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Consider this an early warning: Michael Shannon may be the best actor you’ve never heard of.
With his towering stature and imposing mug, Shannon has dutifully worked his way through scene stealing supporting turns in Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center,” Sidney Lumet’s “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and Curtis Hanson’s “Lucky You.” Attentive audiences have also caught his starring roles in the 2007 arthropodic psycho-thriller “Bug” and 2008’s small but widely admired indie “Shotgun Stories.” They all paved the way for his funny, fiery and nuanced performance as the mentally-disturbed John Givings in Sam Mendes’ adaptation of Richard Yates' classic novel “Revolutionary Road.”
Despite appearing in only a handful of scenes, Shannon leaves a lasting impression. No small feat, when you consider that he’s playing up against the ocean liner-sized chemistry of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as suburban couple on the verge of a breakdown, April and Frank Wheeler.
While Oscar-scented rumors of a best supporting actor nomination for Shannon continue stubbornly to swirl, we took a moment to catch up with the actor and discuss the finer points of bad math, treading the boards and matters of a larger-than-average cranium.
The character of John Givings has been described as the film’s version of a Greek chorus. Was it difficult to work on a character who delivers a lot of emotional exposition in a fairly short amount of time?
I look at [Givings] as real person who wants to make a connection with other people. He’s constantly testing the people around him to see if they’re up to snuff. For a few minutes, I think that he believes that Frank and April may understand him, and he finds that to be a relief. But then he realizes that they’re really just as disappointing as everyone else. He’s very indelibly described in the book, so I just used that as my guide. He’s also a mathematician, so I tried to read some books on math, which I wasn’t very successful at.
Had you read “Revolutionary Road” before the film came along?
Yeah, about a year before the film. It was actually the first present my girlfriend ever gave me.
That’s an interesting choice as a present from a girlfriend.
[Laughs] Yeah, exactly. Well, we’re not like Frank and April.
You’ve kept up with work in the theater as well. Where are you finding the time for it on top of the film roles?
Theater’s a passion of mine. I don’t really feel good not doing theater. It’s been hard to figure out how to balance theater and film. If you really want to make it in the film business, you have to go out West. Which I did for a couple of years. I just went out and threw myself into the Hollywood arena. I worked a lot and I kept busy, but I didn’t find a lot of the work I was doing to be as satisfying as what I’d been doing in the theater. In 2001, I came back to Chicago, and that’s when we did “Bug” at Red Orchid [which eventually was adapted into a film co-starring Ashley Judd].
What was the experience like to originate a role that you’d play plenty of times over the next few years?
I’d had that experience once before with Tracy [Letts, the writer of “Bug”], with the role of Chris Smith in “Killer Joe.” I think Tracy is one of the best writers we have, and both of those plays really offered quite an opportunity to explore incredibly complex characters, so the experience never got dull. There was always more to do, deeper to go. I did a lot of performances of both plays, but I never got tired of either of them.
Earlier this year I spoke to Jeff Nichols about his film “Shotgun Stories.” Now that you’re a part of larger, more mainstream films, will there still be time for small-budget films?
I loved doing “Shotgun Stories.” Inevitably, when you’re on the set shooting those kinds of movies, there comes a point where maybe you wish there was more money, that maybe it would make things easier. But ultimately, that’s where the real kinds of cutting edge work is going on. If there’s less money involved you can take more risks.
Nichols said he was worried he wouldn’t be able to fit you into the frame. He said you have an enormous head.
I do. But I’ve heard that a lot of the old-time movie stars had big heads. And they were tall, too. That’s how it all started out: the big, hulking men with the big heads, then somewhere around the ‘70s everybody got small. But now, I think the big men are on a comeback.
Any sorts of perks from the possibility of an Oscar nomination?
I don’t know. Right now, that only exists in the world of the media. Until the nominations are actually announced, people in the real world aren’t going to really know about it. It would be nice, sure, but so far my life hasn’t been changed and I don’t want it to. I just want to work and tell stories. Best not to put the cart before the horse.
