Zack Snyder casting
Michael Shannon as General Zod for
Man of Steel this week was a huge stroke of genius for the new Superman reboot as there's very few character actors working today who can command as much screen power and intensity as he. It's not easy filling the shoes of someone like
Terrence Stamp, who in those very brief moments in the first Richard Donner directed Superman (1978) movie had total command of the screen and for me, took the opening away from the great but overpaid (in that movie) Marlon Brando. He rocked in the sequel too (where he was the main villain) and Michael Shannon is very much in the same ilk. Whether it's his two minute bravura performance in Revolutionary Road where he took an actor's showcase movie away from Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet or whether it's a lead role in a Werner Herzog movie. Shannon is the man and he's still enough of an unknown quantity in the mainstream to surprise and terrify. Just look at his face. He doesn't need to utter a word to terrify. Over at
/film, a video has been unearthed from a Q & A at the
RiverRun International Film Festival in North Carolina where Michael Shannon was being honoured and he took the opportunity to discuss, somewhat amusingly, how he won the role as Zod, and how he screen-tested alongside
Henry Cavill's Superman. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx8MPa3fECA
"So I go meet him and hes seriously sitting there and hes telling me hes like You cant read the script, so Im just gonna tell you what happens. And he spent like a half hour telling me every scene in this movieand then its a month later, its like OK, youre General Zod."
Shannon sure sounds like a cool guy to share a beer with (hell he sounds drunk in that clip) and someone who isn't interested in playing the studio politics, clearly, as I bet he isn't supposed to say anything about the new movie. This might become interesting in the next couple of weeks if he leaks something a bit major. Man of Steel (LOVE that title, and it doesn't need the Superman before it to work) has a few more casting choices to be made, presumably that of Perry White and Jimmy Olsen before filming can begin in June. The film itself is due for a release Dec. 2012.