Michael Shannon: Career In Four Minutes

Michael Shannon is actor of immense screen presence, best known for tortured, troubling and terrifying characters.

In The Iceman , he plays real-life hit-man Richard Kuklinski, who was reported to have killed between 100 and 200 victims over the course of his criminal career.

Rather than portraying Kuklinski as a one-note villain, Shannon imbues him with a thought-provoking duality: the cold, callous contract-killer is a devoted father and family-man in his home life, and his nearest and dearest are oblivious to his day job.

We got to see multiple sides of Shannon when he sat down for our Career In Four Minutes interview. From his humble beginnings appearing alongside Bill Murray in Groundhog Day , to working on ginormo-blockbusters with Michael Bay, to his astonishing turn in The Iceman (and not forgetting Man Of Steel ’s General Zod), it's all in there.

Watch Michael Shannon: Career In Four Minutes now:

The Iceman opens in the UK on 7 June 2013.

Read The Making Of The Iceman

Read our review of The Iceman

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.