10 Things You Didn’t Know About Tim Burton’s Batman
5. The Batsuit Made Keaton Totally Deaf
Although Michael Keatons Batsuit had those iconic pointy ears atop its cowl, there werent any actual ear holes for the actor to hear through. As a result, and because the cowl was fairly air-tight around his head, Keaton was unable to hear anything while in costume as Batman. This may sound like a nightmare, but apparently it actually helped Keaton get into character. "It made me go inward, he later said of the hearing-impairing costume, and that's how I wanted the character to be anyway, to be withdrawn". He channelled the claustrophobic experience of not being able to hear properly or really talk to anyone right back into the character, and used it to create that enigmatic-but-somewhat-unhinged Batman persona that made him a star. Oddly enough, this isnt the only hearing-based problem that the Batman production faced. Actor Jack Palance (now sadly deceased), who played Gotham crime lord Carl Grissom, was genuinely hard of hearing. When the young Burton walked on set to find out why Palance hadnt been responding to his direction, the actor angrily asked "I've made more than a hundred films, how many have you made?" Burton later described the experience of being confronted by this veteran actor as an unforgettable whiteout moment.
