The he's-in-everything phase of Michael Shannon's career has begun. Shannon's IMDb page lists 11 films on his 2016 slate, proceeding memorable supporting work in four movies from 2015: He played a hoggish real-estate tyrant in "99 Homes" (which netted him Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations), an eccentric drug dealer in dude-pal comedy "The Night Before," a gay-rights convert in "Freeheld" and a Macy's security guard in a "She's Funny That Way" cameo. When Shannon called up The Huffington Post right before Christmas, he had just finished a play in Chicago and was taking a deserved breather in New York, hanging out with his family before heading to this month's Sundance Film Festival to promote two movies. It sounds exhausting, but Shannon was in good spirits while we discussed his recent roles, including a forthcoming stint as Elvis Presley and an appearance in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."
You wrapped "99 Homes" in early 2014, and you're still talking about it as 2016 begins. That's par for the course with a lot of indie movies, especially ones that play the festival circuit. Does this feel like just another average year in the life of Michael Shannon?
Well, I was very excited for “99 Homes” to come out. It’s a movie that I care deeply about and am proud to be associated with. I was very excited for it to be seen by the general public. Showing it at festivals is one thing, but particularly with a movie about this, which is about real people, getting it out to the said real people is very satisfying. Not that real people don’t go to festivals, but it’s a little bit more of a cloistered environment. But I don’t know -- I worked a lot both last year and this year. I’ve made a lot of, I guess what you would call indie films, that had very quick schedules, like five weeks or so. I was able to accumulate quite a long list of them. You make them so quickly. I rattled off like six in a row at one point, so now it’s just a question of when they’re all going to come out.
A lot of cinephiles know you for smaller films like "Take Shelter" and "Mud." When you do so many little movies, how attached can you get to their shelf life?
Yeah, you can’t have big expectations, really. I’ve done some pictures that no one has ever really seen or heard of. I think every actor or actress probably has similar stories. It’s something you hooked onto and then you feel like maybe five people saw it, if you’re lucky. But you just have to enjoy the fact that you’re there working, regardless of what the final end product is. It’s what I love to do, so as long as I get to do it. The only thing is, if you’re in films that don’t make a lot of money, then sometimes it makes it harder to get your films financed. That’s the one thing I get kind of paranoid about sometimes.
Is there a movie you look back on that didn’t find an audience that you hoped would catch on?
Oh yeah, there’s a couple, for sure. I made this movie with Jake Paltrow recently, “Young Ones,” that I thought was really lovely. And another movie I made a few years ago, “The Missing Person” -- I really like that movie a lot. But there’s a lot of movies out there, and people have a limited amount of time to watch them. Plus, TV’s so popular nowadays, it seems like most people would rather watch a TV show than a movie.
Do you feel like people know you best for “Boardwalk Empire,” then?
Oh, definitely. That’s what I seem to be most commonly associated with, if someone stops me on the street or whatever.
You’re often affiliated with dark, menacing characters, from General Zod to the guys in "Revolutionary Road" and "99 Homes." It's not quite typecasting since every role has its own spark, but it's certainly part of your image. Where do you think that comes from?
Hmm, I don’t really know. I guess I just seem to project a certain kind of gravity. I can’t account for it personally. I know I’m drawn to stories that are complicated and tend to have a lot of conflict in them, but that’s kind of the name of the game, really. You look at Greek drama and it’s pretty full of conflict. And I’m willing to take those parts on. I’m not afraid of some of the darker elements of humanity. I’m not judgmental about it -- I just try and understand why people do the things they do.
In "99 Homes," your character, Rick, capitalizes from evicting people who are trapped in deceitful loans after the housing-bubble burst. He's pretty relentless. Does it matter to you whether you can sympathize with someone like that before playing him?
