Michael Shannon on Music, the Apocalypse, and Keeping Up With Hollywood (2024)

Michael Shannonknows how to wake you up. He remembers filming Take Sheltera little over a decade ago, directed by his frequent collaborator Jeff Nichols,and “disappearing” as he got into the film’s most visceral scene, in which his character describes his vivid, looming apocalyptic visions. “I look at it as an opportunity to shock people out of their complacency or their zoned-out state of being,” he says.

This is an actor who manages to do that just about every time he’s onscreen—and sometimes, in candid interviews like this one, even when the cameras aren’t rolling. Shannon had a tough road in the early going of his career; he says now he didn’t take the “easy route,” and considers himself lucky while thinking about his old Chicago peers who haven’t made it in the same way he has. Shannon has everything from a lauded limited series (George & Tammy) to a tentpole smash (The Flash) to an apocalyptic musical (Joshua Oppenheimer’sThe End) to discuss on this week’sLittle Gold Men (listen below). But in each of his ferocious performances, you see an actor who never takes his position—or his deeply flawed characters—for granted.

Perhaps that also explains why Shannon brings a rare, unfiltered honesty to our conversation. On his own accord, he brings up the professional struggles faced by his old friend Nichols, who will soon release his first feature in seven years; the difficult situation surrounding hisFlashcostarEzra Miller,who has faced several recent controversies; and the feeling of “What the fuck am I doing here?” that he gets on certain projects that aren’t exactly inspiring him. Fortunately, that last one doesn’t hit him too often. Shannon’s made a habit of maintaining a rich, exciting career.

Vanity Fair: Both in Take Shelter and George & Tammy, you and Jessica Chastain create an intensely emotional dynamic that really translates. How did you find yourselves going there together in this show?

Michael Shannon:It’s quite an odyssey, the story of these two people and how they come together. It’s like walking around the world or something—it’s a big, big trip. You just start by putting one foot in front of the other, by doing the research. There’s plenty to read and watch and look at; you try and imagine the commonality or the similarities that you have with these people you’re attempting to play. Jessica and I, the way that we got into this business and the way that we were able to accomplish what we’ve accomplished—we didn’t take the easy route. Kind of similar to George and Tammy, we had some hard knocks that we came from and, and so we could kind of identify with that aspect of their lives. Also like George and Tammy, our backgrounds kind of unified us. We’re kindred spirits, I guess is what I’m saying in a long-winded fashion.

I’m not sure if you watch yourself, but this is one where I’d be especially curious, just given that you are working off of so much material and this is an iconic performer. Were you interested in gauging the reaction on how close you got? Or was that not as important to you?

You can really torture yourself if you get into that…. I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and I looked at George Jones’s suit hanging there, and it was a little tiny suit. I could literally see my reflection in the glass standing there, staring at this suit; I’m like, This is ridiculous. No offense, but he’s just much smaller than I am. But it doesn’t really matter.

You are a musician yourself. I believe you’ve said of actor bands, “I’m embarrassed by them and I’m an actor.”

Oh yeah, it’s true.

But it is a part of your creative life. Did it feel to you like you were able to tap into that part of your creative self, that maybe isn’t as much a part of your professional life as it was when you first started?

It’s funny because I started doing music before I ever started acting. The first art form I dabbled with was music, when I was a kid. I guess I get a little leeway, because of that. [Laughs] It was a really nice feeling to show up at work and be in a situation where I could sing, and it was my job that day to sing. That felt really nice, as intimidating as it was and as challenging as it was. It still was very exciting to me. I love music and I love singing and I was surrounded—all the people that play the musicians in the show are actual, highly regarded Nashville musicians. Between takes, if I started playing a guitar or something, they could all come in and we’d just start playing a song. That was a lot of fun, more fun doing that than, like, the scene where I start shooting a shotgun in the house or something.

You’ve talked in the past about the industry’s “stay in your lane” mentality. I’m not sure how much that applies to music, but I am curious even just within your career as an actor, how do you see what your lane is? You’ve done a lot of different kinds of work.

