Michael Shannon Rewatches 'Man of Steel,' 'Knives Out,' 'Nuremberg' & More

Whatcha gonna tell me about Ray and Turk?

Who?

Tom Ford let me screw around a little bit.

I know there's one line I made up.

It's when I have Carl in the interrogation room.

I'm asking him about somebody and he keeps saying,

Who, who?

And I say, What are you, an owl?

I made that up.

Hello, I'm Michael Shannon,

and I'm going to watch some scenes

from throughout my illustrious film career.

[exciting music]

[energetic music]

[television whirring]

[General Zod groaning]

[wall shattering]

[bystanders shouting]

The first thing I think when I see this scene is,

Oh, there's Union Station,

because I lived in Chicago for a long time.

That's where I started this whole shenanigans.

I used to go to Union Station.

I used to walk in there, you know,

get a cup of coffee if I was downtown

or hit the head or whatever, you know?

I'd been in there.

I'd taken trains out of there,

and never in my wildest dreams did I think

I'd be shooting this in Union Station.

[both grunting]

[Bystander] Wait!

Go back. Quickly.

If you love these people so much,

you can mourn for them.

Oh!

[lasers searing]

Don't do this!

[wall crumbling]

Stop!

Oh gosh, I just wish people didn't kill people, period.

I mean, whether or not they're aliens from outer space

or just regular Joes.

I guess one of the controversies with this film,

and Zach engineered this really,

is that Superman is not supposed to kill anybody,

so I put him in a situation where

if he wants to save these people, he has to kill me,

and he does, and that obviously led to a lot of

sturm und drang, or whatever you say.

I really loved working with Zach,

and I really loved making this movie.

I think a lot of people say, Oh, you know,

this isn't what he usually does.

He just went for the big payday or something.

But I'm proud of this movie.

I think it's actually about something.

[energetic music]

[television whirring]

I just think this is a window that's not gonna stay open.

We need to take advantage of it,

and then you just need to look at the numbers.

Yeah, Walt. Dad, dad,

you put me in charge of our books.

Let me be in charge.

Let me do this, please.

Oh, I got to do a scene with Christopher Plummer.

God bless him.

To catch that movie was all very,

there was a lot of comradery.

You know, we'd all hang around,

and everybody had a trailer down in this parking lot

down the hill, but most of the cast

would always just stay in the house.

They wouldn't even go back to their trailers or whatever.

There was a room in the basement,

and we would all just sit down there and tell stories.

But, you know, Christopher kept to himself, you know?

He was older and he was conserving his energy, I suppose.

But you're not going to be running

the publishing house anymore.

You're free of it.

Dad, are you firing me?

No.

We'll talk details tomorrow.

My mind's made up.

I remember Rian saying

that he was gonna shoot it just in one angle,

and that always gives me the heebie-jeebies

when I know there's not gonna be any coverage,

because there's nothing to cut to,

so you really just need a take that works to route.

That's a hard thing to make.

But sitting here watching it now, I'm like,

Oh, of course that's what he did, because it's so right,

you know?

But that's why he's Rian Johnson.

He knows what he's doing.

Funny, Ransom, you skipped the funeral,

but you're early for the will reading.

Okay, people grieve in different ways.

Let's not. You know what?

It's funny you're here at all.

Why are you even bothering?

That's what I'm asking myself.

What's that supposed to mean?

He knows what it's supposed to mean.

When we did the big group scenes,

I mean, those could have gone on forever.

Everybody was pitching, you know?

We really didn't want it to end.

We were just having so much fun.

[energetic music]

[television whirring]

It's your obligation to report any detail,

no matter how small or trivial it may seem.

Trivial means unimportant.

I didn't see nothing out of the ordinary, no,

or trivial.

See, my feet were hurting.

What about you?

She didn't see anything.

Oh, they're just adorable.

Look at 'em.

What a duo.

It's really bizarre seeing this scene, honestly,

because I just was on a flight from Rome to Chicago,

which takes a while,

so I was watching, cycling through movies.

One of the movies I watched was called Bring Her Back,

that Sally's the lead in,

and it just blew my mind watching her in that,

because it's like a horror movie, and she's really scary.

I was like, That's little Sally Hawkins

from The Shape of Water.

What the, what?

Look at that.

Did either of you see him coming in or out of the lab?

He works there, doesn't he?

I mean, in a different way.

Doing something different.

Something trivial?

I mean, they're just both phenomenal.

Their chemistry is just really something.

It must have been interesting for Sally, I would imagine.

I've often wondered if she put something in her ears

or she just could hear.

She's so convincing, being deaf.

[dramatic music]

What'd you say to me?

