Michael Shannon: Man Of Steel Role ‘Just Came Out Of Nowhere’

 

You’ve surely heard by now that the wonderfully weird Michael Shannon has been cast as General Zod in Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel. Whatever your opinion may be of the film retreading ground already covered in Superman II, he’s a fantastic choice for that role of the Kryptonian criminal.

Shannon appeared Monday at the RiverRun International Film Festival in North Carolina to receive the RiverRun 2011 Emerging Master Award. As you might expect, Man of Steel came up. While he naturally didn’t reveal anything about the movie, Shannon excitedly spoke about the experience of landing the part.

“This Superman thing is ridiculous. It just came out of nowhere,” he said during an interview at the festival. He didn’t even believe what he was hearing when his agent called with the opportunity, but the reality hit home as he made his way out to California to meet with the director at his home.

“He’s seriously sitting there and he’s telling me, ‘You can’t read the script, so I’m just gonna tell you what happens.’ And he spent a half hour telling me every scene in this movie. He’s at his home in Pasadena and I’m looking out — there’s the Rose Bowl, there’s little hummingbirds flying around. I’m like, ‘I’m on acid!’”

Snyder was sold on Shannon, but that was only the first step. He also had to meet with Superman himself, Henry Cavill, to see if the chemistry was there. What followed was an amusing encounter involving a weak camera mic and an uncooperative air condition. Not that it mattered, since we now have our new Zod.