Well, I don’t think I necessarily need to have sympathy for him, but particularly in the case of “99 Homes,” a fellow like Rick Carver, as much as every other character in that story, is trying to figure out what to do. There’s a situation and a system, and you have to figure out what you’re going to do with that system. Dennis, the character that Andrew Garfield plays, is just trying to figure out how to deal with it, and Rick’s come up with his method of dealing with it. But at the end of the day, it’s the solution that makes sense to him.
"The Night Before" plays on that dark image, too. It's a broad Seth Rogen comedy, but your character is still this edgy stoner guy, and that was fun to watch. What was the pitch you received for that movie?
Well, it wasn’t a huge commitment -- just a few days. They were like, “Oh, this would be something fun to do.” I enjoy comedy as much as anybody. It seemed like it would be a fun thing to do. It didn’t take a lot of time. I’ve spent a lot of time in Chicago and I actually did some improv, so I have some history in that area and it was nice to get to use it. I’ve never made a movie like that before, really.
The stoner-burnout adult can be a cliché, but you bring something very casual and fresh to it. Did you have a particular approach in mind in terms of Mr. Green's mannerisms and persona, or, since you’re on the set for only a few days, does it just come to you when “action” is called?
I didn’t think about it too much going into it. I just got there, and you put on the costume and come up with the look, and a lot of it is from my imagination, really. I see what you mean -- it can definitely be a cliché. But part of having fun with something, I think, is not over-analyzing it. It’s about just going off the cuff.
Did you watch the “Dawn of Justice” trailer?
No, I haven’t seen it. People say I’m in it. Am I in it? There’s some trailer or clip or something that has me in it. I’ve got people asking me about it, anyway. I haven’t seen anything to do with it. Does it look good?
It does. I wanted to know if it captures the essence of the movie. The movie seems big, for lack of a better word. It’s a very big trailer.
Yeah, well, I’m sure they’re coming up with something because they’re trying to build up this whole Justice League thing and they’re going up against the Avengers, so it’s pretty stiff competition.
How long were you on the set?
I wasn’t around it very much. It focuses a lot more on Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and, of course, Lex Luther.
Is there a chance we'll see General Zod outside of “Batman v Superman”?
Ha. Well, we’ll see how this one goes. Zod is, for all intents and purposes, dead, but I guess maybe some Frankenstein version of him could come back to life. I don’t know.
Before I let you go, I have to ask about Elvis Presley. You're playing him in "Elvis & Nixon" this year. How did you prepare?
To get into it, it was a real process of immersion. I went down to Memphis and hit all the spots that people go through, like Graceland and Sun Studio and the Lauderdale Courts -- where he lived as a teenager -- and downtown Memphis. It was just walking around, trying to soak that up, and watching his movies and listening to his music. I did a lot of reading and spent time with Jerry Schilling, who was one of Elvis’ closest friends. I spent a lot of time talking to Jerry.
What advice did he offer?
His primary concern was that a lot of the time the way Elvis is represented is very flamboyant, very over-the-top and almost kind of goofy. He was interested in taking a more sophisticated approach and thinking about the psychology of it, rather than getting the moves down or whatever. It was less about the external and more about the inner workings of the guy. We wanted to take a respectful approach and not just make him seem like a silly person.
Will there be musical numbers?
No, there are no musical numbers in the film. It’s a very contained film. It’s really about this trip that Elvis took to D.C., and it’s contained in a two-day period. Sometimes I feel like that can be more revealing than a giant biopic that tries to encapsulate someone’s whole life. It’s kind of hard to tell someone’s life story in 90 minutes, but sometimes if you really just focus on one particular incident, it gives you more time to get into the specifics. And Kevin Spacey does a bang-up job as Nixon, too.
Snapshots are almost always better than cradle-to-grave biopics. Did you catch “The End of the Tour”? What you’re describing reminds me of Jason Segel in that movie.
Oh, I loved “The End of the Tour.” I thought Jason was phenomenal in that. I saw that at Sundance last year and it really knocked my socks off. I really like that director, too, James Ponsoldt; I think he’s really great.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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