The theme is reinvention. Michael has reinvented himself many times. Starting with standup then on to comedy then on to more serious roles. Then…….. he was Batman.
A recap of today’s Adobe Summit interview:
Question: Did you steer your career or did you go with the flow?
I started something in college then dropped out. I had to start acting in comedy after I dropped out to get back to college. I tried comedy at a Jazz club. When I went to California the goal was to seek employment. In retrospect, standup comedy was really good for me. I had a ton of interest but I needed a focus. Once I started to actually work in film, I focused and made a couple decisions early on to setup a career that I hoped that would be to my advantage. It was doing as many things as you can.
There was never a master plan. There were strategic moves and a type of discipline that worked.
Question: Let’s talk about Birdman. Congrats on the Oscar and Golden Globe. A lot of people were surprised and sad that you didn’t win the Oscar for best actor? Why do you think you didn’t win?
uuhhhhhhhh……. The whole campaign for best actor was an interesting experience. I had a good attitude about going in given all the previous wins. I like to be a competitor. But the point is that it was out of my control. Michael wanted to do something to bring it back into control. (Play a game of one-on-one basketball)
Why I didn’t win: I don’t know but I will tell you that you need to think that you will win. In this case, these awards don’t measure the degree of difficulty required for what was accomplished.
Question: A lot of folks are tech folks here. You’ve done a lot of special effects, animation, etc. Do you think technology is helping or hurting films?
In the long run it’s helping. You can make films like Multiplicity so much faster and easier with technology. It can be a challenge to play into green screens even though it opens up possibilities.
Take Beetlejuice. If you were to make it again, you would run the risk of too much technology. It’s so much more efficient now though. It can add to the democratization of film making.
A lot of people can make films now. There is more opportunity for people to express themselves. I always thought people would make a pretty good movie on their phone.
Question: What do you talk about in social?
I believe it’s an unbelievable tool in twitter. I don’t tweet a lot. I was fishing in the bahamas. I asked my friend what he was doing and he replied, “I’m tweeting” His friend showed the fisherman how twitter worked and helped the guy build his business as they relayed good places to fish, where they were, etc.
It’s less about what I ate for lunch.
Question: One of the way Marketing has changed is from the number of awards and then measuring yourself at the end of a campaign. How do you measure your success?
It’s not about the measurement of monetary wealth. For me it’s about professionally, how good can I get at what I want to be?
Question: What’s your “place?”
It’s Montana. I feel the most at home there. I love the outside. The West always held a fascination. I took a trip to the west and I was done. I love the space and the entire feel.
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