How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).
Quote #1
MIKE: Oh, come on, people, don't be so pathetic. Stop looking at the world through your cellphone screen. Have a real experience. Does anybody give a s*** about truth other than me? I mean the set is fake; the bananas are fake; there is nothing in this milk carton; your performance is fake.
Okay, Mike might be a little drunk, but this doesn't seem to out of character. This is what Mike is all about: truth and authenticity. If his character is supposed to be drunk then he'll be drunk, dangit.
Quote #2
MIKE: (reading Riggan's napkin) Thank you for an honest performance. Ray Carver.
RIGGAN: Yeah.
MIKE: Yeah?
RIGGAN: That's when I knew I was gonna be an actor, right there.
MIKE: (chuckling) Oh…
RIGGAN: What's so funny?
MIKE: Nothing, it's just, it's on a cocktail napkin.
RIGGAN: Yeah, so?
MIKE: He was f***ing drunk, man.
1) Carver thanks a young Riggan for an "honest performance." It's truth that Carver sees and enjoys in his acting. 2) Mike's point is that a drunk Carver didn't know what he was saying, and there's no truth in a drunk man's words.
Which of these two truths is, well, truthier?
Quote #3
MIKE: Don't call me Mike; call me Mel, Mel. [They struggle as Mike tries to have sex with her and Lesley tries to keep him off. Riggan pounds on the door and enters with the scene continuing as normal…until the audience laughs at Mike's erection, visible through his pajama pants. When Mike delivers his "Don't do anything stupid" line, Riggan throws in an improvisational punch.]
Mike is more real on stage than he is offstage. It's not that Mike needs his acting to be real; it simply is real. On the one hand you could say Mike ruined the scene by taking the audience out of the moment as they laugh at him…but on the other hand he also made it more authentic. There was more truth in Mike's erection and Riggan's anger-filled punch than the toy gun he was waving around.