OSCAR NOMINEE Michael Shannon: The Hollywood Interview

Actor Michael Shannon.


MICHAEL SHANNON: ON THE ROAD
By
Alex Simon

Editor's Note: The announcement came early this AM that Michael Shannon was one of five nominees for Best Supporting Actor in this year's Academy Awards. This chat with Michael appeared in the December/January issue of Venice Magazine.

Actor Michael Shannon was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1974, and began his professional stage career in Chicago, where he worked with renowned Chi-town theatrical troupes such as Steppenwolf, The Next Lab and The Red Orchid Theater. He followed this with a year in London, where he performed in such diverse fare as “Woyzeck,” “Killer Joe,” and “Bug,” the latter being moved to New York, where it caught the eye of director William Friedkin, who adapted Tracy Lett’s play for the screen, with Shannon reprising his original role, opposite Ashley Judd, in 2006, which proved to be Shannon’s breakout year, also garnering attention for his role as a heroic former Marine in Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center. Shannon had come a long way (over 30 television and film appearances) since his (very brief) film debut in 1993’s Groundhog Day.

Michael Shannon’s latest cinematic venture is Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road. Adapted from Richard Yates’ cult novel about young marrieds (Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet) dealing with identity and social repression in mid-1950s Connecticut, Shannon nearly steals the show as John Givings, the mentally-ill son of terminally-chirpy real estate agent Kathy Bates (also terrific) who, at times, seems to be the only truly sane person in the room. The Paramount release hits theaters December 26.

Michael Shannon, who is a new father to a baby girl, spoke to us recently from his home in New York City.

You’re a native of Lexington, Kentucky. How does one discover acting in the South?
Michael Shannon: I didn’t know I was going to be an actor as a kid. It happened quite by accident. I’m not much of an athlete, and if you’re not an athlete in Kentucky, you’re a bit cloistered. I wanted something to do after school, and one day I looked on this bulletin board and had all the different teams the losers could be on like the math team, things like that, and I saw there was this thing called “the speech team,” and I thought that looked interesting. So I walked in and they said “Tell us a story.” So I made up a story, which I can’t remember now, but they liked it enough to let me be on the team, and said “We’re going to give you something called a monologue, and you’ve got to memorize all this, then use it in a competition.” So they gave me this thing from "Lake Wobegone Days" by Garrison Keillor called “Booger Days,” about a little boy who ate his boogers. So I studied that, and would practice it in my bedroom. I never got to compete with it, because I was a substitute, and no one ever missed any of the meets, so I only performed it in my bedroom. But that’s where I caught the acting bug, as it were.

From Lexington you went to Chicago.
Yeah, my parents divorced when I was very young. My mom lived in Lexington, and my dad in Chicago. So I went back and forth, and finally I just decided to go up and stay in Chicago. I started doing plays in little storefronts, basements…at the very bottom. I did a few shows at Steppenwolf eventually. I got my SAG card in ’92 doing some TV stuff in Chicago and then my first film was Groundhog Day where I got to have a scene with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell. And that was really exciting for a young guy. It’s a very seasonal movie, and always plays during the holidays so I usually have people recognizing me as “that guy from Groundhog Day” during the holidays.

Shannon in Bug.

Along with your $1.09 residual check from SAG.
(laughs) Yeah, right. Goes straight into my savings.

Let’s jump forward a bit and talk about Revolutionary Road. I loved your character because he was the only truth-teller in the entire film, and he was labeled “insane.”
Yeah, I think he is insane, though. I think one of the reasons he’s able to tell the truth is because he’s insane, and when I say “insane,” I mean he’s not trying to live an ordinary life. The idea that he’ll ever have his own little house with his own little family and his own little life is something that he knows will never happen. He’s going to spend his life going in and out of mental institutions. He’s cracked beyond repair. So from that perspective, it gives you a lot of liberty to say what’s on your mind, because you’re not trying to protect anything.

Shannon in Revolutionary Road.

I had no idea that the book the film is based on has been around since 1961.
Yeah, and I would have been completely unaware of it, had my girlfriend not given it to me. It’s one of the finest pieces of writing I’ve ever read. I’m hoping the movie actually inspires people to read that book, along with his other writings, especially his short stories.

What was it like working with Sam Mendes? Since you have such a strong stage background yourself, do you notice a difference when you work with a director like Sam, who’s done both stage and film work, as opposed to someone who’s strictly a filmmaker?
Yeah, one of the things I love about Sam is that he actually took notes during takes. I’d never seen that before, not with a film director. You see it quite often in the theater. Before one take, Sam came up to me, and he’d written down eight things he was looking for in that take, and afterwards, he walked up to me and said “You got all eight of them.” I was very proud of that.

The film felt like a real ensemble piece even though you have two of the biggest movie stars in the world playing the leads.
Yeah, I think what united all of us was a desire to capture the book, and our love of the material and were excited to see what each person was going to do with each particular part, and were rooting for each other to find the right stuff. Not only did we want to make a great movie, we wanted to honor this great book we had so much affection for.

One thing that must have been fun for you was the fact that your character is one that all the other characters react to, which is a much more powerful position to be in since in all your scenes, you’re basically controlling the action.
Yeah, it’s fun when you see Sam’s use of the reaction shots. Oftentimes when you’re talking, you’re watching how the other actors react to you. What makes my character powerful is the way others react to him, as you say. If the camera was just on me, and you never saw the way anybody else was reacting, it would have no impact.

Shannon in World Trade Center.

The other person kept thinking of while watching you, was Lenny Bruce. Like Lenny, I think this guy was a decade or more ahead of his time, and had he been born in a different time, maybe he wouldn’t have lost his mind, but been a really insightful social commentator.
As a group, we talked about the fact that it was an era of containment these people were dealing with, and had it been ten years later, during the era of liberation, he probably could have been a hero of some sort in a counter-cultural movement. The interesting thing to note is that the difference between John and Frank is not as large as it appears at first glance. Frank has probably had a lot of the same thoughts and feelings that John has had, and he almost went down that road himself, that’s why April’s even presenting the option of moving to Paris in the first place: that somewhere within Frank is a person who is as vivacious and humorous as John is. It’s just a matter of being contained. Frank stuffs his feelings, while John expresses his. As sophisticated as we like to think we are in this modern era, I think it’s a decision people still grapple with every day: do I be who I am or do I have to try really hard to be someone else?