411 Movies Interview: Michael Shannon of Bug Posted by Tony Farinella on 10.01.2007
411's Tony Farinella sits down with Michael Shannon to talk about his role in William Friedkin's Bug.
Whenever you think of the movie Bug or the play Bug, you have to think of Michael Shannon, because he's been in both of them. He's really been with the character of Peter Evans for a long time. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Shannon to talk about the recent DVD release of Bug. Michael shared a lot of his acting techniques in preparing for this complex role. If you're tired of the same old horror films, you owe it to yourself to check out Bug. Just remember that it's not for everyone. It's a graphic film that will drain the hell out of you. That said, it's worth the ride.
TONY: You've played this character on stage and now in a motion picture. Do you feel like this was the role you were born to play?
MICHAEL: I would hope that there are other roles that I can wiggle my way into it, because if this was the only one I was meant to do, then I'm pretty much done at this point. It's a character that means an awful lot to me and the story means an awful lot to me. I certainly didn't mind doing it as often as I did, and I probably could have done it longer. Unfortunately, it's kind of an exhausting personality to take on for too long of a stretch of time. I think variety is the spice of life, and I look forward to doing other types of characters as well.
TONY: What's the biggest difference between doing this character on stage compared to doing it in a film?
MICHAEL: When you do a play, you go out and you do the beginning and the middle and the end, and it's all of a piece. It's whole in that one experience in that one night. And then the next night you go out and you make it again. When you're making a film, every day you're coming in and you're focusing on a small part of that story and trying to get it exactly and precisely the way it should be, knowing that once you're done with whatever you're doing that day, you're not going to get to do it again. That's it. That's what people are going to see years from now or that's what's going to wind up on the cutting room floor. But one way or the other, you're not going to get another crack at it. It adds a great deal of pressure to want to make sure that you're telling a story properly and that all the pieces are going to fit together at the end.
TONY: William Friedkin really fought for you to be in this movie and really wanted you to play this character. How did it feel to know that William had so much confidence in you?
MICHAEL: It's one of the most mind-blowing things that's ever happened to me, to be honest. Early on, when I started hearing rumors that this might be happening, I just found it kind of hard to believe. I thought somebody was pulling my leg. And Tracy, the writer, had to keep telling me, "No. This is actually happening." When I finally met Billy and had lunch with him, not only was I just so impressed to be meeting him as a filmmaker, but I was also very impressed with him as a person with how kind he was and how much he put me at ease and made me feel like I belonged in the film and that I wasn't some kind of freakish outsider, that I was an important part of getting the film made. I'll owe him that for the rest of my life. I'd do anything for that guy.
TONY: As you mentioned earlier in our interview, Peter Evans is an exhausting character to portray. How did you prepare for this role, and kind of research did you do? Did you create a back-story for him?
MICHAEL: I think any time you're approaching a role, one of the first things you consider is how is this person created, where did they come from, and what's their history. I kind of day-dreamed about that. It's not like you try and figure out what they had for breakfast every morning. It's just kind of an impression of what their life must have been like up until the point that you're seeing them in the story. So, I did that. I did some reading about combat in Iraq. There's a book, actually, that I read quite a bit called Jarhead, which also wound up getting made into a film that Sam Mendes directed with Jake Gyllenhaal. I would read that book a lot. I would also read books about abuse and paranoid schizophrenia and how the two have and can be related. You research it from that end. At the end of the day, it's really about trying to be in the moment and be present with whoever you're working with that day and just listening and responding. And, also, just listening to Billy doing whatever he wanted, because he obviously knows what he's doing.
TONY: How did you prepare for your scenes with Ashley Judd? Did you guys talk beforehand and figure out how to tackle certain scenes, or did you just go into the scene and start acting?
MICHAEL: We spent a couple of days, before we started shooting, I think more than anything, just trying to get to know each other, because it's obviously a very intimate relationship between these two people, so we didn't want to be total strangers. We spent a couple of days just kind of telling stories about ourselves and where we came from and just trying to get some sense of rapport and some sense of comradery. The scenes themselves, yeah, Billy didn't really want to get into that too much before we started shooting, because he really believes in spontaneity and that your best work is probably going to come on the first couple of takes. He doesn't want to beat things into the ground before he gets them on film.
TONY: Do you think current horror films are allowing us to deal with our fears about the world after 9/11?
