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
I've known a lot of religious people. My mother is very religious, but she also is very private about it. When I was growing up, she never went to church. She just prayed and read her Bible and kept it to herself. I'm not from a background of flamboyant believers. It's much more a personal issue.
It's a little bit odd. The first time you do the play, you kind of throw yourself into it, trying to get the most out of all the individual moments. Then, a few hours later, you're still there, wondering what you could possibly do differently than what you just did a couple hours ago.
My dad used to say, 'You have to become part of the machine to beat the machine,' and there's some validity in it. But honestly, even when I'm inside the machine, you still see me. I stick out a little bit.
Everything that happens on Wall Street only fortifies my opinion that there is in fact a more ludicrous industry than the entertainment industry.
Everybodys constantly being destroyed and rebuilding themselves, some more drastically than others.
A lot of times the characters I play tend to be kind of loners or they don't have best friends or best buddies.
I just look at it as a real group activity when you are making movies. There are so many different artists doing so many different things, and they are all interconnected. So I like to see what everybody else is going to bring to the table before I make up my mind too much about anything.
If you are only getting two takes and you are on a crazy set where there is a lot of noise and distractions and it is hard to focus - that is frustrating. But I don't mind two takes if there is a healthy respect with the work going on with the actors.
Children eat 10, 20, 30 times greater in amount than adults, and they have smaller bodies. So in a milligram-per-pound body weight, they are exposed to much, much more of the pesticide placed on these products compared to an adult,
Theater is the best. That's where you get the work done. You just really get in there and figure something out about a story or a character or life or the world. That's where magic stuff happens.
I get pretty attached to the majority of the characters I play. I can't help myself.
I like to play characters that get to do it all - to have a bit of comedy here and a bit of pathos here and a bit of suspense here, that's what's fun.