In Midnight Special, former Superman villain Michael Shannon plays a father who rescues his son from a mysterious cult and goes on the run from the Federal Government. Director Jeff Nichols delivers a gripping supernatural chase movie through the back roads of the American South. The Boardwalk Empire star talked to NME about working with Joel Edgerton, his band Corporal and becoming The King for his next film, Elvis & Nixon.
Midnight Special offers an intense genre-hopping ride. Can you talk us through the set up without spoiling its twists and turns?
“My character Roy’s son Alton was born while he and his wife were members of a cult and as the film begins they try and escape its clutches so the chase is on. Roy believes Alton is in touch with a dimension beyond our own and wants, more than anything, to protect him. There are a lot of people that believe there is more to the world than we are able to perceive and Roy believes Alton can connect with that and manipulate it in some way. Roy’s son means more to him than anything. It’s a feeling I can identify with, being a parent. It reconfigures your central nervous system. You can be a person who’s kind of aimless, not quite sure of what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s important and what isn’t, but when you have a kid, all that changes.”
Roy is father, husband, brother and above all protector. Did you sense a link in Jeff Nichols’ writing between him and your character Curtis in Take Shelter?
“All four of the films I’ve made so far with Jeff deal with the theme of fatherhood in different aspects. In Shotgun Stories you have a father who disappeared, went off and started another family and then my character’s son winds up being the patriarch of the three brothers and dealing with the absence of the father. In Take Shelter you have the anxiety of the father in relation to the world they’ve brought their child into. Then in Mud you have the children looking for a father figure, looking for a role model, looking for guidance. But in Midnight Special you have a father dealing with the anxiety not of the world he’s brought the child into but of the child itself and the fact that inevitably the child becomes something other than you. You create something that ultimately departs from you. And as much as Roy needs his son Alton to give him some sense of meaning in his life, and as much as Roy wants to hold onto Alton, that may not be the best thing for either of them.”
Watching Midnight Special there are shades of The Fury, Close Encounters and a host of paranoid 1970s thriller. Were they touchstones?
“For Jeff I know there were definite reference points. I think he originally conceived the idea for this film in a visual sense before he even necessarily had the story. Jeff talked about the film Starman (John Carpenter’s 1984 sci-fi romance starring Jeff Bridges) a lot and he’s generally fascinated by the work of Carpenter (Halloween, Escape From New York). When I was a boy seeing Starman had a huge impact on me too. I remember being aware of the artistry of filmmaking for the first time when I saw it. When you’re a kid you don’t break it down that way and kinda just enjoy the experience but Starman left me thinking, wow, the people that made this are really good at what they do.”
Sounds like you and Jeff are kindred spirits…
“Jeff’s like a brother to me. The first time I read one of his scripts I was shocked that somebody had written a screenplay about people that I felt like a knew and a place I understood. I was used to movies being something foreign and other than my life or my reality. We’re both from the South and both kinda chew over the same quandaries as it were. I really admire his discipline and he’s such an easy person to work for. I’m not the only one that keeps coming back, he’s usually got most of the same crew and Joel Edgerton’s back with us to do Loving (Nichols’ next film is inspired by the true story of a 1967 interracial marriage civil rights case). I don’t think Jeff has many enemies!”
What was the most challenging scene to shoot?
“Roy goes through some extreme emotional upheavals with his son Alton. Ultimately, the last time they see each other is very abrupt and I knew that was gonna be a hard scene to do. But I love the fact that it was very sudden and wasn’t a long goodbye. A lot of times in life that’s how it is, you don’t get to make a big speech, things just happen. It’s an emotionally intense film but in juxtaposition to that working with Joel Edgerton made me laugh. He’s a really funny guy behind the scenes. Between the takes we were keeping each other’s spirits up because it was a hard shoot – we spent a lot of time in cars and filming through the cold nights.”
“Good people die every day believing in things…” Would you say the film warns us to be wary of the powers that be?
“As in life it’s definitely difficult to know who to trust in this movie. Although, I think ultimately Midnight Special winds up being about something broader than. Right now in the world there are lots of people who speak with certainty about how things should be or how to fix the problems we have… I think in this film Jeff might be saying uncertainty could be more prudent than approaching things with absolute certainty.”
Alton says, “I need to go where I belong”. Could that apply to you in your film career? Are you happier working on an indie film compared to say Man of Steel?
“For me I just thrive on the variety of it you know. My career has taught me a lot about the world, I’ve seen a lot of things and been a lot of places I wouldn’t have otherwise. The last time I was in London I was promoting Man of Steel, which I loved working with Zack Snyder on, and now I’m back with Midnight Special. It might be a film on a different scale but it still packs a big punch. I’m lucky because it’s been a long time since I had a job where I didn’t wanna be there!”
Midnight Special features a memorable brooding synth score from David Wingo. Could you see you and your band Corporal working on a movie soundtrack?
“They’re pretty separate worlds. Though one of our songs did feature in a small indie movie but I don’t think it’s a movie anyone will ever see! Honestly, I wish I had more time to devote to the music but I don’t. It’s the reality of the business I’m in that I don’t have a lot of spare time. In order to delve more deeply into the music I’d have to take a hiatus from the movies and that’s probably not gonna happen for a while. I’ve got one film coming out after another at the moment so it’s kinda like an actor’s dream.”
Do Corporal have any go to cover songs?
“There’s a Gram Parsons song we really like that they played with The Byrds called 100 Years From Now. We were playing Starman by Bowie for a while too and played it at a recent gig in his memory.”
We’ll next see you on screen as Elvis Presley in Elvis & Nixon… Did you have reservations about portraying The King?
“I was nervous about it, playing such an icon. I didn’t feel like the most qualified candidate for the role but I’d worked with the producer before on William Friedkin’s Bug and she kept insisting she thought it was a good idea so I finally succumbed. I’m really glad I did it because I didn’t know much about him and I learned what a fascinating character he was. I really got into the collection of his work on Stax from the sessions he did at the studios there. I had a lot of help too from an old friend of his called Jerry Schilling. Jerry told me that a lot of people knew what his friend sounded like, what he looked like and knew how to impersonate him, but very few people understood him or considered him in a serious way. He really wanted somebody to do that and he thought that it could be me. Elvis & Nixon doesn’t cover his whole life story, instead it focuses on the time he went to Washington DC in 1970 to visit President Nixon at the White House to offer his services and get a badge, because he wanted to be an undercover agent!”
Midnight Special is in cinemas April 8
Elvis & Nixon is released June 24