[dramatic music]

What is she saying?

I didn't catch it.

[desk thudding]

What is she saying?

She is saying thank you.

There's a lot of people in the military

that have all the best intentions

and really are trying to do something very noble

and really are motivated by their love of our country

and freedom, and I'm totally on board with that.

But, you know, this whole notion

that the Department of Defense should be called

the Department of War again,

it's just like, why are we going backwards?

I'm not talking about acting.

I can't help it.

I saw that the other day.

I'm like, What, what?

But anyway, it seems like an idea

Strickland would've been on board with.

[energetic music]

[television whirring]

[Helen] I can't tell you how pleased I am.

Oh, but I expect you'll be needing a bigger house now,

won't you? Hold it a second, ma.

Hold on a second, ma.

I don't get this.

I mean, what's so obvious about it?

I mean, okay, she's pregnant.

So what, don't people have babies in Europe?

Suppose we just say that people anywhere

aren't very well advised to have babies

unless they can afford them.

Well, Leo's making me laugh.

I just get a real kick out of watching him,

watching all of them, really.

I mean, that was quite a table to be sitting at, you know?

It was interesting just to be there with Leo,

because I'd been watching him since he was a kid,

and now here he's playing a man, you know?

A family man.

I'm just really impressed by it,

because it's so the opposite of his actual life.

If you think of acting as being able to have empathy

for people whose experiences are very different from yours,

then that's about as high a bar as you can set.

I wouldn't be surprised if he knocked her up on purpose

just so he could spend the rest of his life

hiding behind a maternity dress.

That way he'd never have to find out

what he's really made of.

Now look, I think that's just about enough out of you.

I mean, who the hell do you think you are?

You come in here and say whatever crazy goddamn thing

comes into your head,

and I think it's about time somebody told you

to keep your goddamn mouth shut.

[Helen] He's not well,

Frank. Not well, my ass.

I don't give a damn if he's sick or well or dead or alive.

He should keep his fucking opinions

in the fucking insane asylum where they belong.

I've never been in an insane asylum myself,

but I don't think the hospital had much effect on John

one way or the other, really.

When she says he's not well, I mean,

I don't think any of these people are particularly well.

I mean, it's funny.

I live in a big city.

I live in New York City.

Despite the fact that it's one of the major cities

of the world, I see people that remind me

of Frank and April all over the place.

Big man you got there, April.

Big family man.

I feel sorry for you.

These eras have a habit of repeating themselves.

It seems like we could be going through

a similar period now.

People wanting to hide their head in the sand

and just focus on themselves and their own comfort

and their own upward mobility because they find the world

is too chaotic and frightening to deal with.

[energetic music]

[television whirring]

Oh, sorry.

[soft music]

Baby, there's no storm outside.

[soft music]

I'm sorry.

This is always the scene I think of

when I think of this movie.

I just always find it very moving

when I see people trying to take care of each other.

I hope that when people see this scene,

it makes them think about how they deal with people

in their own lives.

I love you, but if I open the door,

then nothing's gonna change.

You'll see that everything's fine, but nothing will change.

Please, this is what it means to stay with us.

I remember when we shot this,

the very last thing we did was everything

inside the storage container.

It was the only time that we actually built a set.

Everything else was shot on location,

and it was a very long day because we were out of time.

We didn't have any more days left,

so we knew we had to get everything,

I think it was in one day.

So it wound up being, gosh,

a 16 hour day or something like that.

[dramatic music]

[doors thudding]

This is the film I've made

that means the most to me personally.

Having said that, I haven't seen it in years.

It's extraordinary to be sitting here and watching it now,

because I don't do that.

I made this movie not long after I had my first daughter,

so I was right alongside Curtis

in being worried for her future and the state of the world.

A lot of people assume this movie's about mental illness.

That's definitely woven into it,

particularly in terms of Curtis' mother and whatnot,

but for me it was always a question of

how do you not lose your damn mind

living in a world like this?

I don't know how anybody stays sane, really.

It's too much.

And yeah, it felt that way back then,

and it certainly feels that way now [chuckling].

[energetic music]

[television whirring]

[door thudding]

Sit up.

[Ray panting]

Oh geez, I'm gonna be sick.

Tony, get over here, quick.

Here, you use this, right?

You shoot him if he gets out of line.

[Bobby retching]

I just like Bobby.

I liked him a lot.

It's weird, because I really look like my dad in this movie

with that mustache.

My dad was a big dude,

and he always had a little extra weight on him,

but when I was a teenager,

he went on one of these milkshakes you make with the powder,

like a liquid diet, and he lost a ton of weight.

Every time I see this,

it's like when my dad did the milkshake diet.

