Michael Shannon declined a Star Wars role: 'I don't ever want to get stuck in a franchise'
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Michael Shannon isn't interested in traveling to a galaxy far, far away.
The Flash star opened up about his decision to turn down an undisclosed Star Wars role back 2016 — and why he's doesn't think tentpole film franchises like it are particularly "interesting" — during a recent print interview with Empire Magazine.
"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," he told the outlet. "I don't ever want to get stuck in a franchise. 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."
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Michael Shannon
Though he might not be fond of them, Shannon is very much part of an active film franchise, having starred as the villainous General Zod in DC's Man of Steel and The Flash. Still, the actor explained that joining the DC Extended Universe was different because Man of Steel was a "very relevant story" at the time.
"It's basically looking at a civilization that destroyed their own planet and think the solution is to go off and destroy another. When you hear that hypothetically, if we destroy the Earth, we might go live on Mars — It's the same thing," he said. "I didn't look at Zod as a villain. I just saw him as a guy whose job is to protect his people."
Shannon also noted that he didn't know his character would be brought back in a subsequent film nearly a decade later when he originally signed onto the project.
"Yeah, I didn't see myself playing Zod again, because he was dead. It's actually one of the reasons I made Man of Steel in the first place — It was a one-and-done. So I was pretty shocked to hear about this reprisal of the role," he said. "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."
However, as Shannon recently told Collider, it "wasn't quite satisfying" stepping back into the character's shoes the second time around. "It's not quite the in-depth character study situation that I honestly felt Man of Steel was," he admitted. "Whether people think that's crazy or not, I don't even care. I really felt like Man of Steel was actually a pretty sophisticated story."
While he considered The Flash to be an equally sophisticated story, Shannon admitted "it's not Zod's story," adding, "I'm basically there to present a challenge."
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