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Take Shelter

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

Story : An Ohio man (Michael Shannon) tries desperately to protect his family after disturbing visions convince him that disaster looms on the horizon.

Opens September 30, 2011

 

Interview with Actor Michael Shannon

 

Q) : You have a character you're playing who's dealing with anxiety; how do you deal with anxiety like this? Do you just let it roll off your back?
 
(Michael Shannon) : I don't know. I think the point is to try and stay in the moment. It's real easy to worry about the future, what's going to happen in the future, and in the process wind up not living in the moment and missing what's happening today. Different things cause different amounts of anxiety.

When Irene was going on I kind of bristled at the hysteria a little bit, I felt like it was the boy who cried wolf. We went up to Grandma's house in Harlem and it was an interesting night with the wind and the rain outside, but by the next afternoon we were back in our house safe and sound.
 
(Q) : Grandma's house in Harlem?
 
(Michael Shannon) : Yeah, my girlfriend's mother lives in Harlem. Sugar Hill; it's a good place to be.

(Q) : When you read the script what did you think? When we walked into it we had no idea it would be such a great film.
 
(Michael Shannon) : I was very moved by it just because I knew what it was about. I knew why Jeff had written it and to me I found it very poetic. It's easy with Jeff's style to think you're watching something that's very naturalistic, because it is a very slice of life, Americana milieu, but I find the dreams and the ending and some of the symbolism in the film, I thought it was very bold for Jeff to go in that direction because that doesn't necessarily always work out so well. That can go south real quick when you try and incorporate more poetic imagery into an otherwise kind of naturalistic tone.

(Q) : Jeff was saying something about the film was shot in a jumble where there were different pieces at different times at different places, yet you were able to bring yourself back into the character each time as if the continuity was right there. What is it that you understood about the character that led you to keep finding that center or that core? What did you find and what did you understand about him that made that work for you?
 
(Michael Shannon) : A lot of it was just having read the script a lot before we started shooting. I guess I had about a couple of months between finding out it was going to happen and shooting. Just kind of reading it every other day and thinking about it, and then just taking each scene on its own terms and really figuring out exactly what Curtis is trying to accomplish or what he's trying to deal with in each individual scene.

At the end of the day Curtis is a pretty simple fellow; I don't find him tremendously complicated. His needs are very simple. He wants to take care of his family and he has this impediment and he's trying to figure out what the hell to do about it. Each scene seems like he may be trying a different approach.

Maybe this scene he's looking at himself and thinking that he needs to do something about himself, or in this scene he's thinking maybe about something outside of him. But I can't say that I have a trick or secret. It's just a matter of being present and realizing what each scene's purpose is in the film.
 
(Q) : Did you guys rehearse?
 
(Michael Shannon) : No, we don't rehearse a lot. I came right off of the first season of "Boardwalk" to this. I basically had maybe two or three days off, and the thing I was most anxious about going into shooting was establishing the family dynamic, because that's very hard to do out of the clear blue sky. You meet people that are pretty much strangers and you have to become a family.

The first day we had a very crucial scene towards the end of the film where Jessica and I are at the psychiatrist and he's telling me that he thinks I might have to go to the hospital or something. It was hard to start that deep in the story with that relationship, and so I was more worried about spending time with Jessica and Tova and getting comfortable with them than rehearsing, running the lines or doing any of that. It was just a matter of establishing some sort of a connection.
 
(Q) : Speaking of which, can you talk about what it was like to work with a deaf actor and some of the things that maybe surprised yourself in terms of that whole experience, given that you have the challenge of creating this family dynamic and you have a deaf family member?
 
(Michael Shannon) : Well it didn't take long for me to figure out that Tova was an extraordinarily bright child and that she was very aware of what she was involved in. And her parents, who are also both deaf, were around all the time and incredibly helpful and friendly. I think for me I'm always most worried about doing something that could be conceived as disrespectful. I don't want to insult someone's intelligence.

Just because there's that communication barrier there doesn't mean that they don't understand what's going on. So I just paid a lot of attention to them and they were very instructive and informative and helpful in communicating with Tova. There were some scenes that were kind of frightening, and that's always real tricky to do.

But she always knew she had her parents close by and that it was just imagination, it was just play. I never saw her not happy to be there. And we played a lot. Between scenes we would sit around and play games. And Jessica was real great with her. Jessica actually learned more sign than I did, because you get the feeling that that's probably the way it is, that Samantha's more involved in it. I think Curtis is a little frightened of it. Kind of like what's happening to him, he wishes it wasn't happening, and he's not really equipped to deal with it in a way.
 
(Q) : You've worked with Jeff previously, so this time around was he able to give you more suggestions that with previous work?
 
(Michael Shannon) : I think one of the reasons that Jeff and I have worked together twice now is that we seem to have kind of an implicit understanding of each other. I can kind of tell what Jeff's up to pretty quickly. Honestly, Jeff has his hands full a lot more with just making sure we get through the day. We had to shoot real fast and there were a lot of technical concerns.

I think one of the reasons Jeff likes having me around is he knows I'm pretty low maintenance, that he can kind of focus on some other areas that he might have a little bit more. Adam Stone, the cinematographer I think is incredible, and he surrounds himself with people he can trust, which is a big lesson I think. Half the battle is just getting the right people to show up for work.

