Michael Keaton and Edward Norton on Acting

it's my honor to welcome the two stars of Birdman Michael Keaton and Edward Norton who gave you your big break or what do you consider your big break there were probably various few key moves but honestly it was fairly simple like I think I don't know that I had and in fact I know that I didn't have $300 when I arrived here in my pocket and I just did what most people do I guess you just go and park cars and working things and do whatever and try to figure it out and and I had done that much theater and and I became interested in writing and I was then I was also always interested in comedy but my comedy was intensified and and so so while I was in class out here or in an in an improv workshop I was writing and performing stand-up was it all the same clubs that are there now you know was originally was the historic and legendary improv in New York and catch rising star in New York but out here was Comedy Store and second city workshops and in any little Club and in Pittsburgh I even started writing and performing so the beauty of that is you are you know it's all you you don't have to wait for anybody or ask anybody's permission for anything a friend of mine who was a writer from Pittsburgh said I don't know if this means anything but I'll introduce you to some guy and I got this gig you know I got on this show you know television show yeah and that's how I got next because one of the guys writing on it logan's it was really these guys were really funny and Bob right yeah would saw me and said the Ron Howard said you know there's this guy and maybe you should he could be pretty funny and and so Ronnie meets me and I did like 95 auditions or something no really like there were like seven though or something I don't know and then then that that was that and édouard we were talking backstage about been almost 20 years since you filmed primal fear which is amazing thing what precipitated that film and how did you land such a auspicious role I mean such an amazing debut you really owned it and it's kind of like how everyone got to know you I think primal fear was just an incredible circumstance where a really good role which normally wouldn't you know be available but not be available but where they would look for known known entities yet had a situation where the director Greg Hobbit had you know objectively I think they're the really perceptive and wise impulse to put someone in it who nobody had ever seen before because he was more interested in turbocharging the value of the surprise then he was in you know the collateral of a name person and and separate from the fact that that it was it became this opportunity for me I think that was ingenious because it's very very rare within the you know the various constructs and value systems in the industry that a director will really put their foot down and say look this is the mechanism that's gonna make this work relies on us being just as surprised as Richard Gere's character and if we can pull that off we're gonna we're gonna really have something and so I can't I've got to find an you know an unknown quantity and and that's that that was the that that became the gateway through which I got to have that opportunity which was amazing and how would you say the business of being an actor which it is a business as we know has changed the most since you started and how are the pressures different than they were when you first started I think it got I'm really not the best person to ask but my bone of the things I could possibly offer is it became real corporate real fast and so therefore certain decisions I think in terms of casting someone or or taking a chance or you know it it starts to shrink up I think but then you the you know art is an amazing thing and creativity is an amazing thing and you can't kill it you know you'll never kill it which is beautiful right yeah I agree with that last part especially I think I don't know I the business of the business of the movie industry is a very different question than the business of being an actor I think being an actor shouldn't really be a business it's a it's a you know it's what it's whatever you make of it and I think and and anybody who says that they don't that they're trapped or that it's nonsense you you have you make your own decisions about what your values are and what your priorities are and you work the way you want to work if you're lucky and and you make the choices you make so I I think you know the worst thing about being an actor is the lack of autonomy in a fundamental sense because you're you're you you're waiting for someone else to have interest in you playing a role but at the same time you have an enormous amount of autonomy about what you what you want to work on and what you want to express or choose to focus on and you know how you conduct yourself in and around the work and then separately is all up to you I think I just don't get it when people say interesting films aren't getting made I just don't agree well if any film bucks at its Birdman and much has been made about the mechanics of this movie of which sounded like there were many from measuring hallways at the theater and you guys counting your steps to your marks and I'm wondering how did all of that inform the way you learned your lines and I'm wondering how much improv we saw in those scenes if any it didn't inform learning your lines so much as you had to be WordPerfect and off script and know your lines in order to make it work and now that I hear myself say that actually and vice versa so I'm not sure that one did what do you think you know that one necessarily informed the other there it could only work that way you know given what this maniac from Mexico City wanted to make and it's maniac DP - yeah oh man those guys that team is unbelievable and I'll tell you someone who's I keep mentioning this when I when I can as camera operators just astounding what they did not you know it's I know it's cheap on Alejandro but but it was everybody really truly truly everybody every movies everybody when I'm not being Pollyanna ish to say that it's just a fact but this was like intensely everybody right down to everyone what impressed me was Alejandro's ability to be conceptualizing and he was in his process of discovery about the scenes themselves and the choreography of the camera worked at the same time and he was inventing both of you know he was kind of inventing it all at once and sometimes he would say so the cast take take a few minutes and let me just figure something out with Chivo and sometimes he would say the camera crew let me