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It's obviously a lot harder to try and be a good guy than it is to be a bad guy. The world is a fundamentally evil place, it seems like. So in order to be a good person, you have to fight temptation and vice.
Michael Shannon
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Michael Shannon
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: August 7
Actor
Film Actor
Musician
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Lexington
Kentucky
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More quotes by Michael Shannon
I just keep working on things I like, and hope for the best. I hope people enjoy them.
Michael Shannon
That's one of the great things about acting - you get to pretend you're somebody else, which is great if you get bored with yourself.
Michael Shannon
Honestly, as hard a profession as acting is, I think music is even harder. Acting, you're like a leech, because someone else does the hard part for you. They write it for you, then the director tells you what to do. You really just need to know how to pay attention, follow instructions.
Michael Shannon
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.
Michael Shannon
I'm just kind of odd. There are dark forces in the world, and if you pay attention to what's going on around you, you end up incorporating it into the storytelling. Maybe it's some aspect of myself that's coming through that people are seeing, that I am in fact a quiet psycho.
Michael Shannon
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.
Michael Shannon
I started acting because I was miserable and crazy and wanted to be someone else, to run around and scream in front of people without getting in trouble.
Michael Shannon
Everything that happens on Wall Street only fortifies my opinion that there is in fact a more ludicrous industry than the entertainment industry.
Michael Shannon
If you don't believe there's some organising principle, or somebody up in the sky pulling the strings, then it can be very stressful. And nature itself is very arbitrary - it's not malevolent or benevolent it doesn't even know we're here.
Michael Shannon
The most fascinating part of movies is the organism of the movie - it's such a bizarre thing to do, to make a movie. To see these people come together, band in unity, to create this thing that almost doesn't exist. It only exists because it's projected on a screen, but other than that, it's an illusion.
Michael Shannon
The thing that is always important to me is the relationships. I feel like until I get around with the actual people that I am going to be working with there is only so much that I can do.
Michael Shannon
I don't pick my roles by genre that's kind of silly.
Michael Shannon
One thing I'm a big fan of is the theater of the absurd. That's what I come from, that's what I love to do more than anything. What I love about absurdity is the words comedy and drama get thrown out the window and it's just life, which is absurd.
Michael Shannon
I'm equally terrified of both comedy and drama. The only thing I'm really comfortable with is action.
Michael Shannon
I certainly don't want to have too many pre-conceived notions before I show up because then you might be cutting yourself off from the real lessons of what is going on.
Michael Shannon
That could sound arrogant, I guess, but sometimes I feel like I have a bit of a Zelig thing. I'll blend in wherever. I'm from the South, so I'll have a Southern accent when I'm home. But if I'm up here in New York, I have a British accent.
Michael Shannon
I want to focus on each scene. I'm a real perfectionist, and I don't want to feel like I didn't consider every possible variation of a scene. I come from a theater background, so I'm used to a lot of repetition, and I'm used to really attacking something over and over and over again.
Michael Shannon
I know this'll sound obnoxious, but acting was very much an accident for me. I didn't have, like, posters of Marlon Brando in my bedroom when I was growing up.
Michael Shannon
That's the great secret of humans: we're all the same person. The best thing to do is just go for the hug.
Michael Shannon
A lot of times people will send me stuff. They will find something and they will send it to me and then I will take a look at it. Every once in awhile I will go on IMDB for 10 or 15 minutes and look around. But I am not a huge gearhead. I don't even have my own computer. I use my girlfriends.
Michael Shannon