But it's really funny, because when I met with Mr. Ford,

he was asking me about the part

that Aaron Taylor-Johnson was playing there.

I said, I'm really excited to meet with you

and I'm very flattered you want to work with me,

but I don't want to be that guy.

He's like, Well, who do you want to be?

Like, I want to be Bobby.

Oh, who's this?

Well, lookie here.

You son of a bitch.

All right.

Okay, come on, boy.

Get over here.

Hey, what'd you tell this guy?

I told him nothing, man.

No, you said you told him

I was the one that killed this guy's wife and kid.

What?

That's what he told me about you.

You're supposed to be the law, man.

What kind of bullshit is this?

Fuck off, both of you.

I mean, he is, to me, to my mind, he's heroic.

He's dying, he's about to die,

and he's kind of cynical and not very happy,

but he runs into this situation

and he decides I'm gonna help this fellow.

He's very genuine.

He is who he is, and he doesn't give a shit

whether you like him or don't like him or what you think.

He knows what's right and he's gonna do it.

[exhaling] Coming home late at night.

Might get shot by a burglar.

[Bobby laughing]

Tom Ford let me screw around a little bit.

I know there's one line I made up.

It's when I have Carl in the interrogation room

earlier in the film.

I'm asking him about somebody and he keeps saying,

Who, who?

And I say, What are you, an owl?

I made that up.

[energetic music]

[television whirring]

Today, I have sat by and borne witness

to the shows of many big men.

I've bore them with a deep disquiet.

I didn't know anything about James Garfield, really,

I assume like the majority of people.

It's almost kind of painful, really, to look at him

and think, Oh, that's what a president needs to be like.

One of the tragic things that is happening right now

is the Department of Education is being dismantled

in the United States of America.

The Department of Education was James Garfield's idea,

because he believed that in order for all Americans

to be free and equal, they all needed to be educated,

and that education was a right, no matter how rich or poor,

Black or White or whatever they were.

And so it was his baby,

and now it's being slaughtered.

We want a man whose life and opinions

embody all that is right and good about this place.

A man who from a mountain's height looks bold.

It's quite an order.

I think people, God bless him, at the end of the day,

no matter what their thoughts may be,

I think they can be won over by genuineness.

I can't think of an instance where genuineness

is a negative characteristic, where you're like,

Oh, that person was way too genuine.

I really found that distasteful.

It's like a light and we're the moths drawn to the light,

and then we eat the wall.

[energetic music]

[television whirring]

So you are aware that this makes you the only living man

who can expound to us the true purposes of the Nazi party

and the inner workings of its leadership.

I am perfectly aware of this, yeah.

It was so interesting to be paired with Russell

years after Man of Steel.

Yeah, I hadn't seen him in a while.

I was super impressed with the work he was doing

in Nuremberg.

He was so prepared and specific and detailed,

and he had the accent down.

He really was a leader of these men.

Every time we were in the courtroom, when he came in,

all the other Nazis would be in the box first,

and then he'd come in and he'd say, Good morning, men.

And they'd always say, Good morning.

He had really created a bond with all of them

that I admired.

You know, he didn't have to do that.

He didn't have to, but he made them all feel very important.

I know they're playing Nazis, so I don't admire that,

but still, regardless of who they were playing,

just to see him be concerned about even extras,

people that maybe didn't even hardly say anything

in the movie.

For someone who's been around as long as he has,

I had a lot of respect for that.

And upon coming to power, you immediately abolished

parliamentary government in Germany.

We found it to be no longer necessary.

Is that because you believe

people are not capable of self-government?

We were elected by the people

and given a mandate for change.

It's incredible how much work went into

getting these people to incriminate themselves

when anyone with half a brain in their head

knew they were horrible, despicable human beings.

And God bless the legal system for being that way,

that it's so rigorous and demanding.

There were a lot of people that said,

Oh, let's just kill 'em.

It's like no, no, you have to put them in front of the world

and make it very clear what happened

and let them try to explain it,

because if you just kill them,

then they could potentially be thought of

as martyrs to a cause,

and also just a quest for information,

to have as many details as possible,

because when they're dead, when they're gone,

you're not gonna find out more about it, you know?

[television whirring]

You know, you sit here and you watch all these movies

you've been in and you're like, Oh, look at me.

And then I go back to New York and get on the subway

and somebody's like, Get out of the way.

You're like, Oh yeah, you're right.

I shouldn't be here.

You know, but that's life.

Or your kids, there's nothing like your kids

to remind you how inadequate you are,

but it's pretty extraordinary.

I never in my wildest dreams

thought I'd be in all these movies.

Never, ever.

Enough!