just take a few minutes and just work with these guys on the text but for the most part he was doing this to me impossibly complex integration of figuring out the actual emotional life of scenes while envisioning how he was gonna you know visually roadmap it at the same time which was which was obviously really unusual the making of the making of the movie actually kind of dovetails creatively with what the movie is and what the sort of help there's so much in in them in the film without sounding it's very meta yeah yeah that it's it's it's a lot you know there's just so much it without sounding too pretentious or just boring everybody tears by this point but there's so much in it and what I just said in terms of what he had to do like how it is meta you're right I'm sorry I just shut up now that I hear myself say it without using the word meta but I don't think that's I'm just not kind of dodge it so do you know dovetailed together and and then you just keep getting more and more and more astounded by how this guy did this and I'll tell you I actually was thinking about this I was gonna ask you my fear was that Wow every movie after this I'm so fearful that I'm just gonna be bored out of my mind the good news is I'm we're gonna be now and that that didn't happen I went okay that's not happened what does happen what elicits you did you'll be sitting there you know we're doing a movie and you'll be going and watching things set up and maybe running lines ever talking about and then just kind of sitting there looking around and you think about what he and everyone did to make Birdman and you kind of can't believe it you go wait I don't know how does that happen again it's actually weirder and more amazing down the road than it is when you're like way more than when you're in it because when you're in it you don't have a choice you just got to go to work you know he was there to bear down and make this whole thing happen later when you look back it's like almost being in it and thinking back about you know almost a head-on collision you had in your car one time you know at the time you made the move and you know hours they go holy it's night it's kind of like that you're sitting I said what's all instinct what at that point and you kind of go I should have never done that I should have never tried in terms of script and you said it didn't change that much you had to be very on page when you showed up how much of your own experiences in the business and theater and making movies being around creative people many of whom are very eccentric will say did you infuse into the movie did you make suggestions for lines and and obviously the character of Mike shiner he's like you know total hyperbolic sense of what we think of as actors sometimes how much of your own experiences did you infuse in him I mean I did the script of this film was incredibly unusual II realized it was a very it was a very fully realized vision and it was with the exception of a major change that he made to the ending you know about two-thirds of the way through shooting the film he completely throughout the whole a whole construct of the ending and rewrote it it stayed very very very true to form I would say at the same time I was it was it was sort of delightful that Alejandro is also you know he has a great sense of humor and he really really wants details about the you know the the kind of esoteric foibles and pretensions of theater and things like that and so if you like I said to him I think in the original script the scene you just saw earlier I think they had written you know you have any idea the actors who are on the stage and then they said they were saying things like James Dean and blah blah blah and I and I said to him you know no theater actor would say James Dean or name Hollywood people they would say if a theatre actor George they'd say Helen Hayes and Jason Robards so we and he was you know he loved that he we we tweaked it to be you know the Giants of the actual stage I'm not sort of Hollywood people who either never were staged things and there was lots of details I think like that that that Alejandra was looking for everybody to you know just throw a little extra juice into but on the whole it was it was really it was not really a process of they weren't doing a lot of rewriting while we were working on it well that leads perfectly into my next question what which is and clearly you did not have this problem on this film what do you wish directors better understood about working with actors what do you wish they'd better knew about what you need from them well since I'm not going near that one I I think simplicity I think I think directors sometimes think that'll that talking about the totality of the meaning of a moment talking about the film they're trying to make is going to be helpful to an actor and it's the worst thing in the world the truth is actors good actors how are I think empaths they they they are empathetic to situational emotion if you want to call it that and really all you need to do is for me I've always found if you just say like don't don't criticize so much Kajol you know don't-don't-don't mollify her you know discipline her you know what I mean it's like that's all you need like all you need to do is give someone a verb really and they can radically alter and usually people will go I think extras will go oh right of course done like that's but but you know talking about like talking about everything it's just crushing I think to because it puts a person in their head which is not where you want to be wait a minute you said this yeah but what Todd it depends on when you're talking yeah or who's doing the talking yeah on a set Michael are you sure you don't have any stories you want to tell no you know I know you have probably hundreds I would say because it's also it's so different with everyone I would for me I would say don't fall too in love with unless you're a handful of people out there don't fall too in love with what you know what you what you're locked into in a moment because by and large actors are pretty good at finding something if you give them a little room you know and it's different for every director obviously I remember reading a long time ago it may have been John Ford or it may have been John Huston or someone saying you know really directing actors is really casting right and I used to think that's just lazy thinking there's no way that's true blah blah blah blah I'm starting to think that's very true actually you know you you if you in in most movies if you really say that guy or that woman or if you narrow it down to a