Michael Shannon
Michael Shannon
Michael Corbett Shannon is an American actor and musician. Shannon first received attention for his performance in 2002's 8 Mile, where he portrayed the boyfriend of Eminem's character's mother, played by Kim Basinger. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Revolutionary Road in 2008. He played Nelson Van Alden in the HBO period drama series Boardwalk Empire. His performance in the 2011 film Take Shelter led to further critical acclaim, gaining him...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth7 August 1974
CityLexington, KY
CountryUnited States of America
Let's point out the elephant in the room: Actor bands are not notoriously successful enterprises. I can't think of any.
It's obviously a lot harder to try and be a good guy than it is to be a bad guy. The world is a fundamentally evil place, it seems like. So in order to be a good person, you have to fight temptation and vice.
When you see a struggle that you may be having personally put on a big screen and in a roomful of people, then it makes you feel less crazy or alone, because you're seeing that other people are dealing with it too. You get to see in this imaginary scenario how people might try and answer some questions or deal with some problems.
The stage is a routine. It keeps you grounded, like a metronome. I find that soothing.
I started acting because I was miserable and crazy and wanted to be someone else, to run around and scream in front of people without getting in trouble.
If you don't believe there's some organising principle, or somebody up in the sky pulling the strings, then it can be very stressful. And nature itself is very arbitrary - it's not malevolent or benevolent; it doesn't even know we're here.
It is surprising that people are snapping photos and stuff and then putting them on the internet. For me, it is like, "Why would you want to do that?" It would be like knowing what your Christmas presents were before Christmas morning.
If I were God, I would just be up there scratching my head, thinking, 'What the hell am I supposed to do with this?' For everyone helping an old lady across the street, there's someone else bludgeoning a person to death. And sometimes they're the same. How can He separate us all out?
When I'm working, I don't wake up and say, 'OK, time to go be intense.' I just look at whatever scenes we're working on that day and break them down - just real intense everyday work.
If you give me enough time, enough leash, I can become pretty reasonable.
People don't go to the movies to get the news, people don't go to the movies to learn a lesson. People go to the movie to get an emotional experience.
Well, I think anybody who's had a baby can tell you that once you have a baby, they kind of become the main focus. I don't think there's gonna be a lot of room for anything else.
One of the great things about acting is you can do things that in real life would get you in trouble. I think that's something I figured out pretty early on.
There are certain ways of being that people don't find acceptable or very pleasant in regular life, but you go out on stage and do pretty much the same thing and they find it spellbinding.