Michael Keaton is a movie star who has the appearance of an ordinary guy.

That much became clear during his Saturday evening live monologue last night, where he played the straight man to Mikey Day and Andy Samberg. The comedians were dressed as Beetlejuice, the beloved bio-exorcist character that Keaton reprized in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice earlier this year. As Day and Samberg went crazy around him and donned their striped suits, Keaton stepped into the role of the bemused observer – that is, until they goad him into playing the deep bellowing voice of Beetlejuice himself at the very last moment.

The opening was a great example of Keaton’s ability to turn on his weirdness when the situation called for it, a trait he would bring to the fore over the course of the evening. Because as “dadcore” as the actor can seem when he’s out of character, he has the ability to get weird in a way that works perfectly for sketch comedy, a format that shows the depth of his talent for transformation.

Instead, the show came alive when it gave Keaton a role he could really sink his teeth into. Take the “Uber Game Show” skit, for example. In it, cast member Ego Nwodim played a rideshare driver who hosts a Money booth–like game show, except all the questions were about conspiracy theories. When Keaton slid into the front seat as Anthony, a random friend of Nwodim’s who happened to be traveling with him to the airport, he exuded the awkward energy of someone you wouldn’t want to get too deep into a conversation with.

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While vaping and wearing a gray mullet wig, Keaton’s Anthony was smug in his belief that the vaccine killed “Ghislaine Maxwell’s husband” and that pigeons were fake. Keaton dove into the role, adjusting his attitude and affecting a gruff voice with a hint of New York. The character, a combination of nervous and confident, seemed to have a mind shaped by the darkest corners of the internet.

The same can be said of the enthusiastic choreographer he portrayed in another sketch about the filming of a new Halloween film. Beau, Keaton’s “stunt movement coordinator,” was confident in his idea that slasher character Michael Myers should have a little flash as he stalks his kill. For example, he threw spins and body rolls during a demonstration of Myers’ walk to his unsuspecting victims. With his bowl cut, Beau had a piece of the Christopher Guest creation Corky St. Clair from Waiting for Guffman at him, but Keaton added his own intensity. Part of the humor came from the fact that Beau couldn’t see how anyone could possibly think his concept was wrong.

If there was a unifying quality between all the people that Keaton embodied SNLIt was that despite their differences, they were convinced of their own interests. In “Tableside,” Keaton didn’t wear a wild costume or use a crazy voice, but he was as devoted as a father who bonded with the waitress who made guacamole at the table because she reminded him of a former flame. The dinner was ostensibly to celebrate his daughter’s upcoming wedding, but Keaton’s father launched into a series of monologues about a former love interest. He delivered the speeches with passion, an energy he also brought when he played a skydiving instructor who had just learned that he had lost custody of his children, this week’s video from the Gen Z comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy .

As an actor, Keaton has long had a talent for surprise. It’s one of the reasons why he was such a good Batman in Tim Burton’s films about the famous DC superhero. He switches several times over the course of those films, playing Bruce Wayne as both billionaire figurehead and nerdy investigator, then stepping into the hood and growling as his masked alter ego.

Maybe because Keaton seems like such an everyman, he knows that something strange is bubbling up in everyone. When Keaton unleashes that, it’s undeniably comedic gold.