Emmy Winner Michael Keaton Thanks Family for Never Diminishing His Dreams, Addresses Doubters

Michael Keaton won the award for best actor in a limited series, movie or anthology for his performance in Dopesick at the 2022 Emmys on Monday and thanked his family for never diminishing his dreams to become an actor. He even acknowledged his doubters during his acceptance speech.

“I watched all of the cowboy shows, especially the comedies, and all the gangster shows, and I fell in love with it,” Keaton said about his childhood watching television. “And I would go and I would re-enact the scenes or create my own scenes, and my parents and my brothers and sisters would watch me out the window. And to this day, they were never demeaning. They were never dismissive. They never looked down upon it. They never made fun of me. And in fact, they would ask me to re-enact scenes for them.”

He continued: “I want to thank them. I just want to thank all those people in my family for never making me feel foolish because I went on to do that several times myself. And that’s the thing about feeling foolish and making a fool of yourself and making mistakes. There’s huge power and merit in that. And I’m glad I made a fool of myself over and over and over again. And one more thing I want to say: Over the years, we’ve all been through tough times. There have been some doubters. I’ve had some doubters. You know what? We’re cool.”

To his true believers, Keaton said, “I fucking love you,” which was bleeped out on the telecast.

Other nominees in the category were Colin Firth (The Staircase), Andrew Garfield (Under the Banner of Heaven), Oscar Isaac (Scenes From a Marriage), Himesh Patel (Station Eleven) and Sebastian Stan (Pam & Tommy).

In his Hollywood Reporter cover story, Keaton explained that he was drawn to Dopesick, which explores the marketing techniques Purdue Pharma used to recruit OxyContin users and doctors, because of his nephew, who died from fentanyl and heroin use a few years ago. “I thought, ‘Well, if this is even remotely good, I have to do this,’” Keaton told THR. “It happens to be real good.”

Keaton also won the SAG Award earlier this year.

The 74th annual Emmy Awards were held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles and hosted by Kenan Thompson.