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I get pretty attached to the majority of the characters I play. I can't help myself.

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
Play
Attached
Majority
Characters
Pretty
Help
Helping
Character

More quotes by Michael Shannon

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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
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If I were God, I would just be up there scratching my head, thinking, 'What the hell am I supposed to do with this?' For everyone helping an old lady across the street, there's someone else bludgeoning a person to death. And sometimes they're the same. How can He separate us all out?
Michael Shannon
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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
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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
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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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I'm equally terrified of both comedy and drama. The only thing I'm really comfortable with is action.
Michael Shannon
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It is surprising that people are snapping photos and stuff and then putting them on the internet. For me, it is like, Why would you want to do that? It would be like knowing what your Christmas presents were before Christmas morning.
Michael Shannon
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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
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A lot of times the characters I play tend to be kind of loners or they don't have best friends or best buddies.
Michael Shannon
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My dad used to say, 'You have to become part of the machine to beat the machine,' and there's some validity in it. But honestly, even when I'm inside the machine, you still see me. I stick out a little bit.
Michael Shannon
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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
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I've always been happy just to be working. It doesn't really matter for me how many people are familiar with my name or my picture, or whatever.
Michael Shannon
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I don't travel for fun, because I travel so much with my work when I'm not working, I mostly want to stay home.
Michael Shannon
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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
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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
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I don't pick my roles by genre that's kind of silly.
Michael Shannon
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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
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Design is the fundamental creative activity with which we direct our lives, and collectively, the earth's transformation from its original, natural state into our human-made world.
Michael Shannon
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I've known a lot of very religious people. My mother is very religious, but she was also very - is very private about it. She - when I was growing up, she never went to church. She just prayed and read her Bible and kept it to herself. So I'm not from a background of flamboyant believers. It's much more a personal issue.
Michael Shannon
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If you are only getting two takes and you are on a crazy set where there is a lot of noise and distractions and it is hard to focus - that is frustrating. But I don't mind two takes if there is a healthy respect with the work going on with the actors.
Michael Shannon