Michael Shannon is ready for ‘The End’
Even in an awards season filled with musicals, The end requires your attention. Features the first narrative from the popular documentary Joshua Oppenheimer, The film is set after an unspecified climate disaster that makes Earth uninhabitable. It’s about a handful of wealthy survivors and the catchy tunes they sing after the world ends.
Michael Shannon plays Father, an energy expert who helped cause a climate apocalypse. He and Tilda Swinton‘s mother has spent the last 25 years weathering the aftermath in a complex bunker with their son (George MacKay) and a trio of hired maids. Like her character, Shannon has had a lot of time to think about this terrible predicament… and sing and dance her way through it.
When Girls (Moses Ingram) was discovered in the salt mine outside their bunker, the family in the center of The end Slowly begins to unravel and the layers are separated in each musical number. For Shannon’s Father, this leads to a timely examination of how those at the top of the world are “in some ways the meanest of us all.”
Vanity Fair: To my knowledge, this is the first real musical role you’ve had.
Michael Shannon: In the cinema, yes. I did a miniseries called George and Tammy, where I played George Jones and I sang quite a bit in it.
What interests you? The end Is this your first movie musical?
Because of Josh [Oppenheimer] asked me to do it. I’m not really looking for anything specific. The wind tends to blow it against my feet, and then I get up and do it. I’m not afraid of it. I love music. Honestly, I like music more than movies and television. So I’m excited that I’m about to have the opportunity to bring something that I’m so passionate about into my work.
Are you interested in what Joshua Oppenheimer has up his sleeve for his first narrative film?
To be honest, I was unfamiliar with Josh’s work before meeting him. I am one of the few who have never seen one Act of murder or The look of silence, so when I met him, I was completely blank. I really enjoyed talking to him. But I watched his movies after signing up and was really amazed by them. I think they are monumental works. I feel very lucky to be in his company.
Your character in this movie, Father, is actively rewriting his history when we meet him, which makes me wonder: Do you think this guy is carrying the entire movie? Is he ever honest?
I think the main thing he’s trying to do is create a world for his son and a reality for his son. I just want to make sure of that before I die. And if Son can somehow continue, then this will be the legend he carries with him.
I think that was the initial motivation for Father to start writing his story. And then, I think somewhere along the way, he became interested in revisiting his own history, to assuage his own guilt. But I think it’s all about Son.
