Michael Shannon

I'm just kind of odd. There are dark forces in the world, and if you pay attention to what's going on around you, you end up incorporating it into the storytelling. Maybe it's some aspect of myself that's coming through that people are seeing, that I am in fact a quiet psycho.

I know this'll sound obnoxious, but acting was very much an accident for me. I didn't have, like, posters of Marlon Brando in my bedroom when I was growing up.

I've known a lot of religious people. My mother is very religious, but she also is very private about it. When I was growing up, she never went to church. She just prayed and read her Bible and kept it to herself. I'm not from a background of flamboyant believers. It's much more a personal issue.

One of the reasons I'm an actor is because I was no physical specimen as a child. I wasn't athletic and didn't have any prowess in that regard. Growing up in Kentucky, most little boys were trying to get into sports, and it was very competitive, so that was not to be. But I did want to do something.

Honestly, as hard a profession as acting is, I think music is even harder. Acting, you're like a leech, because someone else does the hard part for you. They write it for you, then the director tells you what to do. You really just need to know how to pay attention, follow instructions.

It's obviously a lot harder to try and be a good guy than it is to be a bad guy. The world is a fundamentally evil place, it seems like. So in order to be a good person, you have to fight temptation and vice.

I started acting because I was miserable and crazy and wanted to be someone else, to run around and scream in front of people without getting in trouble.

Everybody's constantly being destroyed and rebuilding themselves, some more drastically than others.

There's nothing routine about 'Boardwalk Empire.' It's like being in some secret society where they call you up and tell you where to go: 'Meet us at the corner of such and so.'

The stage is a routine. It keeps you grounded, like a metronome. I find that soothing.

That's one of the great things about acting - you get to pretend you're somebody else, which is great if you get bored with yourself.

One of the great things about acting is you can do things that in real life would get you in trouble. I think that's something I figured out pretty early on.