MICHAEL: I think it depends. Even within the genre or horror, there's so many sub-genres and the films get made for so many different reasons. I think with Bug, Bug's definitely an attempt to deal with the loneliness and the isolation that I think is kind of prevalent in society today. I think the obvious conclusion to jump to is that it's about conspiracy theories or about the government controlling us or something. But, I think more than anything, it's really a story about these two just extremely lonely people that are so desperate to feel like someone else understands them. I can't speak by and large for the whole of horror films as a genre, because it's not something I watch a great deal of. It's not something that I follow with any great sense of rigor.
TONY: Since this film was very emotional during certain scenes, what was the set like when you weren't shooting?
MICHAEL: It was a really great environment, because it was literally a set. It wasn't a location. They built this set in a gymnasium in a High School, and there was never anybody in there who didn't need to be there. The people who were there and working there were all very respectful. I think very early on, the crew kind of felt that they were working on a film that could potentially be very successful and very important. There was a lot of respect for what was going on and for the jobs that everyone else had to perform. It was just really quick. There wasn't a lot of time for lounging around or having idol chitchat. Every day there was a lot to get done, and we just had to power through it.
TONY: You just mentioned that the film was shot in a gymnasium. Did you find it challenging to film in one location and stay there?
MICHAEL: As an actor, it wasn't so much a challenge for me. I think it was more from the technical side of it. I know that for the cinematographer and the gaffer, the space had to continue to be interesting visually ... and Billy constantly breaking down the scenes in terms of shots and angles. And not just keep it interesting, but keep telling the story visually. As an actor, I prefer it. I don't like getting dragged all over the place from one location to another. It's nice to know. It's actually a lot more like theater and this is where I go to work. It kind of affects your mindset right when you walk in the room, because you know you're at work and it helps you focus.
TONY: What do you think ultimately brings you and Ashley Judd's character together?
MICHAEL: I think they both have terrible secrets that are the source of a lot of shame for both of them. And they both really need somebody to forgive them for who they are and what they've done and what they've been apart of. I also think, you know, Ashley's character having lost her son, it's confusing, because at some moments you feel like maybe Peter is her lover. And sometimes you think maybe he's Lloyd, you know, and maybe this is her opportunity to finally take care of the son that she lost. Peter, also, you don't hear much about his mother. You hear about his father. He brings him up at least. All he says about his mother is that she's dead. So, again, you see maybe Peter's been looking for that in his life. Maybe he's been looking for someone to take care of him. It's interesting. There's a lot of little clues sprinkled throughout the script. On the surface, it's very odd that these two people would get so close to one another. But if you really take a close look at it, you can see the threads that kind of tie them together.
TONY: One of my favorite films from 2004 was The Woodsman with Kevin Bacon. What was it like working with Kevin Bacon on that film?
MICHAEL: I loved working with Kevin. He's such a fantastic scene partner. It was really incredible to do that. We shot all of those scenes in two days right at the beginning of the film. That's what they started with. They started with his visits to the social worker. Towards the end of shooting I got a call, and it said, "During those two days you were here, all the film from that second day has been, I can't remember exactly, destroyed or something." So, we had to go back and shoot the second half of those scenes again, which was an interesting experience for me, because that's not something I had experienced before. It's interesting to be around for both the beginning and the end of a film. Well, at least the shooting of a film, because the atmosphere is so different. But the thing that I was impressed with is that Kevin was as focused at the end as he had been the first day. It seemed like he really looked forward to having an opportunity to do the scenes again and make them even better than they were the first time. Although, it would have been hard to improve on them.
TONY: You've been in some really complex films from Bug to The Woodsman to World Trade Center. What do you look for in a script? Is there something that makes you want to be a part of a film?
MICHAEL: I think the one thing I look for now days is something that distinguishes it. Film, at the end of the day and kind of by necessity because it's a business, can tend to be formulaic. It's based on finding a formula that works and trying to milk everything you can out of that formula. While I understand that as a business model, it doesn't necessarily always make for very interesting material. The thing I'm always taken with is when I read something that doesn't seem to fall into step with the usual kind of structures. It's hard to know what's really going to capture your imagination until you see it. It's the unexpected and being surprised by something. It's being surprised by a character. Recently, I just read a script where the first 15 pages, it felt like something I had seen before. But then all of a sudden this relationship develops between these two characters and nothing that happens between them is what you would expect. And I got really excited about it. So, I think just the unexpected.
TONY: Finally, what are your plans for the future?
MICHAEL: I'm currently shooting a film called The Missing Person, which I'm very excited about. I'm playing a detective, which is fun. I'm right in the middle of shooting that and then heading out to Los Angeles to try and figure out what the next project will be. I'll be doing a play in New York in the springtime at The Public Theater, which I'm excited about. Between now and then, it's kind of up for grabs.
