No mincer of words.
Nick Allen over at Roger Ebert seems to have followed my crying call for all journalists interviewing Michael Shannon to please, OH PLEASE, mention Donald Trump to the guy. Shannon seems to be really pissed off about the election results and these interviews almost feel like therapy sessions for the him to unload. Hell, Nick Allen doesn't even mention Trump, it's Shannon that decides to have the conversation tilt towards that topic.
Nick Allen over at Roger Ebert seems to have followed my crying call for all journalists interviewing Michael Shannon to please, OH PLEASE, mention Donald Trump to the guy. Shannon seems to be really pissed off about the election results and these interviews almost feel like therapy sessions for the him to unload. Hell, Nick Allen doesn't even mention Trump, it's Shannon that decides to have the conversation tilt towards that topic.
Full interview can be found HERE, but here are all the Trump quotes, which seem to compromise more than 80% of the interview. I was already a big fan of Shannon's work, but these rants just put me head over heels in love with the guy.
You can find yesterday's rants with Metro UK by clicking HERE
You can find yesterday's rants with Metro UK by clicking HERE
Thanks for talking, Michael. Happy Friday to you.
[Pause] Really? [Laughs] Not so much. It’s not one of my happier Fridays ... now that the Orange Man is running the world.
And Leonard Cohen just passed …
I think Leonard Cohen died rather conveniently after Trump was elected president. I think he killed him.
Can you make sense of any of that for me—how Trump was elected?
Yeah, I’ll tell you how to make sense of it: This country’s filled with ignorant jackasses. The big red dildo running through the middle of our country needs to be annexed to be its own country of moronic assholes. You can call it the United States of Moronic Fucking Assholes.
Do you think those assholes started off that way, or that people are inherently good and lost?
I don’t know how people got so goddamn stupid. But it’s really weird, because it’s like the last eight years, now it feels like a lie. Like, this has been festering underneath the whole time. Racists, sexists. And a lot of these people, they don’t know why the fuck they’re alive. They know it. They’re doing drugs, fucking killing themselves. Because they’re like, 'Why the fuck am I alive? I can’t get a job, I don’t know anything about anything, I have no curiosity for life or the world.' So this Trump thing is like getting a box of firecrackers, or something. It’s like, 'Well, this will be fun for a little while, this’ll kill some time.' Because, y’know, the jackass will be amusing on television, stay stupid shit. Make everybody clap. Hillary would have been too boring, I suppose. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. It’s the worst. This guy is going to destroy civilization as we know it, and the earth, and all because of these people who don’t have any idea why they’re alive.
Do you think this idea of purpose comes down to education, or finding a job that they like?
I don’t know! I mean, yeah, to a certain extent I agree with Trump. Yeah, NAFTA was fucked up and people need to have jobs. People need to have a way of supporting themselves, they need a way of having self-respect, pride and dignity. You take that away from them, this is what you get.
And it's particularly interesting then, if the life you’re living is as an actor.
Yeah, well some people wonder like, ‘All you do is act, are you going to lose touch with quote-unquote reality, if you’re insulated?’ But, so far so good, I guess. I don’t mean to sound cocky, but I guess the one thing I always try to do, I always resist the notion that I’m sort of star or something. I still walk down the street, take the subway, try and stay in the real world as much as possible. It’s so you don’t become some insulated pompous asshole who doesn’t have the slightest idea how the world works. Like Donald Trump.