Michael Shannon: My career has been all over the shop
The 50-year-old actor has enjoyed huge success in Hollywood, starring in movies such as Groundhog Day, The Shape of Water and Knives Out - but Michael feels his career hasn't followed an obvious pattern.
He told The Independent: "There was no catapult, you know, the meteoric rise to whatever."
Michael considers acting to be his "job" rather than his hobby, and his attitude towards his work has changed over time.
He explained: "I started acting about 35 years ago, so if something hadn't changed in that time, that would be a problem.
"Now it's kind of my job. You know, the way that people have jobs; it's what I do. What's become the most important thing is telling the story."
Michael initially enjoyed his experience of fame. However, he's become weary of fan attention in recent years.
The veteran film star said: "I'm not here to sign a bunch of pictures that they can sell on the internet, so that's a drag."
Meanwhile, Michael recently admitted that he doesn't watch television and that he finds most TV shows to be "garbage".
The actor confssed that he prefers to make movies, observing that TV is "run by writers and producers and corporate overlords".
He told Time Out: "Film is a director's medium and TV is run by writers and producers and corporate overlords.
"I mean, I do television, because from time to time there are interesting projects that come across my desk, but by and large, I think television is garbage. I certainly don't watch it.
"Films are more interesting, but they're the director's medium, they're not theatre where an actor can really do their thing. I like acting, so that's why I do theatre."
Michael loves doing theatre work because he's not being dictated to by "morons".
He said: "There's no morons that come in who know nothing about art and have no training in the arts whatsoever manipulating the hard work that you've done as an artist and turning it into crap. In the theatre what the audience sees is what I want them to see."
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