Michael Shannon Interview: Becoming A Parent Changed My Acting
This week sees the release of ‘Midnight Special’. The sci-fi tinged chase movie marks the fourth collaboration between acclaimed writer-director Jeff Nichols (Rolling Stone calls him one of “the best American directors of his generation”) and Michael Shannon who continues to be one of the most interesting actors working in Hollywood today.
To many, he’s best known as General Zod having played the Kryptonian in ‘Man of Steel’, but in ‘Midnight Special’ he’s playing Roy the determined father of Alton (superbly played by newcomer Jaeden Lieberher), a young boy who seems to possess extraordinary powers.
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Springing him from the clutches of a religious cult, Shannon’s Roy takes his son across country with the authorities and the cult’s heavies hot on his tails. We spoke with the endearingly enigmatic actor about fatherhood, UFOs, and the General Zod controversy.
Here’s what he had to say…
Yahoo Movies: How did Jeff Nichols pitch ‘Midnight Special’ to you?
Michael Shannon: The first time I heard about ‘Midnight Special’ we were shooting ‘Take Shelter’. He mentioned it on set that he had this idea for a movie that was a chase movie, where I would be in a really badass old car driving around at night being chased by something or someone. And that was about it.
I think when Jeff [Nichols] originally was formulating this idea for this movie, he started off with a visual sense of it before he even necessarily had fleshed out the story so it was pretty intriguing. I hadn’t really heard of a movie being formulated that way or someone kind of reversing that process. Usually people are like ‘well, this is what it’s about’ and then they figure out what it’s going to look like.
But I thought it was bold. It was a bold move.
Are you interested in the supernatural? Do you believe in UFOs and that sort of thing?
I dunno. I think science fiction alive and well in the world. I think the world is full of science fiction right now. UFOs specifically? Maybe not so much, but I’m definitely into the notion of alternate realities or other dimensions and whatnot. I don’t think that we can see everything there is to be seen.
The film to me is about the relationship between a father and his child – is Roy a character you could have played before you’d had children yourself?
Well, I think there’s something about being a parent that you can’t understand unless you are one. Actors are supposed to have vivid imaginations and be able to put themselves in other people’s shoes and yada yada yada.
But, yeah, when you actually have a child it kind of restructures your nervous system and if you’re awake it profoundly affects your consciousness. Oddly enough, right before we started shooting this movie my second child was born, so when I went to New Orleans to start shooting I was fresh out of that, coming fresh out of that experience and it was hard, it was hard to leave because she was literally a week old and I was leaving.
But I definitely think it informed my performance somehow.
Did you and Jeff discuss why Roy would have handed Alton over to the cult in the first place?
Alton was born in the cult. Roy and Sarah (Kirsten Dunst) were in the cult. Roy came to the ranch with his parents, he met Sarah at the ranch and they had the kid. I don’t think the Sam Shepard character tries to take Alton right away the second he’s born. I think it’s only when Alton starts to display these attributes that he becomes interested in claiming him as his own. But the point is Sarah is not willing to accept it and that’s why she gets kicked out.
Roy realizes that if he ever wants to see his son again he has to be a little bit more subversive, so he’s just taking a different strategy, but in the end, it’s like Sarah says in the film, Roy was right.
I think ultimately the point she’s making is that he was stronger than she was because he was able to stay. Because if Roy and Sarah had both gotten kicked out they would never have seen Alton again, probably.
This is your fourth film with Jeff, but it’s the first one that’s being made under a studio banner – Warner Bros. – did that affect the filmmaking process in any way?
No. Warner Bros. were absolutely sensational the way they handled this film, because they gave Jeff just enough so that he could make the film but not too much so that it would be a bloated production. They gave Jeff all the control, they didn’t try to bully him one way or the other and they handled the release of the film with as much attention and devotion as the release of any other film in their catalogue.
It was really an ideal situation, I don’t think we could have asked for much better.
Talking about the Warner Bros. slate, can you talk about how involved you were in ‘Batman v Superman’?
They’re not really asking me to do much for that. All I can say is, Zod’s dead. The end of ‘Man of Steel’, Superman breaks his neck so…
Do you understand the controversy that’s built up around that moment?
Yeah, but no I don’t agree with it. Because Zod very clearly states ‘one of us is going to die, it will either be me or you’, in that situation what is Superman supposed to do?
Because Zod clearly is not going to stop until one of them is dead. He puts Superman in a situation where he has no choice, so I think he did the right thing.
In a recent interview with Playlist, you said that Nicolas Cage was “on another planet” while making ‘Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans’ – what did you mean by that?
Just in his performance. I just had so much fun working with him. I’d never seen somebody so devoted to a character and really just… all I meant when I said that was that he was not an actor on a film set, he was this guy. He had gone there. I don’t know how he did it, but he had transformed himself into this person, like wholeheartedly, that’s all I meant.
‘Midnight Special’, which also stars Adam Driver, Kirsten Dunst, and Joel Edgerton is in UK cinemas from Friday 8 April.
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Image credits: Warner Bros./Associated Press
