Critics and public have acknowledged the stunning performance of the U.S. actor Michael Keaton playing the role of Riggan Thomson in Birdman, the opening movie of the 71th Venice Film Festival, after the first completion day.

His very theatrical and passionate interpretation caught the public's attention thanks to his desperate fight against everybody but especially against himself.

In an interview with Xinhua he first explains his relation with his ego, he said "you have to accept that this "bad" voice is part of your life, sometimes it tells beautiful things about you and sometimes not. The ego is a big liar but it "walks" with you; the important thing is "to keep driving your car" put it in the back seat telling him to shut up."

Keaton, who was already with the movie Multiplicity (1996), got the Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television for Live From Bagdad (2002)

Talking about his favorite superheroes, the theme of the movie, the U.S. actor said they never sever his passion, when he was a young boy he liked books about the Second World War or the movies about cowboys or police stories.

He said "I was never interested about something not concrete or not related to action because I thought it was hard to believe. When I used to see a western, where the cowboy was perfectly clean I did not believe about that then when I watch a horror movie I am not scared because I felt it's not real."

"On the contrary, if I saw movies like the Exorcist, probably because of my catholic education, I felt scared because I find it more real. The thing that it's frightening me the most is my imagination."He continued

Asked about his preferences about acting in a more theatrical or cinematic way, he said "This is not so important, it depends from the projects that I have to follow, I don't have any preferences in terms of acting, I'm what I'm. Birdman is extremely theatrical but at the same time extremely cinematographic and in some parts also very much related to opera."

About his life in the Hollywood community he made some very personal considerations, he said "I always hope to have personal relation based on mutual respect, and then I was lucky because I had a beautiful career. Alejandro (the movie director) is able to catch the good or bad from actors; he is an equality opportunity offender offering the same opportunities to everybody."

In some consideration about his daily life, made with a certain irony, he presented his life as very quiet and maybe boring but not terribly complicated; "I live in Los Angeles but I also live in another place because this makes me happy and for 98 percent of people I ever worked were nice people," he said.

Like Riggan Thomson he also had a difficult scene moment while turning, he explains "In these cases you don't have alternatives and you have to on, there was a scene when I was on the theater stage, in which I was completely unprepared. I was studying every day (through) my working plan but because of a misunderstand I didn't imagine that an important scene of the movie would have taken place on that day. It was one of the worst moments in my experience of being an actor"

This episode turned well at the end and for him it was a truly great experience because he didn't know what to do and that's where his personal "Ego" started to interact with him.

"Alejandro then was very patient with me because He knew I was lost. It was a very hard scene, then I started to get angry with myself but at a certain point, I calmed down and I stop the cameras and everything, I talked to my self deeply inside to be able to catch up the scene. At the end, it was a very good scene so maybe I got lucky," he added.

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