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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
People
Getting
Acting
Scream
Running
Miserable
Else
Fronts
Someone
Front
Around
Started
Wanted
Crazy
Without
Trouble
More quotes by 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
I just look at it as a real group activity when you are making movies. There are so many different artists doing so many different things, and they are all interconnected. So I like to see what everybody else is going to bring to the table before I make up my mind too much about anything.
Michael Shannon
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
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
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
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
I've never worried about anything in my life a fraction of the way I worry about my daughter. It's much more than hoping people like the play you're in, or that your outfit doesn't look bad. It's the real deal.
Michael Shannon
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
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
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
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
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
I just keep working on things I like, and hope for the best. I hope people enjoy them.
Michael Shannon
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
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
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
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
If you are going to be on TV for however many years, you want to make sure that you have writers that are giving you something to work with, and I got that in spades.
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
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
