Michael Shannon

Tall and imposing, Michael Shannon is a character actor known for his intense and often unhinged characters. A Chicago theater veteran, Shannon appeared in productions by the heralded Steppenwolf Theatre Company and began his screen career in the early 1990s. After bit parts throughout the decade, he started to gain attention for small, but oddly memorable, roles in indie films such as Jesus' Son and Cecil B. Demented. Despite being in numerous movies by blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II) and playing a key part in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, Shannon has generally thrived in smaller-scale films, a point hit home by his fierce, unfiltered Oscar-nominated performance in the 2007 domestic drama Revolutionary Road. Although far from a conventional leading man, Shannon has nonetheless starred in a handful of movies, notably the disturbing psychological thriller Bug, an adaptation of the play by his longtime associate Tracy Letts in which he portrayed the same role—that of unraveling war vet Peter Evans. Aside from Letts, Shannon has developed close working relationships with cinema legend Werner Herzog and director Jeff Nichols, garnering accolades for his unnerving turn as a storm-obsessed family man in the latter's 2011 drama, Take Shelter. Shannon has also won over a bigger audience with his regular role as a tough Prohibition enforcer on the period HBO series Boardwalk Empire and consistently displays an eagerness to blur the lines between protagonist and antagonist.