Michael Keaton tenderly reflected on his decades-long friendship with Beetlejuice co-star Catherine O’Hara a week after her tragic death.
The Batman star tried to reminisce about his first encounter with the Goddess on Friday while being named the 2026 Man of the Year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, according to People magazine.
Keaton explained that he met the actress shortly before co-starring in Tim Burton’s 1988 film, and said he was a big fan of her comedy show SCTV in the early 1980s.
“I was a huge fan of ‘SCTV,'” the 74-year-old actor said. “I’m a big fan of SCTV.”
Keaton struggled to pinpoint his exact first meeting with O’Hara, adding, “Like me, she had a big family, so I remember we must have met or knew each other a little bit. She’s one of seven, and I’m one of seven, so somehow we became friends.”
“I think I was shooting a movie in Toronto,” he continued. “I remember one night in Toronto, where she was spending the summer with her brothers and sisters, and we were all playing pool at some bar.”
“But I think I’ve known her for a while, and it’s been hard to remember,” Keaton said.
He gushed that he was “a huge fan like everyone else” and said he knew O’Hara to be “a goddess” in comedy.
The “Spotlight” star explained that her rise to fame was not surprising because others “knew how good she was and how great she was.”
Keaton also talked about how he supported O’Hara to play his ex-wife in Michael Hoffman’s 2005 film Game 6.
“I think it was after the first ‘Beetlejuice,'” he said. “But I knew her before that…I don’t remember what the first time I met her was, but we were able to not only work together but become friends.”
Additionally, the “Home Alone” star and Keaton co-starred in the 1994 film “The Paper” and reunited for the 2024 “Beetlejuice” sequel.
Keaton wrote a touching eulogy for O’Hara shortly after O’Hara died on January 30 at the age of 71 “after a brief illness.”
“We go back to before the first ‘Beetlejuice,'” he wrote on Instagram, along with a photo of himself and the “Schitt’s Creek” alum.
“She played my wife, she played my nemesis, and she was my true friend in real life. This hurts. I’m going to miss her. And I think about (Bo),” Keaton said, referring to O’Hara’s husband, Beau Welch, to whom she was married for 33 years.
Meanwhile, O’Hara was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital in “serious condition” around 5 a.m. on the day she died.
A 911 call obtained by Page Six revealed that the “Mighty Wind” star was having “difficulty breathing.”
Her cause of death has not yet been revealed.
