‘The Flash’ Actor Michael Shannon On Why He Turned Down ‘Star Wars’ Role: “I Don’t Ever Want To Get Stuck In A Franchise”
Michael Shannon, who recently reprised his role of General Zod in The Flash, is opening up about why he turned down a role in the Star Wars franchise back in 2016.
“I’m always a bit wary about those giant movies. Because they take a lot of time and I don’t find them very stimulating to work on. I don’t ever want to get stuck in a franchise,” the actor told Empire magazine. “I don’t find them interesting and I don’t want to perpetuate them. If I’m making something, I want there to be some kind of purpose to it — I don’t want to make mindless entertainment. The world doesn’t need more mindless entertainment. We’re inundated with it.”
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Despite rejecting the role in Star Wars for being a franchise, Shannon has found himself in a franchise within the DC Universe. However, the actor explains that being part of 2013’s Man of Steel was different because the film “was actually a very relevant story.”
“It’s basically looking at a civilization that destroyed their own planet and think the solution is to go off and destroy another,” he explained. “When you hear that hypothetically, if we destroy the Earth, we might go live on Mars — it’s the same thing. I didn’t look at Zod as a villain. I just saw him as a guy whose job is to protect his people.”
Shannon’s General Zod was defeated in Man of Steel but thanks to the multiverse, he was able to play the villain again in The Flash. The actor didn’t think he would ever play the character again “because he was dead.” Shannon mentioned that he agreed to be part of the Superman world because “it was a one-and-done” and “was pretty shocked to hear about this reprisal of the role.”
“But I like the story that The Flash is telling and I wasn’t there for a long amount of time — I was just there a couple of weeks — so it didn’t break my back to do it,” he added.
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