On Acting: A Conversation with Michael Keaton and Edward Norton

Attended by Kate Michael at the Egyptian Theater, Hollywood

In honor of their new film, Birdman, Michael Keaton and Edward Norton sat down with AFI at the 2014 AFI Film Festival to discuss their unconventional, brilliant careers. Through the clips of Birdman that were shown,  it is evident Birdman is an acting masterpiece. Passionately acted by Norton and Keaton and meticulously directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Birdman has been receiving rave reviews. When Keaton and Norton sat down at the Egyptian Theater on Saturday morning, it was evident that a striking resemblance of their approaches to acting in the film held true to real life. Perhaps due to their almost twenty year age difference, Keaton feels Hollywood has become jaded, producing a more limited quantity of high-quality films from a “world is a strip mall” mentality while Norton argued there were as many brilliant films released alongside Fight Club in 1999 as there were from 1967-1975. Keaton was critical of the film world becoming more corporate and spoke as if he and Norton stood outside of that world. In direct contradiction, Norton reminded the audience that he has always been in large studio productions, though sometimes referred to as an indie actor. His first film, Primal Fear, was a Paramount production, followed by American History X  by New Line Cinema, and later the 20th Century Fox picture Fight Club.

Despite their different viewpoints on the film industry, Keaton and Norton both take a simple, naturalistic approach to their acting, emphasizing the harm that can be done when one over thinks his role. Norton related the rumor that Greta Garbo once struggled to convey emotion during a close up and was told to simply think about what she had for breakfast. His greater take away was the importance of a skilled director and his responsibility to make the audience feel that desired emotion in the shot, not the actor’s.  Ultimately, the actor and director’s mutual trust and respect are key for creating a well acted piece and Norton has all the adoration in the world for Inarritu. He also mentioned the important role a fully-realized script played in the making of Birdman and the importance (in this film in particular) to staying on page.

While Norton’s words came out strong and convincing and Keaton’s more warm and personal, they both conveyed a realistic, practical approached to acting, both representing two unknowns whose careers were jump started by an off chance. In closing, they were asked to comment on a quote from Birdman: “Popularity is the slutty cousin to prestige”. Charismatic, and somewhat of a crowd pleaser, Keaton loves an gratifies a sense of popularity as a symbol of a job well done and sees it as important to the actor’s role, a kind of old fashioned ideology. Norton held a more contemporary, artistic viewpoint of acting being a lived experience. Norton explained his greatest sense of satisfaction comes from the experience of acting itself and in creating something he feels truly proud of by immersing and giving himself fully to his roles. Whether or not the audience can appreciate his efforts is , then, up to them.