Emotional Michael Keaton dedicates SAG award win to nephew, sister

On Sunday, actor and Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton won a Screen Actors Guild award for his role in “Dopesick.”

His acceptance speech for winning the best male actor in a television movie or limited series started out just as you’d expect from the 70-year-old star of movies like “Nightshift” and “Mr. Mom”: humorous. But by the end, Keaton was fighting back tears.

Hulu’s “Dopesick” is a story about America’s opioid crisis and the role of OxyContin in it. Sadly for Keaton, the story hits incredibly close to home.

His nephew, Michael, who lived in Mt. Lebanon, died from fentanyl and heroin use in 2016.

“Given the subject matter,” Keaton said, struggling to contain his emotions, “this is for my nephew, Michael, and my sister, Pam. I lost Michael … and it hurts. To my sister Pam, thanks.”

It was quite a moving speech.

The speech certainly started out far from sad. After arriving to the podium late — because of a packed men’s room — Keaton expressed his gratitude for being able to make a difference in the world while doing what he loves: acting.

“I have a job where I can be part of a production that actually can spawn thought, conversation, actual change,” he said. “Who gets to have that job? Seriously? How fortunate am I that good can come from something I do just because I learned to become an actor?

“There’s massive inequity in the world. In ‘Dopesick,’ when you talk about addiction, the way to heal the problem is to accept that you have a problem. Not our country. The entire world. Economically, racially, socially, financially. There’s massive inequity in the world. There just is. There’s fair, and there’s unfair. There’s not a lot of room in between.”

In “Dopesick,” Keaton is a small-town doctor who finds himself taken in by a pharmaceutical company’s deceptive advertising.

In an earlier interview with the Tribune-Review, Keaton was quick to praise his sister, Pam Douglas, and her efforts since his nephew’s death founding the charity Kick It for Mike, which helps educate children and parents about the dangers of drug use and addiction. The majority of proceeds raised by Kick it for Mike go to the Matilda H. Theiss Child Development Center for early childhood mental health services at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital and the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids.