Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

It’s not just producers and casting directors who have been stuck in their thinking on what roles an actor can and should play. Audiences sometimes have the same blinders.

Remember when Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton, who grew up in Forest Grove in Robinson, was cast as the title character in Tim Burton’s 1989 movie “Batman”? Fanboys were up in arms. Of course, now they’re eager for his return as he reprises his Batman on the big screen in 2022’s “The Flash.”

Before “Batman,” Keaton was mainly thought of as a comic actor, from The Flying Zookeeni Brothers on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” to leading roles in “Night Shift,” “Gung Ho” and “Beetlejuice.”

Since “Batman,” Keaton pivoted more to drama and in recent years he’s been on a roll as one of filmdom’s most-respected actors with an Oscar nomination for “Birdman” (2015) and positive notices for “The Founder” (2016), “The Trial of the Chicago Seven” (2020) and “Worth” (2021).

“So it seems like I’m on this big campaign right now but these just happen to be projects that are coming around,” Keaton said in a recent interview over Zoom. “It always depends on my level of curiosity about it or my enthusiasm about work in general or what’s going on in my life, but when it’s good, I love it. When it’s pretty good, I like it. And if I don’t, I don’t do it.”

“With ‘The Founder,’ I didn’t understand anything about Ray Kroc (who purchased and expanded McDonald’s globally),” Keaton continued. “I didn’t understand that whole (9/11) victims’ compensation fund in ‘Worth.’ ”

His latest project, “Dopesick,” streaming Wednesday, is inspired by the book of the same title by Beth Macy, who is also a writer on the Hulu series alongside showrunner Danny Strong. “Dopesick” is about America’s opioid crisis and the role of OxyContin in it. Keaton understands the impact of addiction all too well. His nephew, Michael, who lived in Mt. Lebanon, died from fentanyl and heroin use in 2016, which, when asked, Keaton acknowledged as a “major reason” for joining “Dopesick.”

“If it had not been well written, I probably wouldn’t have done it,” Keaton said. “But it was really good.”

Keaton isn’t entirely comfortable getting into the personal impetus for this particular professional choice, but he is 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 Mathilda H. Theiss Child Development Center for early childhood mental health services at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital and the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids.

Keaton explored addiction in one of his early dramatic roles, 1988’s “Clean and Sober,” so a lot of the actor’s homework for “Dopesick” had already been done.

“It’s a different kind of addiction, but it’s addiction,” Keaton said. “I remember the day I broke it down to basics … And I think addicts will bear me out on this: Get up in the morning thinking about where am I going to get dope? That’s all you think about until you get dope. Then you enjoy the dope … or do it to maintain to get you to the next point where you go, ‘Now how am I going to get it?’ It consumes all of you and it’s heartbreaking and sad and it happens to really, really good people. We shouldn’t look down on these people. This is a disease that happens to great, great, great, great people.”

Keaton stars in “Dopesick” as a composite character, Samuel Finnix, a family doctor in the fictional Virginia mining town of Finch Creek. Finnix is initially hesitant to prescribe oxy to his patients but, persuaded by a Purdue Pharma sales rep and FDA labeling, he prescribes it to a wounded miner and is initially satisfied with the results. Then, the side effects kick in.

Like Keaton, Finnix is from Southwestern Pennsylvania, a choice Keaton said came out of conversations with showrunner Danny Strong about how the character came to Finch Creek and where he was from.

“If you listen real closely, there’s language that I use and expressions that are used that come from that part of the world that you’re familiar with,” Keaton said. “And Danny said, ‘Why don’t you make him from Western Pennsylvania?”

It’s unclear if Finnix is as devout a Steelers fan as Keaton is. During our Sept. 30 conversation, Keaton expressed concern over the rough go the Steelers have had at the start of the 2021-22 season.

“Worried with a capital W,” Keaton said. “But I ain’t quittin’, that’s for sure. I believe in (Steelers head coach) Mike (Tomlin) and we’ll see, but am I sweatin’ it? Yeah, I’m sweatin’ it, but it’s a great organization.”

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