Michael Keaton Talks Robocop and Batman

Michael Keaton plays Raymond Sellars in the remake of Robocop, CEO of OmniCorp, and the film’s villain. Kind of. We caught up with the actor on the film’s Toronto set to discuss why it isn’t just a matter of ‘good versus evil’ in the new version, to talk about how his own experience playing Batman compares to watching someone else play Robocop.

Who is Raymond Sellars?

He’s got his hand in a couple of companies. He’s always creating off-shoots of companies, and concepts. In this case he runs a company called OmniCorp, and I’m involved in robotics, not only in an investment capacity, but as someone who is interested in big ideas and the future. I wouldn’t say that he’s a futurist necessarily. But he knows futurists and is intrigued by the whole idea of what the future is. When I talked to [director] Jose [Padilha] about it, I didn’t really have an interest in doing it if he was going to be a version of a villain that we saw before, where it was about him becoming extraordinarily financially rich or becoming all-powerful. Not that those can’t potentially be fun villains to play if they’re interesting, but generally speaking I don’t find them interesting. What intrigued me was who’s right and who’s wrong. And what’s evil and what’s not in this case. I would argue that my character isn’t totally wrong in what he thinks. But I don’t know that he’s totally right. But it’s not just for him – he legitimately does have an argument and a case and an opinion about what’s good for the country and maybe the world. I think what he does is rationalise a lot of things – which people tend to do – rationalise things and make yourself believe a lot if you want to get something. So he’s not a classic power-hungry or money-hungry evil villain. He just happens to be a guy with a lot of power who’s curious and interested in the future of the world and he goes offline a little.

Do you think he’s a bad guy?

It’s explored in this movie – whether he actually is doing anything wrong. He does, ultimately, do something wrong, but generally speaking, philosophically, I know he’s not 100% wrong. And then you have things to play. Then you have something nuanced to play. And in a movie like this, that’s not often seen. This is a very smart movie. And I think that’s how Jose got the cast he got – it’s a really good cast.

Did the character change from when you first got the script?

When I first started talking to him about it, he all but said “This is it, but it’s not exactly it, so I wanna talk to you about what I wanna do with this guy.” And it happened to be what I wanted to do. It’s not like we just forgot what was in the script and did what we wanted to do, but we changed enough. That said it was never really a larger-than-life character. After the read through, the producers came up to me and said “This guy has always been the least written. The character that we couldn’t quite find. The most underwritten character. So we’re always trying to find spots where we could fill it up and make him more potent and a little clearer.” It’s not like he was that and we changed him to this. We just tried to define him.

Were you tempted to play him larger-than-life?

It’s a tricky one. This is really a smart movie, and if he gets to put his vision up there it’s going to be a really interesting take on this material. Not to mention the fact that it’s so timely. Robotics. Drones. When does man become the computer and the computer become the man? When do they meld? When do we start to make decisions based on technology? It’s really unbelievably timely. I spoke to two MIT scientists who are specialists in robotics and bionics, and it’s unbelievable what’s going on. Happening every day. It’s really an intelligent approach to this kind of movie. So I really don’t think you’re going to see people doing over the-top-performances  because there’s a real story to move along here, and a real theme. That said, there are good guys and bad guys and action and cool motorcycles – there is that element... But my stuff is low and straight – no big dancing around and screaming and yelling – just really straightforward.

Having played Batman, did you have advice for Joel Kinnaman about acting in the Robocop suit?

I would if he asked me. I was watching this scene and I was trying to remember those things. You walk that line where you can’t jump outside and see yourself. It’s tricky because you want to be in the character without being self-conscious of watching your own character. But then again you’re in a giant big black suit, so you have to be realistic about it and go: “Well is this playing – what I’m doing? Or does it look stupid and detract from the story?” You have to think all of those things. Then you start to think “How do I move in this thing?” So watching him I just remembered all those things. It was actually much more critical and the spotlight was really on us because no one had really done anything like this until Tim [Burton] did it. And now a lot of people do a version of Tim. Really talented people do a version of what Tim did with our Batman. Watching him I started to remember all those things. And we had to adjust all the time. Because we never saw the thing until the day we were shooting. And we didn’t know if the suit would work, and it kind of didn’t, and we had to keep fixing it. And I realised that all the things I thought I was going to do I couldn’t do them physcically. All my prepearation, all my working out, all my martial arts, was just gone. I managed to do some things, but I was really restricted.

Do you think it’s easier for Joel?

This Robocop suit, you can go out and play three sets of tennis! You can move, you can sit, it’s got air conditioning – it’s got everything! He didn’t ask me about it, but what worked for me in Batman… I am a claustrophobic person, so it was a real test for me every day. When I first got in I thought “Oh my god, I’m never going to be able to do this.” But I had no choice. I never said anything to anybody, but my anxiety was very high. I thought “You better find a way to make this work for yourself and for the character” And that’s exactly what I did. It made me even more distant from everybody else. Even more inside my shell. That was always an issue for my character anyway – how do you go from Bruce Wayne – what happens? That transfer when he slides into Batman and then back into Bruce? Where’s that spot? So actually the suit helped me.

Robocop is released worldwide throughout February.

Chris Tilly is the Entertainment Editor for IGN in the UK and can be found on both Twitter and MyIGN.

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