I really appreciate you saying that because I feel early on in my career, the first 10 years or so—and then there’s still people that do it to this day—some people thought I just did one thing. They’re like, “Oh, you’re always the bad guy,” or “You’re the guy I hate,” or something like that. I’m like, “What are you basing that on? Have you literally sat down and watched every single thing I’ve ever done?” I used to get kind of offended by it and then I just realized it wasn’t worth it. You make some movies or some material that you’re really passionate about and it falls by the wayside a little bit, and then maybe stuff that is what you’re “known” for also has a bigger audience. I can’t control that. I’m not doing the marketing or the distributing. I really think of myself as a hired gun. The decision I get to make is whether I say yes or no, and then once you say yes, you just do it.

I think of a movie likeTake Shelter. On the one hand, it’s a movie where you get to show and play an extraordinary range of emotions. But it also perhaps contains what I think you’re probably known for, which you’re very good at: For lack of a better way of putting it, losing it on camera. I remember the first time I watched it, I was blown away and taken aback by those really visceral scenes. Where do you go, as an actor, in scenes like that?

I think—you just go away. Like, you just go away, you disappear. I know that sounds like a non-answer, but you definitely can’t be watching yourself or thinking about, How’s this gonna look? It’s not something you can really orchestrate. If you identify with what the person’s going through, which I did very much in that instance—that’s something I want to say all the time. You’re talking about the fish fry scene, and what Curtis is saying—“There’s a storm coming, and not a one of you is prepared for it”—I thought, maybe if people have watched this movie, they’ll wake up and realize what the heck’s going on. And then like all these years later, it’s like the world’s still pretty much the same. It’s just crazy. But I look at it as an opportunity to shock people out of their complacency or their zoned-out state of being.

If you watch it now, it still has that looming sense of doom or terror. It hits just as hard as it did then. And you also just filmed Joshua Oppenheimer’s apocalypse-musical, do I have that right?

I am still actually in the midst of it. We’re shooting in three different countries and we just wrapped in Ireland, but now we’re moving on to Italy and then Germany. We’re about halfway finished. It is super bleak, but actually quite entertaining at the same time. It’s quite a hat trick Mr. Oppenheimer’s pulling off. I don’t want to jinx it. We’re still shooting, so knock on wood.

You do get that cross of musical and apocalypse, both of which seem to keep finding you, Michael. Finally in one package.

Yeah, right. [Laughs] Yes, the musical apocalypse.

We’ve also got another Jeff Nichols movie coming up, The Bikeriders. I believe Austin Butler is in that movie, so I’m curious if you guys exchanged Elvis notes at all, since you’ve both played him.

It came up when we met, like real fast. I was like, “Man, you, you crushed that!” And he’s like, “Yeah, you were all right too.” [Laughs] That was it. I just adore him. He’s sweet, sweet fella, Austin.

I’m excited to see that one. It’s been a little while since we’ve had a new Jeff Nichols movie.

It’s been way too long—long overdue. That guy’s actually been through some. Man, he had a tough patch there. He was trying to make some really big projects. Sometimes you put a lot of effort into those things and they just don’t come to fruition. When the budgets get real high, you know? He kind of dropped the clutch and went in reverse and went down another road. But I’m glad he did thisBikeriders movie.

If you look at his movies, he went fromShotgun Stories, which was like $5 to make, thenTake Shelter was like $1 million. He just kept trying to go up the ladder with each movie.Midnight Special was actually a pretty big film, and then he was trying to go for that—he’s like, “Can I get to that nine-figure type movie?” It didn’t work out, but it will. We’ll get to it someday.

You mentioned yourself feeling like a hired gun, so as a working actor, how closely do you observe industry shifts? Even withGeorge & Tammy, the origins of this are a movie, and it feels like the kind of thing that would’ve been a movie 10 years ago. Now it’s a limited series.

When all these limited series started coming down the pike, I was like, “Wait a minute, what the heck is this?” You either were doing a movie or you were on a series and I was real clear, I didn’t really want to be on a series. I dug doing movies. I loved doing theater. I did not want to be on 10 seasons of some procedural show. I knew that and it was very clear. But then these limited series came along and all these streamers, which is just not my milieu at all. I don’t like to watch stuff on a laptop, you know? I either want to be in a movie theater, or theater theater, but people kept saying, “Well, this is what’s going on now.” Or: “This is where you’re being offered.”

