Michael Keaton Wants to Start Using His Real Name

Most people know him as Michael Keaton, but Michael Douglas wants to be called Michael Douglas again. When he started out in show business in the 1970s, years after Wall Street star Michael Douglas, a Screen Actors Guild rule blocked him from using another member's professional name—and Mike Douglas was also taken. The actor tells People that he plans to go by the name Michael Keaton Douglas in future projects. The 72-year-old says he planned to use the name in Knox Goes Away, which he directed and starred in earlier this year, but amid the stress of making the movie, he "forgot to give them enough time to put it in."

The actor is credited as Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which comes out Friday. According to Hollywood lore, he picked his stage name from a phone book, but he tells People he can't remember exactly where it came from. "I was looking through—I can't remember if it was a phone book," he says. "I must've gone, 'I don't know, let me think of something here.' And I went, 'Oh, that sounds reasonable.'" NBC News notes that many other actors use stage names because of the SAG rule, including Emma Stone, who uses the name because Emily Stone was taken, and another Keaton: Diane Keaton decided to go by her mother's maiden name because SAG already had a Diane Hall on the books. (More Michael Keaton stories.)