“Who is beyond him?”: Werner Herzog names the most outstanding actor of their generation
Werner Herzog marches to the beat of his own drum when it comes to filmmaking. For the past five decades, the German director has produced some of the most unusual movies of the period and gained a passionate following in the process. From early eccentricities like Even Dwarfs Started Small to more mainstream successes like the 2005 documentary Grizzly Man, Herzog has focused his lens on marginal figures, the tyranny of nature, and grand philosophical tangents.
Although the more recent period of his career has focused on documentaries, the director has worked with some of the most famous actors of the past few decades in his fiction films, including Christian Bale, Nicolas Cage, and Willem Dafoe. In a 2023 interview in The Guardian, however, he revealed who he believes is the greatest actor of their generation, and none of these acting legends made the cut.
“I salute Michael Shannon because he clearly is the most outstanding actor of his entire generation,” he said, before challenging the interviewer, “Name me the other one who is beyond him? Name him! I give you five seconds: five, four, three, two…”
There are many actors who have been called the greatest of their generation, but Shannon, although widely respected, is not one of the most common bullet points on the list. Starting out in small roles in mainstream blockbusters like Pearl Harbor and Vanilla Sky, he quickly distinguished himself as an actor of scene-stealing intensity. Even when it doesn’t quite fit the scene or the movie, he brings a tenor of menace that can either be chilling, comical, or downright avant-garde.
In this light, it’s no wonder Herzog holds him in particularly high esteem. Shannon is basically the actor-equivalent of the director, whose intensity is perhaps the most consistent throughline of his movies and off-screen exploits. He also knows what he’s talking about. Shannon has appeared in three Herzog films – 2009’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, 2009’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, and 2016’s Salt and Fire.
It is clear in all these movies that Herzog appreciates Shannon’s menacing on-screen presence. In My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, the star plays an actor who spirals into madness and kills his mother. In Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, he plays Officer Mundt, a small role that still allows him to be his stoic, sinister self in contrast to Cage’s unhinged drama. And in Salt and Fire, he plays a kidnapper who holds several scientists hostage in Bolivia against the backdrop of an erupting volcano. It was panned, but it’s hard to find a plot more Herzogian than that.
When asked which living actor he admires most but has yet to work with, the director had an even better answer. “Joaquin Phoenix, for example,” he said. “I took him out of a car that flew through the air and landed on its roof. And he tried to light a cigarette. Gasoline was dripping. So I had to use massive persuasion to snatch his… no actually, he was not persuadable any more. But I snatched the cigarette lighter away from him. And which performance? Everything, everything!”
He did, in fact, rescue Phoenix from a car accident in 2006, which the actor remembered in his own way. “There was this German voice saying ‘Just relax,’” Phoenix told The Guardian. “There’s something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog’s voice. I felt completely fine and safe. I got out of the car, and I said thank you, and he was gone.” The Herzog legend continues.
