‘YOU WOULD THINK THAT AFTER DOING THIS FOR 30 YEARS, I’D BE A GENIUS’
Speaking to The Rake in early July, from his home in New York, Michael Shannon is — emotionally, at least — on both sides of the Atlantic. “I’m a massive tennis fan, and I’ve just been watching [Novak] Djokovic dismantle your fellow Brit [Cameron] Norrie,” he says. “Before that we were watching the Nadal and [Taylor] Fritz match. Oh, Rafael was in pain, but he still won.” All of which might sound like small talk, but Shannon has brought up tennis for reasons related to a vocation that has earned him Academy Award (2016’s Nocturnal Animals, 2008’s Revolutionary Road), Golden Globe (2014’s 99 Homes) and Tony Award (2016’s Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night) nominations.
He’s achieved all this, and earned critical acclaim along the way, without — and I know he won’t mind my saying this — becoming a household name in the way that, say, George Clooney is a household name (or, for that matter, another male lead who made headlines recently for appearing on the cover of a rival magazine looking like Vladimir Lenin’s embalmers had gatecrashed the shoot).
So what’s all this got to do with tennis? “I remember reading Andre Agassi’s book, and he expresses the sentiment that a lot of these tennis players are on the same level of ability, where they all know how to hit the same shots, they all get the same training, and winning becomes a battle of will and desire and who’s the toughest,” Shannon says. “It’s why I love the sport so much! And I feel like it’s similar with acting, because what you’re able to deliver as an actor, or as any kind of artist, is directly proportionate to the amount of preparation and care and thought that you put into it. It’s not going to just come out of the sky in a beam and magically insert itself in your head.”
As for what’s capturing his attention in his homeland? Something altogether less savoury than the strawberries- and-cream frivolity of SW19’s annual tennis fest. Shannon — best known, to borrow IMDb’s mode of defining a celebrity, for 2011’s and 2017’s as well as the aforementioned titles — is embarking on his directorial debut, , a movie adaptation of Brett Neveu’s play that debuted at A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago in 2002. Our exchange, and indeed Shannon’s professional and personal
