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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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Michael Shannon
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: August 7
Actor
Film Actor
Musician
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Lexington
Kentucky
Running
Miserable
Else
Fronts
Someone
Front
Around
Started
Wanted
Crazy
Without
Trouble
People
Getting
Acting
Scream

More quotes by 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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When you see a struggle that you may be having personally put on a big screen and in a roomful of people, then it makes you feel less crazy or alone, because you're seeing that other people are dealing with it too. You get to see in this imaginary scenario how people might try and answer some questions or deal with some problems.
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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Inevitably people will get tired of me. People get tired of everyone except Jimmy Stewart. I'm not saying Jimmy Stewart would get tired of me, I'm just saying people will never get tired of Jimmy Stewart.
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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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
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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 get pretty attached to the majority of the characters I play. I can't help myself.
Michael Shannon
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Theater is the best. That's where you get the work done. You just really get in there and figure something out about a story or a character or life or the world. That's where magic stuff happens.
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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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
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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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I think improv training really orients you to character development, more than taking a Strasberg class or Meisner class. Not only is it about developing character really quickly, but it's also about being a good partner in the scene.
Michael Shannon
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As an actor, I don't know what I'm doing. I've never known what I was doing. I show up the first day, I'm scared, and I just hang out. It's like being in detention - you just wait for it to be over. Then gradually I start to figure out what's going on.
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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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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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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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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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
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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