By Jorge Carreón.

You never know what will be the ultimate fate of a movie once it goes into production. For the record, it really does take the same amount of effort to make a good film as it does to create a bad one. And, as for the alchemy that results in becoming an awards season favorite? If you could only pinpoint that exact formula, we’d all be doing it. Yet, sometimes you will bear witness to lightning being caught in a bottle. That happened the minute I heard Mexican-born director Alejandro G. Iñárritu say “Action,” because it was obvious his bold vision for “Birdman” was something that would defy the mainstream.

It was early summer in New York City in 2013. I had been given the task to conduct the cast/filmmaker interviews and produce the behind the scenes content that would comprise the electronic press materials for a film strangely titled “Birdman.” Was it an action film? Was it some sort of parody of superhero movies? No one knew what to make of the project, except for those involved. It had the pedigree of an award winning filmmaker, an enviable ensemble cast and a creative team featuring several of Iñárritu’s most loyal collaborators. However, that isn’t always a sure thing to create a memorable final product. Then I read what would become its award-winning screenplay. To say the least, I was plenty darned excited about what I would witness during our scheduled days in New York.

After its release in October 2014, “Birdman” went on to feather its nest with some of the best reviews of the year. Following its reveal at the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals, the film emerged as an awards season front-runner. “Birdman” did earned a host of guild and critics’ group nominations, as well as achieved two key wins at the recent Golden Globe awards for Iñárritu and star Michael Keaton. Now it is entering its the final lap with the announcement of this year’s Academy Award nominees on January 15.

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What made “Birdman” so special in the first place? From what I saw during principal photography, I was witness to a company of players all galvanized by the material. The Iñárritu I saw was different from the man I first met while he was shepherding the complex “Babel” to completion. This Iñárritu looked so relaxed on set, but his intense focus for detail was very much present. The now heralded “single take” concept he devised with the great Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, who had just won a long deserved Oscar for “Gravity,” was breathtaking to view. You saw the best of theater, filmmaking process and creative commitment all at the same time.

“Birdman” is not an easy film to describe succinctly, but it does prompt heated conversations. You either champion the experience or you find yourself polarized by its psychology, themes and controversial ending. It could have been fine as an indie film and/or critics darling, never connecting with the mainstream. But a wide reaching audience has been intrigued in by its bittersweet human comedy.

At first, the initial Meta elements of Keaton’s virtuosic turn as Riggan Thomson, a fading action hero-slash-superstar trying to validate his artistic life by producing a troubled play on Broadway, were fun to dissect. Yet, the real beauty of Keaton’s performance would not be found in the surface similarities. Rather, he brought resonance to the nuanced truth of a man struggling to keep his sanity and self-worth in a world that thinks he’s irrelevant. That defied any connection to the movie star’s life. Instead, Keaton succeeded in illuminating a reality that can arrive to any one of us.

Hindsight is 20/20, right? Part of the fun of watching “Birdman” today is knowing just how unaware all of the talent was about the impact their performances – and the finished film — would make on the screen. Ed Norton didn’t know he was a riot. A wonderfully humble Zach Galifianakis actually wondered out loud what he was doing with such an accomplished cast. Emma Stone understood she carried one of the mission statements of the film in a powerful monologue. But, she, like all of her co-stars, including Naomi Watts, Amy Ryan and Andrea Riseborough, was just focusing on not being the one who screwed up the intricate camera choreography required for each scene.

I enjoyed seeing New Yorkers being non-plussed by the sight of the costumed Birdman following Keaton through a midtown neighborhood on one rainy afternoon. It was just business as usual as far as they were concerned. With each day, I couldn’t wait to get my chance to sit down with both Iñárritu and Keaton, but that wouldn’t happen for almost another year. We sat down to talk about “Birdman” in Santa Monica a year to the day we wrapped our cameras behind the scenes. And yes, the conversation was every bit as impactful as I hoped.

While it wouldn’t be fair to consider this a pre-Oscar roundtable, the following conversation between myself, Iñárritu and Keaton recorded in May 2014 did foreshadow much of what they would offer the world press later in the year. Following are excerpts of that insightful interview, one of the first they conducted together on behalf of “Birdman,” courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

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JORGE CARREÓN: “Birdman” is not an easy film to describe. How would you define the journey undertaken by Riggan Thomson? How will it relate to us, the audience?

MICHAEL KEATON: I saw one of your questions and it had to do with age, which is an interesting thing. You never think about it when you’re very small ‘cause you always want to be seven or you always want to be 12. I would be a liar if I didn’t say at some point you go,
“Wait a minute. How did this happen? How did this time fly?” So personally, for me this thing’s very universal. It could be about a plumber. It could be about a forest ranger. It could be about a doctor. It could be about anybody and it’s intensified by the fact that it’s an actor. That’s not your standard occupation and I happen to be one. In terms of the age thing, it’s not just years, right? It’s also certain fears you never thought you’d have; certain things you expected to have. Sometimes it all comes crashing down and I think for him, this character, Riggan, they crash down but they’ve crashed down a few times. Now the crash is just as intense as possible, which I found frightening to play and unbelievably exciting.

ALEJANDRO G. IÑÁRRITU:  I agree with Michael. No matter if you’re an actor or if you are 40, 50, 60 years old, for me it’s about the internal chasing of an illusion. We have been fed the value system of this world that is like if you get money, if you get fame, if you are recognized you have validation that will fulfill you. No matter if you are a plumber or you’re a dentist or you’re an actor once you get to whatever amount of success you have that you thought it will fulfill you. If you empower those things to really be the ones that will make you happy, you will find yourself in desolation.

KEATON: It intensifies the pain don’t you think ‘cause I’m sure we both know people that you go “This guy’s so rich!” He keeps getting richer and every time you see that person they seem sadder and sadder.

