HEY, WANT SOME FLAWS WITH THAT?
Actor Michael Keaton gets his greed on as Ray Kroc
Michael Keaton enjoys flaunting flaws in the characters he plays.
Keaton showed his talent for defining dysfunction in Birdman, portraying a desperate movie star trying to revive his flagging career. The 65-year-old is back at exemplifying imperfection with his portrait of entrepreneur Ray Kroc in The Founder. The movie profiles Kroc, an ambitious 1950s travelling salesman who transforms the McDonald brothers fast food restaurant in San Bermardino, Calif. i nto a world- wide McDonald’s chain.
Keaton’s Kroc does t hat by maneuvering himself into control of the company from the naive Dick ( Nick Offerman) and Mac ( John Carroll Lynch) McDonald. “I am not a fan of sadistic greed but as an actor it sure is intriguing to play,” says Keaton at a West Hollywood hotel promoting The Founder. However, the film’s goal wasn’t to vilify Kroc or celebrate McDonalds, but fall somewhere in between.
Through Kroc’s determination the McDonald’s chain blossomed in the 1960s and ' 70s. Today it’s a massive franchise empire with over 35,000 locations around the world still honouring, ironically, the McDonald’s name. More than a decade ago, it was actor Jeremy Renner and his production partner Don Handfield who considered the possibility of doing a McDonald’s origin story minus j udgment. It helped t he momentum when Dick McDonald’s grandson Jason French cooperated with them so the real founder tale could be told with detail.
To that end, French provided archival photographs, memorabilia and Dictaphone conversations between Kroc and the McDonald brothers. “It was a movie where the story told itself,” Renner says. “And I love stories where there is a lot of grey, not just black and white.”
With that in mind, Renner and Handfield hired The Wrestler writer Robert Siegel to prepare the script. The Blind Side director John Lee Hancock came on board next to shape yet another American rags-to-riches narrative. They all agreed Keaton would be the right choice to play Kroc. The actor had been enjoying a resurgence with an Oscar nomination for his 2014 Birdman portrayal. A year later he earned great reviews for his journalist role in Spotlight.
Appropriate, too, was the fact that Keaton and Kroc share a similar midwestern attitude, boundless enthusiasm and even a few physical similarities. “And I am a fan of hard work like Kroc,” Keaton says. “In a lot of ways, there’s a lot to admire about a guy like Ray Kroc. What knocks me out is that he was 52 back then, and 52 back then’s a different story.”
As the film shows, Kroc’s also a highly motivated capitalist who says at one point in the movie (and did in real life): “If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth.” That Kroc quote is part of a self- revealing moment in The Founder that the actor looked forward to express- ing. “I couldn’t wait to do that scene which means either I have severe problems or I like what I do for a living,” Keaton says.
Filming what amounts to a California period piece in Atlanta, Ga. was another challenge, but it proved to be successful over the quick 34- day shoot of the movie. To re- create a 1950s McDonald’s on sound stages, the production team paid frequent visits to the still operating 1953 McDonald’s restaurant in Downey, Calif. That helped them re- imagine the McDonald brothers’ hamburger assembly line - often compared to Henry Ford’s automotive idea. The uniforms, too, were faithfully reinvented.
Getting the tone right and the look accurate turned out to be a balancing act all its own. “It was a difficult movie to make but an exciting movie to make, as well,” says the director. Indeed, Keaton commends Hancock for his extra effort on all fronts. “It’s all so layered,” says the headliner of the film. “It’s an amazing accomplishment.”
All things considered, the pursuit of the American Dream is revealed in a positive and a negative light. “The American Dream in its simplest form (means) if you work hard enough you can buy a house and afford a car that can get you back and forth to work,” Keaton says. "And your kids can attend a good school and you can afford a vacation.
“And by t he way,” he adds, “that’s not a bad thing.”
“I HAD TO CHANGE MY NAME BECAUSE THERE WERE TWO OTHER ACTORS WITH THAT NAME. ONE OF THEM IS DOING QUITE WELL, THE OTHER IS MAKING CHEAP PORN MOVIES — LIKE BASIC INSTINCT.’ MICHAEL KEATON, BORN MICHAEL DOUGLAS