Birdman (Birdman)

"You were a movie star!, remember!."

Birdman is a fictional character in the universe of the movie Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Although it's an imaginary being, it's the main antagonist of the film. It was played by Benjamin Kanes.

History
Birdman is a fictional character in a filmic saga who was played by the actor Riggan Thomson in 1992, but after that Thomson refused to shoot a fourth Birdman film his career was declining, and was close to being forgotten.

Years later, in 2014, an aged Thompson undertook a project to relaunch his career with a theatrical adaptation in Broadway of the book "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love".

But during the production of the play the memory of his past along his professional and familiar problems were harassing him, to the point of seeing and hearing his winged alterego haunted him. It was saying him that instead of doing serious acting he should return to make mainstream cinema. This persecution led Thompson to almost thrown himself off a ledge, and later, during the debut of the play, shoot himself in the face as part of the final scene.

After surviving to the shoot, Thompson found out  in the hospital that the play was a great success and that his family was worried about him, whereby he could get rid of the Birdman vision and its stalking.

Personality
It is speculated that in movies starring by Riggan his character Birdman must have had the archetypal personality of a classic superhero. However, the Birdman inside the mind of Thompson completely lacks of any good own quality that could get in its films. It is foul-mouthed, caddish, hectoring and braggart. It talks nonstop about the past glories of Riggan and how his life is a failure, and constantly seeks to make him believe the serious drama is a waste of time while commercial movies are those that lead to fame. It could be said that Birdman is an accumulation of all Riggan's defects and existential doubts.

Trivia

 * Iñárritu created Birdman as a parody to critique the superhero genre films, because in his opinion they are "poisoning" the movie industry, becouse he considers that they "do not mean anything".
 * Iñárritu was inspired in part in the career of Michael Keaton, who in his youth ages played Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), by the story of Riggan Thompson.
 * it is possible that Inarritu was inspired in part in the character Birdman of Hanna-Barbera by created his Birdman.
 * Despite being one of the central actors in the film, Benjamin Kanes not appears in the end credits of the movie.