few a lot of it is pretty much done there and I never used to believe that but I'm starting to think that's kind of well you watch this movie and it's hard for me to conceive of anyone else playing these parts and that's always a good feeling when you watch it and think it's just meant to be in that way when we were doing the first scene you showed we're arguing I think we were we were ripping into it and we were having a blast I mean we were actually I would say we were quite happy we did we did a bunch of them and we were you know we were we were low I think we were enjoying it a lot and there was a lot going on that we were pretty happy with and Alejandra came in and on that scene and really he when I say lit into us he he just he just was very very unhappy with what was going on you know he was he was he was you know tearing at his hair and he was going guys guys guys you know and I remember you know like times we had a lot of I mean I had a huge amount of fun working with Michael so and we had a very easy rhythm I thought so when some comes in like that I was kind of like looking at Michael like how is he gonna react you know I love Alejandro and kind of was up for it but he was coming in and and What did he say he just he basically said he said everything that you're doing is the exact opposite of what this needs to be he really did he said I want I needed to go 180 degrees in a different direction that's a thought I was like okay you know you wanna you want any look if you believe in somebody which I believe in him to the you know on a cellular level I'm like great so you want to be that you want to you want me to go 180 degrees he how's it let's do it so we did and we kind of lit into it and did I think fairly different thing and he came back and said no no no no no it's it's got to be like a hundred and eighty degrees the opposite direction and I looked at Chivo because they've been friends since I you know commonly the the I just looked at him just like you heard that right like you heard it and he and he and I walked away in chiba goes he's not talking to you he's talking to himself man there's a lot of that but but but that's that was true that is actually real wisdom because that's very helpful I know when you when you this movies all about it you go and look someone comes in and says what you're doing is the exact opposite of what you need to be doing you know you're you you know you get your your voice in you goes and you know I'm being disapproved of or whatever and you gotta let that you gotta let that go and realize that what I think what she was saying is right like sometimes you just gotta give somebody room - you just gotta if they say black just do black and if they say now let's try white let's just do white and if they say go back to black just go back to black because there's something that he's trying to figure out for himself that he doesn't know until he has you in front of him doing this yeah and if you don't apply the full force of everything you've got to exploring what the idea is he's interested in then how's he gonna put away that idea and confidently say that wasn't a good idea you know I do think that's where actors sometimes have to just get over their instincts and and if you if you really trust a director say paint it four different ways just so that he can see why an idea isn't working and trust that you gave it your all you know I think that's really important it is enormous you're around a real artist you know it's just man it's so contagious you go yeah that's that's right you remember that thing why you want to do what you do it's all the work for me the theme of the movie is is beautifully encompassed in a line that Edward has popularity is the little cousin of prestige it's a great sort of I don't know encapsulate view of Hollywood it's a you know what we all rail against when we're trying to make do good work and how do each of you try to navigate the reality of that in the choices that you made clearly doing this movies one way you're doing that but how do you for yourself try to do good work and also recognize the popularity aspect is a real thing ultimately is just doing doing good work it's pretty simple for me you just say you know if you're making a student film for $4,000 or if you're making a giant movie for four hundred million dollars you still basically do the same work and you know basically you do the same work if you have six lines in a movie you work the same way if you have six thousand lines in a movie and the first in terms of the popularity aspect of it it's it's you know I'm a realist you know that's how it works and sometimes you're popular sometimes you're not popular nobody showed up at my house that I remember and you know put a gun to my head and drag me on the house and said you're gonna do this for a living you're gonna try to route yourself in motivations that are that actually I think make your life you know richer I think what you hope for is kind of that that am Forster value of like connection you know if you if you feel like it really connected with people and if the way people respond to it is has that deep sense of like this really said things or made me feel things that opened me up or made me feel less alone or what it then that's that's very nice so this is particularly so satisfying in that on that level because the response is you know I've done this a while I've had all kinds of different responses and this response is you know a lot of positive response but you know and and but this is this is I use the expression civilians sometimes we know folks who aren't in the business in any way whatsoever just people who come to your street what they say not that they say it but how articulate they are even on an emotional level you know not necessarily with their words but mostly with their words what they say it's so interesting I mean it I mean what they say to you you know it's one thing to get a response from someone who does this or it's a sin a file or but it but just some you know 67 year old woman coming out of a Safeway you know explaining to you what she thought it is unbelievably gratifying and I mean it's a blessing I mean who gets to do this you know who gets to have this you know

Channel: American Film Institute

Views: 55,796

Rating: 4.9644127 out of 5

Keywords: michael, keaton, edward, norton, birdman, Iñárritu, Alejandro, innarritu, acting, advice, movies, afi, fest, hollywood, conversation, interview, on, stage, discussion, online, youtube, festival

Id: rr7oGcDf1JA

Length: 23min 26sec (1406 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 06 2015