IÑÁRRITU:  That’s why I’m poor. [LAUGHS]

CARREÓN: Michael, what made this experience an immersive one?

KEATON: [Looks at Iñárritu] He’s going to get tired of hearing me say it. Honestly, I do not use this word very often when it applies to me, but it so artful! It is so courageous and committed that from moment one to the end, I mean, I don’t know if should say this. I’ve only seen it once and I need to see it again. The first time I had to go home and think about what I just saw for a minute. It sounds pretentious to talk like that, but it just isn’t like anything else. From minute one to the end, I kind of shook my head and didn’t know what to say. It’s special. It’s extremely special.

CARREÓN: “Birdman” may carry some weighty themes, yet humor carries them all to unexpected places, particularly as lived out by Riggan’s journey.

KEATON: I think the heart of the character is the contradictions. He feels like a comet one moment and two seconds later he feels like a dead jellyfish. That sounds familiar to everybody, right?

IÑÁRRITU: That’s what this film is about. That’s what I found and every time. It’s the contradictory nature of these characters. It’s moving all the time and that’s why I found it very empathetic because that’s in human nature.

KEATON: And it happens within scenes. Within a short timeframe it went really funny, really twisted, back to funny for a minute, really sad, then kind of crazy within a short space. The contradictions are what is really cool about it. [Turns to Iñárritu] He was really ballsy about going after everybody. Everybody was fair game.

IÑÁRRITU: It has to be played with honesty in order to execute that contradictory nature of this character. He’s exposed in such a nature small amount of time in a continuous mode because there is no fragmented reality.  There are no tricks of anything. What is happening there is true. I have seen good theater, but this is so close. Michael would deliver a six, eight, 10-minute takes where he has to go from here to here to here and it was happening because there is no trick.  You are seeing it. [Turns to Keaton] I don’t know where you went! He went to very deep places and I saw that. I was witness to that and it was magnificent.

KEATON: It was unbelievable. I still don’t know how it happened.

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CARREÓN: Much will be discussed about the film’s final scene. How was this creative choice made and are you happy with the end result?

KEATON: He told me in the dressing room and said, “Listen to me, I have this idea.” As he started to talk to me about the final scene I went, “I hope he’s going to say what I think he’s going to say.” And it was very close to what I was thinking he might tell me.

IÑÁRRITU: We were in the middle of the film.  We were already shooting.

KEATON: I know there are some people who said, “No you can’t do that.” It’s a liberating kind of epiphany, however you want to interpret it. In a way I don’t even want to know what it means. I don’t want to know. I want to go look and let him be whatever he is, whatever it is.

IÑÁRRITU: [Turns to Keaton] Your epiphany?

KEATON: Life never ends and stories never end; that makes it real. People will make their own interpretations of it as life. Storytelling has been poisoned by this need for an absolute ending for people to understand that this character is bad or this character was successful. I think we are much more than that.  It’s much more complex. It’s more fun, I think. It’s better.

CARREÓN: Alejandro, can you give us some clue as to what you wanted the final image to represent?

IÑÁRRITU: Life, I think. That’s what I wanted.

CARREÓN: We talked about the Meta aspects of Riggan’s life to your own, Michael. Were these parallels something you contemplated before starting work on “Birdman?”

KEATON: In a lot of ways Riggan had bigger balls. Yes, I did “Batman,” so it is kind of weird. But

that’s a non-issue because we kind of never really discussed it. We were shooting the movie and there was a line in it. [Turns to Iñárritu] Did I tell you this? There’s a line in it that says he used to be Batman or something like that. And I just thought, “Well, yeah.” That was in the original script and they kept going through rehearsal and it never got changed because we didn’t change it. We would rewrite but not a lot and then it kept going on. Zach (Galifianakis) and me were kind of looking at each other for a couple of days, going “Obviously you’re going to change it. We can’t really keep that line!” [LAUGHS]. He looks at me, going “What’s the matter? What line? Why not? So, I felt like tremendous relief because it’s an obvious thing but it’s kind of a non-issue. In terms of parallels, here’s the weird thing about this and people can believe it or not believe it. I don’t really give a shit. I’ve never related less to a person in my life than this character but I related to him in a lot of levels because it’s so ridiculously human. It’s almost heartbreakingly human. It’s so visceral and real and true and not for everybody but for a guy like this personality, Riggan’s personality. So pathetically needy and, you know, just dependent upon “Do people like me?” Maybe I chose not to be like that because I figured it would kill me and eat me up. I don’t know.

CARREÓN: “Birdman” is steeped in the culture of show business, which sometimes turns off an audience. Was that a concern to you?

IÑÁRRITU:  It’s not a Hollywood film, but I think it’s scrutinizing Hollywood in a way.

KEATON: I’d say a little bit.

IÑÁRRITU: There is a poisonous kind of state of what is going on now and I think it’s funny, too. It’s more than pointing or preaching. This is not an inside film about acting. No, I think it’s through that context, hopefully, we can observe human nature. It’s that moment of reflection of your decisions in life. I think Riggan and Birdman and the culture that we are living in are perfect examples, magnified examples of what it is to be successful. The conversations from these characters are true and based on what I have heard. The movement of pop culture that we are living in is extremely damaging on so many levels. I find it funny and pathetic and flawed and in contradiction with the pretentious and ambitions of everybody trying to get something when everybody knows there are no foundations to get that.

KEATON: The thing I learned from Alejandro among others is that I don’t ever remember a time that he pressed and pressed and pressed. Maybe it was for him. Maybe it’s for his ego. I have no idea.

IÑÁRRITU: My wife said it’s for me. [LAUGHS]

KEATON: I don’t know how you did it. I think you got lucky. [LAUGHS]

“Birdman” is now playing at select theaters.