's vision is very much about a person hitting a certain time in life, when all of us start to think about what we've done, what we hope to do, and have we gone too far away from what we wished to be when we were younger... For all its experimental creativity, the film is as much about hitting your midlife crisis as it is about art."
Birdman also stars Spider-Man actress Emma Stone, Naomi Watts and Edward Norton.