Saying all that, I’m very pleased actually thatGeorge & Tammywound up being a limited series. I think it would’ve suffered as a movie.Abe Sylvia, the writer-creator, had a lot more time to tell a more nuanced, specific story because of the format. If you try to squeeze what we did in a 90-minute movie, it would’ve been tedious. It’s weird: You think everybody thinks you’ve got to make things shorter because people’s attention spans are so short and you only get so much time. But a lot of times I find if you make something shorter, the more boring it gets because you take out all the interesting details and you just leave the broad strokes that you’ve already seen like 500 times before in so many other movies or shows or whatever. I don’t think it’s necessarily true that making things shorter makes them more interesting.

The other industry shift I wanted to ask you about was being in a tentpole, with the upcomingFlash movie. Do you care about the noise around the changing of that DC guard and all the talk around exactly what this movie represents for the studio?

I initially had some trepidation going into it because I just adoreZack Snyder.Hegave me an extraordinary opportunity when he offered me that part [inMan of Steel]. I was flabbergasted when he offered me that part. I never imagined that anybody would ever give me an opportunity like that, and I enjoyed working with him so much, so when all that went down with theJustice League, it really upset me. I know there’s two sides to every story, and I might not have all the facts so I shouldn’t have too strong an opinion about it, but when [directorAndy Muschietti]called me about The Flash, first of all, I was just confused. I was like, Didn’t I die at the end ofMan of Steel? Am I, like, a zombie or what’s going on?” And I confessed to Andy, I’ve really got to get Zack’s blessing to do this. I’m not going to feel comfortable unless he says he understands. but Zack gave me that blessing and I went and did it. I wasn’t there very long. It was a totally different experience thanMan of Steel, which was months and months of my life, almost a year, if you count the training we did leading up to the shoot.Flash I was in and out of there in a couple of weeks. But I hear there’s been some—I’ve gotta admit, I’m not looking at the trades every morning, keeping my finger on the pulse of things, but I know there’s been some issues. It seems like they’re ready to let it out.

If you’re talking aboutEzra [Miller], I thought Ezra was lovely—very kind to me when I was there. It’s difficult to talk about, but I always give people a lot of slack in this business, because there’s a lot of people in this business that have issues. And some people have more privacy than others. Any time somebody is out in the spotlight getting picked on, I feel for them. Even if it’s warranted, it’s still a horrible situation.

Look no further thanGeorge & Tammy for evidence of people having some troubles.

Yeah.

When I watchedGeorge & Tammy, the first thing I thought was, this feels like an enormous commitment on both a technical and an emotional level. I think of you as someone who pops up on my screen in a lot of different ways, pretty much every year. Does it ever get to feeling like you’re doing too much?

I’ve had that thought, yeah—I won’t lie. There will be times where I’ll stop and think, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” Like how many different people can I be? I’ve been a lot of different people. The other day—like, I played Elvis and George Jones, and then somebody’s calling up and saying, Well, would he play Johnny Cash? I’m like, “What am I, a one-man Madame Tussauds wax museum? Or something like, am I Lon Chaney Jr. or something? What’s going on here? But I gotta say, COVID helped with that a little bit. That was a reset for all of us. Although it wasn’t even really that long of a layoff for me—it was four months, I think, before I was doingNine Perfect Strangers in Australia.

That’s not that long, Michael.

Yeah. [Laughs] But alternatively, you have to always keep in perspective how fortunate you are, because I know a lot of people that would trade places with me in a heartbeat, you know? People that I came up with in Chicago that are genuinely as talented as I am, and don’t get the opportunities I get. You look around and you’re like, “I’m tired and I’m beat up, but look at this amazing thing I’m making.” I got to feel that way when I was doingGeorge & Tammy. I got to feel that way when I was doingWaco. I feel that way now. The tough part is when you look around set and you’re like, “This is a piece of shit. What the fuck am I doing here?” That’s when it gets tricky. But if you’re smart about the choices you make, that doesn’t happen too often.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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