Michael Keaton spills his real name and HOW he picked it out

Michael Keaton admits he picked his stage name out of a phone book at the initial years of his acting.

In a recent interview with People, the 72-year-old actor revealed that he could not go by his birth name, Michael Douglas because those names that were already taken by another member.

So he chose ‘Michael Keaton’ as the union already had Michael Douglas, the Wall Street Oscar winner, and Mike Douglas was also a talk show host.

He then recalls: “I was looking through — I can’t remember if it was a phone book.”

“I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable,’” he told the outlet.

Keaton is thus willing to use a hybrid version of his birth name and stage name, Michael Keaton Douglas.