The film stars Michael Keaton as a washed-up Hollywood actor, best known for playing a superhero named Birdman, and follows the struggles he faces while trying to make a comeback by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver 's short story " What We Talk About When We Talk About Love ".
Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki believed that the recording time necessary for the long take approach could not have been made with older technology. It premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival in Birdman had a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 17, , followed by a wide release on November Riggan Thomson is a faded actor famous for playing a superhero named Birdman in a film trilogy from to He is tormented by the mocking and critical internal voice of his past self as Birdman and frequently visualizes himself performing feats of levitation and telekinesis.
However, the Birdman voice wants Riggan to return to blockbuster cinema and insists that he is essential to Riggan's identity. Riggan's best friend and lawyer Jake is producing the play, which co-stars Riggan's girlfriend Laura and Lesley, a Broadway newcomer. Riggan's daughter Sam, a recovering drug addict with whom he is trying to reconnect, works as his assistant. A light fixture falls onto Riggan's hapless co-star Ralph the day before the first preview. At Lesley's suggestion, Riggan replaces Ralph with her boyfriend, the brilliant but volatile and self-absorbed method actor Mike Shiner.
The first previews are disastrous: Mike breaks character over replacing his gin with water, attempts to rape Lesley during a sex scene, and complains that the prop gun does not look natural. When Riggan berates Sam after finding her smoking marijuana, she insultingly rebukes and chastises him, telling him that he is irrelevant and the play is for his own vanity.
Riggan clashes continually with Mike, culminating in a brawl after Riggan reads a New York Times interview with Mike in which he steals Riggan's personal reason for doing a Raymond Carver play. Jake persuades Riggan to continue with the play. During the final preview, after seeing Mike and Sam kissing backstage, Riggan goes for a smoke and accidentally locks himself outside with his robe stuck in the fire escape door.
