Michael Keaton brought strange energy to 'SNL'

Michael Keaton is a movie star who seems like a normal guy.

That was clearly visible in him Saturday Night Live Monologue last night in which he played the straight man to Mikey Day and Andy Samberg. The comedians were dressed as Beetlejuice, the popular bio-exorcist character that Keaton reprized in Tim Burton's film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Earlier this year. As Day and Samberg got silly around him and mugged in their striped suits, Keaton slipped into the role of amused observer – until, at the very last moment, they persuaded him to adopt Beetlejuice's deep, bellowing voice himself.

The beginning was a good example of Keaton's ability to bring out his craziness when the situation called for it, a trait he continued to display throughout the night. Because as “dadcore” as the actor may seem when he's out of character, he has the ability to get weird in a way that's perfect for sketch comedy, a format that shows the depth of his talent for transformation .

Instead, the series came to life by giving Keaton a role he could really empathize with. Take the “Uber Game Show” sketch, for example. In it, actor Ego Nwodim played a rideshare driver who… Cash Cab– like a game show, except all the questions were about conspiracy theories. As Keaton slipped into the front seat as Anthony, a casual friend of Nwodim's who happened to be along on the ride to the airport, he exuded the awkward energy of someone you wouldn't want to talk to too much.

Read: What we all forgot Beetlejuice

Keaton's Anthony, steaming and wearing a gray mullet wig, was smugly convinced that the vaccine had killed “Ghislaine Maxwell's husband” and that the pigeons were fake. Keaton threw himself into the role, adjusting his demeanor and appearing gruff in his voice with a hint of New York speak. The character was a combination of nervousness and confidence and seemed to have a spirit that had been shaped by the darkest corners of the internet.

The same goes for the enthusiastic choreographer he portrayed in another skit about filming a new film Halloween Film. Keaton's “stunt movement coordinator” Beau was completely sold on his idea that the slasher character Michael Myers should create a bit of a stir while hunting his prey. For example, he performed twists and body rolls to demonstrate Myers' gait to his unsuspecting victims. With his bowl cut, Beau borrowed a bit from Christopher Guest's Corky St. Clair creation Waiting for Guffman to him, but Keaton added his own intensity. Part of the humor came from Beau not being able to understand how on earth anyone could think that his concept wasn't the right thing.

If there was a unifying trait between all the people Keaton embodied SNLDespite their differences, they were convinced of their own importance. In “Tableside,” Keaton didn't wear a wild costume or use a goofy voice, but he was every bit as engaging as a father who bonded with the waitress making guacamole at the table because she reminded him of a former flame. The dinner was supposedly to celebrate his daughter's upcoming wedding, but Keaton's father launched into a series of monologues about a former love interest. He delivered the speeches with passion, an energy he also brought when playing a skydiving instructor who had just learned he had lost custody of his children, this week's video from Gen-Z comedy trio Please Don 't Destroy.

As an actor, Keaton has long had a talent for surprises. That's one of the reasons why he was such a good Batman in Tim Burton's films about the famous DC superhero. He switches gears several times over the course of these films, playing Bruce Wayne as both a billionaire figurehead and a nerdy investigator, then slipping snarlingly into the hood as his masked alter ego.

Perhaps because Keaton seems to be such an everyman, he knows that something strange arises within each of us. When Keaton unleashes this, it's undeniably comic gold.