Ron Howard Says Michael Keaton Asked to Limit Takes in The Paper
Ron Howard says michael keaton asked him to keep the number of takes down during a fight scene in The Paper after Glenn Close was going full throttle. The exchange came up as Howard looked back on the 1994 newsroom comedy-drama, a film built around 24 hours inside a New York City newspaper office.
Howard on The Paper set
Howard said Keaton approached him privately after several takes of the fight sequence between Henry Hackett and Alicia Clark. He quoted Keaton as saying, “He said, ‘Ron, if you can, hold down the number of takes because Glenn is going full throttle. And let me tell you, she’s seriously strong!’”
The scene starts as a heated confrontation and escalates into a physical altercation in the middle of the newsroom. That gives the moment a different kind of pressure than the film’s larger newsroom pace, because the conflict is not just verbal; the cast had to keep landing the beats inside a crowded office setting.
Glenn Close in the role
Howard also said, “Glenn’s part was written as a male character, but David and Stephen [Koepp, the screenwriters] loved my idea of casting Glenn without changing a single attitude, behavior or line,” which explains why the character’s edge stayed intact. The film’s cast also included Marisa Tomei, Randy Quaid and Robert Duvall, giving the production a broad ensemble around the newsroom core.
The fight-scene story matters because it puts a specific production reality on top of the film’s premise: a 24-hour sprint to get a newspaper out by the next day. If you’re looking at The Paper as a straightforward newsroom comedy-drama, Howard’s account shows how much physical staging was baked into even a single argument.
Howard and Keaton
Howard has also said at his 2025 Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony that it had been far too long since he and Keaton made a movie together. He added, “I have so few regrets, practically none, and one of them is just only that it's been far too long since Michael and I made a movie together, so I'm hoping to rectify that sooner rather than later.”
That leaves the cleanest takeaway for anyone revisiting The Paper: Howard is still treating the 1994 film as part of a longer working relationship, not a one-off memory. For now, the fresh detail is the simplest one — Keaton wanted fewer takes because Close was pushing the scene hard, and Howard remembered it years later because the performance held up under that pressure.
