Michael Keaton soars as ‘Birdman,’ recalls being almost naked in Times Square

THE ACTOR (left) on reading the “Birdman” script: “You never stop to think, I’m actually going to have to take my clothes off and run through (Times Square).” photo: Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

LOS ANGELES—While Michael Keaton soars in his portrayal of Riggan Thomson, a Hollywood has-been haunted by his iconic superhero character in the terrific “Birdman,” he had one scene that was very down-to-earth. Accidentally locked out of the theater in which he was in the middle of doing a play, his robe caught between two doors, Riggan steps out in his (white) briefs in Time Square—to the shock and amusement of onlookers.

“That proves that I really am nuts, that I am really crazy, because it’s hard to explain,” said Michael about being almost naked in one of the world’s most public spaces. At 63, Michael is one of this awards season’s best actor front-runners for Alejandro G. Iñarritu’s “Birdman.”

With a brilliant script that Alejandro co-wrote with Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Armando Bo, the black comedy about our times and the cult of celebrity follows Riggan, who stars in and writes a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s short story, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” which he hopes will revive his career.

HIS STREAKING scene looked “ludicrous,” says Keaton. photo by Ruben V. Nepales

Seamlessly shot in absorbing long takes inside Broadway’s St. James Theatre, the story focuses mostly on Riggan’s interaction during the play and between rehearsals with an equally impressive cast—the play’s lead actress (Naomi Watts), producer (Zach Galifianakis), an arrogant actor hired at the last minute (Edward Norton), girlfriend and costar (Andrea Riseborough), just-out-of-rehab daughter and personal assistant (Emma Stone), ex-wife (Amy Ryan) and an acerbic New York Times theater critic (Lindsay Duncan).

Watching Michael exchange lines with these actors, especially Edward (they even figure in a physical fight) and Emma, is a cinematic delight. Edward gets to mouth one of the film’s best lines: “Popularity is the slutty cousin of prestige.”

Birdman, which Riggan has played three times, appears as his super ego (voiced by Michael himself), a nagging presence who alternately insults and encourages the actor.

The drum score by Antonio Sanchez is one of the film’s many strengths—the percussive beat propels the story with a pace that’s in line with Alejandro’s goal to make the film feel like it was written without commas and periods.

The interview

Michael walked into a meeting room of the New York Palace Hotel with a scarf around his neck. He took off the scarf and raised the collar of his black leather jacket as he sat down for this interview.

“I was just talking about actors having a part in their brain that will make something happen,” he said, still on the subject of streaking in Time Square. “If someone said, ‘You’ve got to swim across the English Channel,’ somehow some actor would because he wants to work so badly. He would figure out a way to swim across the English Channel even if he couldn’t swim.

“So I get this ‘Birdman’ script and I’m reading and enjoying it. I’m reading that Riggan is backstage, he sees his daughter, blah blah blah, and then his robe gets caught in a door. I think, that’s funny. You take a millisecond to go—remember to play that really real. I’ll figure it out when I get there.

“Then you get back and just keep reading and go, ‘This looks like a good movie. Let’s go do it.’ You never stop to think, ‘I’m actually going to have to take my clothes off and run through (Times Square).’ It’s a nonissue.

“You read it the same way as, ‘He comes home from work, kisses his wife and says hi to his kids.’ That’s like, ‘He runs through Times Square in his underwear.’ You show up on the day and go, wait a minute, why didn’t I think about this?”

While he said he prefers not to look at the monitor after takes, Michael noted that, for this scene, he had to. He explained, “Alejandro wanted to show me where I had to be. I couldn’t run past one of the people in the way. Alejandro wanted to place me, correct me.”

He added with a grin, “Yeah, it looked ludicrous (although he looked fit in the scene). I don’t really want to have it in my head; you just want to be the character in the movie.”

“I AM JUST blessed,” he says. photo by RUBEN NEPALES

While Michael, like Riggan, has played a superhero (he played Batman twice) and had his share of career ups and downs, he said it was simply the excellence of the script that drew him. He does not see parallels in his own career.

“The script, combined with this particular director, made it something that I can’t imagine turning down,” he said. “It does deal a lot with celebrity and fame but that wasn’t a deciding factor.”

Michael admitted that he’s aware of the film’s strong awards buzz. “There’s no way to not feel it,” he stressed. “You’d have to not have a pulse not to feel it. It feels good. I take certain jobs and hopefully, they are good. I am just blessed that something came up that is so good.”

He continued: “It’s so easy to sit around and talk about this movie. I don’t mean this in an arrogant way—I’m so confident [about] how good this film is. I really enjoy watching this movie so much. I keep telling people that I’ve seen it three times now. I’ll keep watching it. I get so caught up in the movie that I forget I’m in it. There’s just so much to look at. Frankly, after a while, you start thinking that a little (Birdman) voice in your head is saying, ‘Would you shut up already about this movie?’”

Looking back, Michael said he was grateful for his Batman stint, and that if he wasn’t as visible in some periods of his career, it was his own choice.

“‘Batman’ afforded me the luxury of not having to take things that I wouldn’t necessarily have to,” he pointed out. “I was kind of already doing that anyway—and sometimes to a fault. It wasn’t always the greatest thing that I was turning things down or I wasn’t out there working. I am not bragging about it. I had a young son. A lot of times, I was helping raise a son because I wasn’t with his mom. I wanted to be around. I just didn’t want to go away and do a movie. I turned down movies [that were] nothing special.”

But, in a magazine interview, Michael admitted that he regrets saying “no” to “Groundhog Day.” He also rejected a role in the “Lost” TV series, which went to Matthew Fox.

“I don’t seek [roles] but I’m not stupid,” he said. “I’ve got to make a living and I like doing what I do.” Michael disclosed, “There was also a period when people were not knocking on my door and saying, ‘We want you to be in a movie.’”

While home for Michael is a ranch in Montana, he said he’s also in Los Angeles “a lot.” He’s refreshingly not one of those actors who bash LA and California and whine about being a

MICHAEL Keaton’s Riggan Thomson is an actor followed by Birdman, his super ego, who constantly insults or encourages him. Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

celebrity. “I actually love California,” he stressed. “I think California is great. I love that people love to criticize California and Californians. A lot of it is out of envy. California is such a forward-thinking place. What everybody used to think were crazy ideas, now a lot of the world adopts. They actually end up following California’s lead.”

“Los Angeles is so interesting ethnically,” he said. “There are different combinations of ethnic groups. The Hispanic community alone is interesting to me. I’m a fan of California. This is such a crazy place—you feel like you’re in an entirely different part of the world.”

Grateful celebrity

He embraces what comes with being an actor. “The good things that celebrity brings—it’s something for which you should be grateful. I am not one of those people who [rant] about the burden [of being a celebrity]. It’s not really a burden if you do it right. Usually, women are under that pressure because—I don’t know—they sell magazines. They’re pursued and people become obsessed with them. I live a very dull life so there’s not much to get that interested in, frankly.”

Michael is excited about another film, a drama on the Boston Globe’s investigation of pedophile priests. “I’m in the middle of a movie called ‘Spotlight’ that has a really good script again (by Josh Singer and Thomas McCarthy who also directs)… [I’m] with a really good director and another really good cast (Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo and Liev Schreiber).

Smiling, he confessed, “I thought for a minute about not doing it. But it’s stuff I care about so I’m doing that now.”

(E-mail the columnist at [email protected]. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.)