

Michael Shannon's Quotes

Michael Shannon profile photo

Born: 1974-08-07
Profession: Actor
Nation: American
Biography of Michael Shannon

See the gallery for quotes by Michael Shannon. You can to use those 7 images of quotes as a desktop wallpapers.
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It's always very daunting to play someone who actually existed. You have to honor that, and be specific and accurate and try to make people believe that you're that guy, which is really hard.

Tags: Hard, Someone, Try

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.

Tags: Become, Dad, Used

One of the great things about acting is you can do things that in real life would get you in trouble. I think that's something I figured out pretty early on.

Tags: Great, Life, Real

One of the reasons I got into acting to begin with is that I was trying to figure out how life worked. It was interesting to me to try and follow how other people, real or imaginary, would deal with problems, because I was trying to deal with my own problems.

Tags: Life, Real, Trying

One of the reasons I'm an actor is because I was no physical specimen as a child. I wasn't athletic and didn't have any prowess in that regard. Growing up in Kentucky, most little boys were trying to get into sports, and it was very competitive, so that was not to be. But I did want to do something.

Tags: Child, Sports, Trying

The thing about New York is, more than any other place I've ever been, you run into people on the street that you would never imagine you'd see, old friends, people just like there for a day or two. I find that all the time when I'm walking around Manhattan, running into people that I had no idea were even there.

Tags: Friends, Old, Time

There are certain ways of being that people don't find acceptable or very pleasant in regular life, but you go out on stage and do pretty much the same thing and they find it spellbinding.

Tags: Life, Pretty, Stage


Tags: Secret, Society, Tell

Well, I think anybody who's had a baby can tell you that once you have a baby, they kind of become the main focus. I don't think there's gonna be a lot of room for anything else.

Tags: Become, Else, Focus

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.

Tags: Real, Time, Work

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.

Tags: Alone, Crazy, Struggle

You can't escape this feeling of disintegration. The world is fragile. But you also can't let it ruin your life. I'm actually a pretty composed person. I guess people imagine I spend my life thinking about crazy, sinister things but I don't, really. It's not like I'm trying to exorcise any demons.

Tags: Crazy, Feeling, Life

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.

Tags: Dark, End, Fact


Tags: Bad, Fight, Good

Everybody's constantly being destroyed and rebuilding themselves, some more drastically than others.

Tags: Everybody, Others, Themselves

Everything that happens on Wall Street only fortifies my opinion that there is in fact a more ludicrous industry than the entertainment industry.

Tags: Fact, Happens, Opinion

I don't pick my roles by genre; that's kind of silly.

Tags: Genre, Pick, Silly

I get pretty attached to the majority of the characters I play. I can't help myself.

Tags: Help, Majority, Pretty


Tags: Best, Enjoy, Hope

I never went into acting to be able to scare everybody. If I'd wanted to frighten people, I could have joined the C.I.A.

Tags: Able, Acting, Wanted

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.

Tags: Happy, Matter, Working

If Mother Theresa went to Atlantic City, I don't think she'd start playing Blackjack.

Tags: Mother, She, Start

If you give me enough time, enough leash, I can become pretty reasonable.

Tags: Enough, Give, Time

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Much more quotes by Michael Shannon below the page.

Let's point out the elephant in the room: Actor bands are not notoriously successful enterprises. I can't think of any.

Tags: Actor, Point, Successful

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.

Tags: Bored, Great, Yourself

The stage is a routine. It keeps you grounded, like a metronome. I find that soothing.

Tags: Grounded, Routine, Stage

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.

Tags: Hard, Music, Someone

I enjoyed living in Chicago and doing plays for little or no money. I never actually thought that I would leave Chicago, originally. I wasn't one of those people that had a plan to pack up the van and drive out to Hollywood. I didn't want to.

Tags: Living, Money, Thought

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.

Tags: Accident, Acting, Growing

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.

Tags: Comedy, Fun, Here

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.

Tags: Acting, Crazy, Someone

I think if you watch a lot of what I do, you're going to ultimately walk away seeing me. I can't hide - that impression is a personal impression people have of me.

Tags: Away, Personal, Walk

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.

Tags: Again, Focus, Real

I've known a lot of religious people. My mother is very religious, but she also is very private about it. When I was growing up, she never went to church. She just prayed and read her Bible and kept it to herself. I'm not from a background of flamboyant believers. It's much more a personal issue.

Tags: Her, Mother, Personal

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.

Tags: Bad, Life, Real

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?

Tags: Death, God, Someone

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.

Tags: Here, Nature, Somebody