Michael Keaton: What ‘Dopesick’ Taught Him About Opioid Crisis

LISTEN – EDUCATING AMERICA –

Dec. 22, 2021 – Michael Keaton thought he knew the basics of the vast opioid crisis crippling this country — until he signed on to star in the Hulu limited series “Dopesick.” In hindsite, he says, “I didn’t know how it really worked, what really happened or how it was formed. I’m really fortunate I have a job where you have to learn something. I knew about the Sacklers [the family behind OxyContin manufacturer Perdue Pharma]. But I didn’t even know probably an eighth of it.”

Now he does. For “Dopesick,” creator Danny Strong adapted Beth Macy’s 2018 nonfiction book of the same name to create the limited series, which stars Keaton and Kaitlyn Dever. A chronicle of the introduction and marketing of the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin, “Dopesick” toggles between timelines to show the rise of Richard Sackler within Purdue Pharma, and the attempt by justice officials to curtail the company’s deceptive marketing practices as the drug infiltrates an Appalachian coal-mining community.