Mike Shiner Quotes in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

Mike Shiner: Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige.

Mike Shiner: A man becomes a critic when he cannot be an artist, the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

Mike Shiner: Does she speak?

Sam: She does. Yeah, she can sit, stay, and roll over if you have any treats.

Sam: Why do you act like a dick all the time? Do you just do it to antagonize people?

Mike Shiner: Maybe.

Sam: You really don't give a shit if people like you or not?

Mike Shiner: Not really.

Sam: That's cool.

Mike Shiner: Is it? I don't know.

Mike Shiner: Is this water? Did you replace my gin with water, man?

Riggan: Mike. Come on.

Mike Shiner: No. Come on, what?

Riggan: Come on, you're drunk.

Mike Shiner: I'm drunk? Yes, I'm drunk! I'm supposed to be drunk! Why aren't you drunk? This is Carver. He left a piece of his liver on the table every time he wrote a fucking page. If I need to be drinking gin, who the fuck are you to touch my gin, man? Listen, you fucked with the period, you fucked with the plot so you could have the best lines, you leave me the fucking tools that I need! Oh, come on people, don't be so pathetic. Stop looking at the world through your cellphone screens. Have a real experience! Does anybody give a shit about truth other than me? I mean the set is fake, the bananas are fake, there's fucking nothing in this milk carton, your performance is fake. The only thing that is real on this stage is this chicken. So, I'm gonna work with the chicken.

Mike Shiner: You've been hanging around here trying to make yourself invisible behind this fragile little fuck-up routine but you can't. You're anything but invisible. You're big. You're kind of a great mess. It's like a candle burning at both ends, but it's beautiful. No amount of booze or weed or attitude is going to hide that.

Mike Shiner: [showing a fried chicken to Riggan] That's a nice bird, man!

Riggan: That's you Mike. You're Mr. Natural. Mr. "F - k the scene, just stare at my massive hard-on," right? That's the truth of the moment.

Mike Shiner: Do you think it was massive?

Mike Shiner: [to Riggan] Don't tell me how to do my job. This is my town, and to be honest, most people don't give a shit about you here.

Lady in Bar: Hey, you're Riggan Thompson, right? Would you mind having a picture with us here?

[hands phone to Mike]

Lady in Bar: Would you mind?

Mike Shiner: What?

Lady in Bar: The button's on the bottom.

Mike Shiner: Lesley, play with my balls.

Mike Shiner: Give me a cue again.

Riggan: Okay. "Hey, I'm the wrong person to ask. I don't actually know the man, I've heard his name mentioned in passing. I don't know, you'd have to know the particulars. I think what you're saying..."

Mike Shiner: Hey, can I make a suggestion, do you mind?

Riggan: Yeah, yeah sure, no not at all.

Mike Shiner: Okay, just stay with me. "I'm the wrong person to ask," he says, but what is that, what is the intention in that? Is he fed up with the subject so he's changing it, is he deflecting guilt over the marriage? And here's the thing, you've got four lines after that that all say the same thing. "I didn't even know the man, I only heard his name mentioned in passing, I wouldn't know, you'd have to know the particulars..." The point is, you don't know the guy, we f - king get it. Make it work with one line: "I didn't even know the man." Right?

Riggan: Right. Yeah. You know my lines too, huh?

Mike Shiner: Can we not get hung up on knowing lines?

Sam: I want to ask another question.

Mike Shiner: You already did.

Sam: One more.

Mike Shiner: Go ahead.

Sam: If you weren't afraid, what would you want to do to me?

Mike Shiner: I'd pull your eyes out of your head...

Sam: That's sweet.

Mike Shiner: ...and put them in my own skull, and look around, so I could see the street the way I used to when I was your age.

Sam: Truth or dare?

Mike Shiner: Truth.

Sam: That's boring.

Mike Shiner: Truth is always more interesting.

Lady in Bar: You headed to Hollywood, Mike?

Mike Shiner: No. Hollywood's heading here, Tabby.

Mike Shiner: Riggan, your gun is ridiculous. I can see the red plug in the barrel, so you look like a kid with a plastic toy when you point it at me. I don't feel threatened at all. Get a better one. Have some self respect, please.

Mike Shiner: Lesley?

Lesley: What?

Mike Shiner: I think I'm hard.

Lesley: No, you're not. It's just that sometimes you don't consider other people's feelings, that's all.

Mike Shiner: No, no, no. I'm getting hard. Feel that.

Lesley: [after accidentally bad-mouthing Sam in front of her] How is it that you always manage to find a new way to humiliate me?

Mike Shiner: Oh, to be fair, you make it really easy.

Mike Shiner: They called me for an interview. I told them the first thing that came into my head. The front cover of the art section for Christ's sake.

Riggan: Fuck the art section!

Lesley: What are you doing?

Mike Shiner: I'm waiting on Larry.

Larry: I'm finished.

Mike Shiner: Then I'm just standing with my cock out.

Lesley: Well, get dressed. Riggan's daughter's hanging around, and I don't need her to...

Mike Shiner: Lesley?

Lesley: ...walk in here. No, Mike, you haven't seen her. She's always hanging around, watching everyone, like Little Miss Creepy.

Mike Shiner: Mm-hmm. Les?

Lesley: I don't know if it's the drugs that fried her brain or what, but I just don't want her running to her father saying you showed her your junk.

Mike Shiner: Then we should ask her to leave.

Lesley: [mortified] Oh, god. Really?

Riggan: [speaking to Mike as he walks into a bar] Where are you going?

Mike Shiner: They have coffee here.