Michael Shannon's Sundance Neo-Noir Film - Michael Shannon p.2

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Thursday, 24 December 2009 01:28

Written by Brad Balfour

Q: Though you were the one awarded the Oscar nomination, you were still just a supporting character in Revolutionary Road. In Bug, you're really the driving force, but you weren't thought of as the lead. But here you're really the lead; it's a movie about reaction to you, and you reacting.

MS: It's an opportunity for me. I'm not shaping these stories really, I'm just getting the opportunity to show up and participate. At the end of the day, at least from my perspective and my experience of things, the actor in a film is not a real power position. What the audience ultimately winds up watching is a lot more about the vision of the director and of the other artists involved--the cinematographer, editor. Film is a very technical medium, and the actor gets this opportunity to contribute their portion of it, but it's not like it's my vision.
 
Q: As an interpreter of the director's vision, you are the truth-teller. In Revolutionary Road your character was a truth-teller. In Bug, as crazy as he was, he was a truth-teller as well.
 
MS: Maybe there's something about me. It's hard to be aware of yourself to that degree. I'm not even necessarily sure that I look at what I do as an act of self-expression, really. It's more about trying to serve the story. I guess I express myself basically in what I decide to get involved in. But once I'm there, it's like [I'm] a servant of the story and director.
 
Q: In a funny way, Kim Fowley, your character in The Runaways — the upcoming bio-pic of the legendary girl rockers — is the ultimate manipulator, truth-teller or truth-hider. He also fits into the set of characters that you should play. That must have been interesting; what was that like?
 
MS: That was very daunting, very intimidating. I met him. [He and I ], Joan Jett and Kristen Stewart [who plays Jett in the film] had dinner one night at a Denny's. He told me that he hoped I did a good job in the movie, because when he died that was how he was going to be remembered, was by my performance. I said, "Well, thanks for the pressure, I really appreciate that."
 
He was very sweet, actually. He really is a character. I watched as much footage as I could. I don't think I pulled off a spot-on impersonation of Kim Fowley, but that's never been my forte to begin with. I never claimed to be able to do that. But I certainly think what I did will honor his legacy and his memory. Hopefully, when he sees it, he'll agree.

Q: Were you much of a rock and roll fan?
 
MS: Oh, yeah. I love rock and roll; I love music in general. That was a really fun era for music.
 
Q: Besides getting to work with some great first-time directors, you've also worked with the legends — from John Waters (Cecil B. DeMented) and Cameron Crowe (Vanilla Sky) to Sidney Lumet (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead). How do you resist wanting to watch all their movies and talk to them about it?
 
MS: Well, fortunately, most of the time you're just there to work, you don't have too much time. If I'm working with someone for awhile, we make an opportunity to have dinner or something, and that's when you get to hear all the stories. But when you're at work, it's all about the work. I'm not a Chatty Cathy on the set anyway. I generally tend to not talk unless I'm saying one of my lines, because I'm trying to concentrate and conserve my energy.
 
Q: You were initially a theater actor, and because you're a tall person with an imposing quality you can really have a power on a stage. In film, you pull it back or you control it differently. How is that contrast for you?
 
MS: I don't know, I don't see them as being as different. I think that's largely because a lot of the theaters I have worked in have been very small, very intimate. I think the difference was larger maybe back in the old days when you would do a play in an 800-seat theater and then go do a movie with Hitchcock or something; that was a bigger discrepancy. But nowadays, a lot of the theaters are very intimate. Even some of the larger theaters, they've found a way to make them incredibly intimate. It's not as big a discrepancy as it used to be.
 
Q: You worked with a great ensemble in Werner Herzog's re-think of Abel Ferrera's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
 
MS: That was a lot of fun. I got to do two scenes with Nic Cage, one of the biggest movie stars in the world — also a very inventive actor to work with. My scenes were just with Nic. Both the days I was working with him, I think he was feeling particularly inspired. It's an older kind of Nic Cage performance, not so much the leading man roles where he has to rein it in or something. He gets to let loose and have fun. He does such an incredible job. When he gets an opportunity to do what he's good at, he really knocks it out of the park.
 
Q: Give me a quick take on working Jonah Hex, based on the DC Comics character. Even though you're not Hex, it must be fun to work in a comic book film where these characters are a little larger than life.
 
MS: I had a lot of fun on Jonah Hex. I was only there a couple of days; my character's just in a couple of scenes. But they tell me that if there's a sequel, I would be back in a larger capacity — which would be fun, because it's a really fun character. I had never heard of the comic series before, but when I was there and looking at the artwork, [I thought] it's really strong.
 
Q: Are you working on something now, beside being in Herzog's My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done and Gela Babluani's 13?
 
MS: I'm working on a TV show right now called Boardwalk Empire, which is going to be on HBO. We shot the pilot this summer, and now we're shooting the series.
 
Q: And that will be the Atlantic City boardwalk?
 
MS: The first episode is right at the start of Prohibition in Atlantic City. Very gritty.
 
Q: You don't think you'll do a superhero someday like, Nic Cage has done
 
MS: I'd play a superhero if there was good writing. I'd play Oscar the Grouch if it was good writing. I like good writing, and a lot of times the writing is more complicated and interesting when you're dealing with characters that are [somewhat] damaged. That's just the way it is.
 

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