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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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Michael Shannon
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: August 7
Actor
Film Actor
Musician
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Lexington
Kentucky
Still
Machines
Littles
Beats
Validity
Little
Inside
Stick
Even
Bits
Machine
Become
Sticks
Stills
Beat
Part
Honestly
Used
Dad

More quotes by Michael Shannon

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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
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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 get pretty attached to the majority of the characters I play. I can't help myself.
Michael Shannon
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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
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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'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
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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 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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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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I don't pick my roles by genre that's kind of silly.
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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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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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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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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You got to know what's worth keeping and what's worth letting go.
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'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'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 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
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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