Two-time Oscar-nominated character actor Michael Shannon (48) has lashed out against “Star Wars” and comparable global film franchises. In a recent interview with Empire magazine, Shannon said he turned down a Star Wars role because he had “doubts about these giant films.” This is reported by “Insider”. The mime did not reveal exactly which character he was to play in the galaxy far, far away.
According to the actor, known from “The Shape of Water” (2017) and “Knives Out” (2019), working on big blockbuster films is “not particularly stimulating”. “I never want to get stuck in a franchise,” Shannon said, adding, “I don’t want to make mindless entertainment. The world doesn’t need more mindless entertainment. We’re inundated with it.” Projects he chooses to do as an actor would have to have “some kind of intent”.
Some moviegoers will be surprised by these statements that Shannon can currently be seen in the DC Studios superhero film “The Flash”. In the comic book adaptation, which is part of DC’s huge film franchise, Shannon embodies the villain of the film with General Zod – for the second time after “Man of Steel” with Henry Cavill (40) from 2013 .
However, Shannon says he signed on for the latter production because it was an “actually very relevant story”. “[The film] is basically about a civilization that has destroyed its own planet and thinks the solution is to go away and destroy another world. When you hear that maybe we should destroy the earth on which could live on Mars, it’s the same thing,” the actor elaborates. He also didn’t see his character Zod as a villain.
But Shannon finds far less enthusiastic about his latest foray into the DC Universe. “I’m not going to lie – it wasn’t satisfying for me as a performer,” he told Collider about two weeks ago. Multiverse movies are, according to Shannon, “like someone playing with action figures. It’s like, ‘Here’s this person. Here’s the other person. And they’re fighting.'”
