Michael Keaton covers this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly to promote Birdman. The movie has received an insane amount of awards buzz already. It’s a backstage satire about a character with a similar career trajectory as Keaton. He plays Riggan Thompson, a veteran actor who once played a superhero and then stepped away from it all. In the movie, Riggan attempts a comeback by directing a play based upon a Raymond Carver novel.

Keaton, of course, enjoyed massive success in the 1980s (with movies like Beetlejuice) and worked steadily throughout the 1990s. Keaton also played Batman twice and hung up the costume when “he no longer felt creatively fulfilled.” He moved to Montana and enjoyed a low-key life, mostly paying the bills with voice work. Keaton’s done a few minor roles in recent years, but Birdman is his first real comeback role. In new interviews with EW and the New York Times, Keaton says this is the hardest role he’s ever played. Definitely harder than playing Batman:

Does Birdman draw on Keaton’s experiences? “The truth is that I was playing a person, just a person. And I was both as connected to Riggan and as disconnected from him as you can possibly be. And I have to tell the truth about that.”

The stressful shoot included 10-min, unbroken shots: “You’d go home, and have dinner, and then you’d start to think about the next day’s work. And that’s when the panic would set in. These were all really good, accomplished actors. And everybody showed up every morning frightened. The crew too. I think we were all thinking, I don’t want to be the guy who lets everybody down. Just on a practical level, I had to stay locked in. It was extremely demanding, the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Will Ben Affleck be a good Batman? “Chris Nolan is great, but I’ve never seen any of the Batman movies all the way through. I know they’re good. I just have zero interest in those kinds of movies. I mean, people are asking me, ‘Is Ben Affleck going to be any good?’ And my attitude is, First of all, why would you ask me? Second, he’s probably going to be very good, and third, frankly, it’s all set up now so that you’re weirdly kind of safe. Once you get in those suits, they really know what to do with you. It was hard then; it ain’t that hard now.”

On the Oscar talk: “What do I think about it? I think there’s chickens, and there’s hatched chickens.” No matter the part, he added, reaching for a sports metaphor to describe his career, “I play it like I’m losing.”

[From EW.com & NYT]

Keaton’s comments about how it’s easier to play Batman these days are … dangerous in a soundbyte world. Heck, I’m guilty of using that quote for a headline. Is he throwing shade at Ben Affleck? Nope. He is not. I think Keaton is alluding to how these newer superhero films work. Both DC and Marvel package their leading actors and keep them under a tight leash. These studios are so good at marketing that an actor’s performance doesn’t matter that much anymore. Marvel is probably more guilty of this than DC, but Keaton’s point stands. By the time an actor scores a superhero role nowadays, the studio is convinced that they’ve hired the right person. The actor still has to do the work, but the marketing outweighs all.

Photos courtesy of Entertainment Weekly & WENN