(Q) : Speaking of that, can you talk a little more about Jessica and working with Jessica? You sort of touched onto it but I'd like to hear, because it sounds like she was the perfect partner for this, that she kind of intuitively picked up on building that family.
 
(Michael Shannon) : Yeah she's just got such a big heart. I had never met her. When Jeff said that he had cast her I didn't know who she was. I showed up in little town, Jeff picked me up and he said "We're going to meet Jessica." She opened the door and right away there was no guard there, there was no barrier. She was just very available.

I must have been intimidating for her because she knew that Jeff and I had worked together before and that she was kind of the new piece of the puzzle. But she wasn't afraid to say what was on her mind and she always speaks very eloquently about scenes and about what she thinks is going on and what she thinks needs to happen, and she's not afraid to put that on the table.
 
(Q) : You mentioned earlier one of Curtis' impediments or something, one of the things he had to deal with. What was that though? The reason why I ask is because I asked Jeff earlier about mental illness and he said he didn't have a problem.
 
(Michael Shannon) : There is a kernel of his mother suffered I guess from what was diagnosed as schizophrenia by whoever diagnosed her, and was not able to raise the family. I think most people know that that can be hereditary, so I've got to think part of the reason that's in the story is just to add that possibility to the spectrum of possibilities. It's certainly not the only possibility, but it's like a rainbow; there are seven different things that could be true.

There could be a huge storm coming or he could be developing a mental illness or some other possibility. It could be a spiritual dilemma. You see that he doesn't go to church even though the rest of his family does, and maybe he's feeling a spiritual emptiness of some sort. Because I think that way it makes him more relatable ultimately for people watching the movie. There's more different ways of entry into the story. But when I mentioned his impediment I simply meant that this experience that he's begun having with the dreams and that seems to be spirally out of his control for whatever reason.
 
(Q) : This is about as far away from your "Mistakes Were Made" as you can get. Age-wise and everything-wise. Do you want to talk a little bit about it? I mean I know you're an actor, but preparation-wise. In other words, you have a theatrical background so you're used to rehearsing.
 
(Michael Shannon) : For me when you go into a theatrical project repetition's part of the deal. You're going to do something over and over and over again, and you're going to every time you approach it attempt to somehow add another facet or dig deeper into it or add another realization about it. But what you're trying to capture on film I think is a little more fragile and a little more spontaneous. Like a director that both Jeff and I admire a great deal, Terrence Malick, he almost creates a kind of chaos in which he says he's hunting for quail or something.

But what he means is he's looking for something spontaneous to happen without any sort of premeditation or rumination preceding it. And I feel like it's unavoidable. You don't ever want the best version of a scene in a film to not be photographed. You want it to happen in front of the camera. There's a long list of legendary filmmakers that will argue that that's going to happen in a first or second take, so who am I to quibble.
 
(Q) : I can't help but ask; did they give you that in shooting the movie?
 
(Michael Shannon) : My stepmother gave me this.
 
(Q) : Oh that's good. I love it though.

(Michael Shannon) : I woke up very early and I was making myself coffee and I reached in and this is the mug I got.

(Q) : So have you started your preparations for General Zod? It's all done, or doing, or in the process? I couldn't help but ask.
 
(Michael Shannon) : I've been preparing for it for a few months now just in terms of certain little bit of physical training. There are going to be a lot of stunts and stuff. And I've been thinking about it for a while now. I've actually started shooting. I've shot three days so far, and after Toronto and a couple of days in LA I'll be going back to it. I’m in the middle of that right now.
 
(Q) : How's that working with you "Boardwalk Empire" schedule?
 
(Michael Shannon) : I'm done. I'm done with "Boardwalk."
 
(Q) : How has your character evolved in season two for "Boardwalk Empire"?
 
(Michael Shannon) : Season two I think for Van Alden is going to be about redemption. He realizes he made a terrible mess of things at the end of season one, and he wanted to run away and hide but that's not going to be a possibility so he's going to have to face the music. I think he really wants to get back to his original principles. When he started in Atlantic City he actually had a very virtuous plan and was a man of virtue and he kind of had that taken away from him by Atlantic City, and now it's a question of seeing whether he can get it back.
 
(Q) : Were you a comic book fan, and were you a "Superman" fan in particular?
 
(Michael Shannon) : I did have two cousins that lived out in the sticks in a trailer and they had boxes and boxes of comic books. I would go out there and read the "X-Men" comic books; I was really into that. They were more Marvel dudes, really. But I got a big book, like the DC bible when I started shooting and I've been reading that a lot. I love the original "Superman," the Richard Donner "Superman" movies. I think for this genre it's a high watermark to try and hit. It's hard to imagine them being better. But I think ours will be pretty different because of Zack and his vision.
 
(Q) : Did you and Jeff ever talk at all about the fact that he left you smiling in "Shotgun Stories" and in this one that's not exactly what happened?
 
(Michael Shannon) : No. I think he considers both the end of "Shotgun Stories" and the end of "Take Shelter" to be hopeful endings for different reasons. I'll leave that up to the audience to try and figure out why that is.

 

End.