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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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Michael Shannon
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: August 7
Actor
Film Actor
Musician
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Lexington
Kentucky
Enjoy
Keep
Best
Things
Like
People
Working
Hope

More quotes by Michael Shannon

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The thing that is always important to me is the relationships. I feel like until I get around with the actual people that I am going to be working with there is only so much that I can do.
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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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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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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I don't pick my roles by genre that's kind of silly.
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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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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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 I'm working, I don't wake up and say, 'OK, time to go be intense.' I just look at whatever scenes we're working on that day and break them down - just real intense everyday work.
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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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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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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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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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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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 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
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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
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I have been acting for over 20 years and I started in the smallest little theater that you can possibly imagine and then I very slowly built myself to this point. So it is never like there is this real sharp change or something that really startled me. It has just been very gradual.
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