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You got to know what's worth keeping and what's worth letting go.

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
Letting
Keeping
Meaningful
Worth

More quotes by 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'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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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 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
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I don't pick my roles by genre that's kind of silly.
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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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 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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People are morons. I don't do any social media stuff. I have people telling me all the time, You should do Twitter, you should do this, you should get on Facebook. Are you insane? I'm not doing any of that crap. I stay the hell off that thing. Every once in a while, I send a business email, and that's it.
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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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 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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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
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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
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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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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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I just keep working on things I like, and hope for the best. I hope people enjoy them.
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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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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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