Michael Shannon opens up about rejecting ‘Star Wars’
Over a decades-long career, Michael Shannon has played his part in a number of blockbuster movies, from Man of Steel to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. As he prepares to make the rounds following his appearance in The Flash, Shannon opened up about not taking on a sure-fire hit with Star Wars.
When discussing his career, Shannon explained his decision to turn down a role in the space-based franchise. Although the blockbuster would have worked well with Shannon in the role, his reasoning was more about being confined to that filming environment.
Speaking to Empire, Shannon opened up about his reservations around such lavish films, saying that he’s “a bit wary about those kind of movies”, citing that they “take a lot of time and I don’t find them stimulating to work on”.
Since then, Shannon has taken on some fantastic singular roles throughout his career. Even though the Knives Out franchise continued with Daniel Craig’s character Benoit Blanc, the rest of the cast involved a completely different family from the first outing.
Even after starring as Zod in Man of Steel, Shannon bemoaned the idea of a franchise. He said: “I don’t find them interesting and I don’t want to perpetuate them. If I’m making something, I want there to be some kind of purpose to it — I don’t want to make mindless entertainment”.
The same could be said for his work on his most recent film, The Flash, which is set for a box-office failure, telling Collider: “I’m not going to lie — it wasn’t quite satisfying for me, as an actor. It’s not quite the in-depth character study situation that I honestly felt Man of Steel was”.
Outside of the DC Universe, Shannon is also working behind the camera as of late, serving as director on the film Eric Larue, which came out on June 10th. Shannon’s next outing, The End, is still in its filming stages and is set for release in 2024.
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