Michael Shannon becomes latest actor to bash his own superhero role

Michael Shannon has added his voice to those who have criticized their own roles in superhero franchise films.

The actor plays General Zod in the DC movie universe. He made his debut as a villain in 2013 man of Steel alongside Henry Cavill as Superman and will repeat it in The Lightningin which Ezra Miller plays the title role.

In a new interview with collidersShannon, 48, admitted he wasn’t entirely happy with his role in the movie, which hits theaters June 16.

“I’m not going to lie – it wasn’t entirely satisfying for me as an actor. “Those multiverse movies are like someone playing with action figures,” Shannon said.

“It’s like, ‘Here’s this person. Here is that person. And they fight!’ It’s not quite the situation of an in-depth character study, which I honestly felt man of Steel was.”

Shannon added that The Lightning “Everything revolved around Ezra [Miller]’ and that his character was ‘basically there to present a challenge to the movie star’.

Still, he praised Miller, who was embroiled in several controversies leading up to the film’s release, saying, “I thought Ezra was lovely — very nice to me while I was there.”

“It’s difficult to talk about, but I always give people in this business a lot of leeway because there are a lot of people in this business who are struggling. And some people have more privacy than others.”

Shannon is the latest star to speak out against his own superhero role. In an interview with The New Yorker This month, Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins said of the making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU): “They put me in armor; You forced me to have a beard. Sit on the throne and scream a little. When you’re in front of a green screen, there’s no point in playing like that.”

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The 85-year-old Welsh actor played the Norse god Odin in three films in the Thor series, directed by Chris Hemsworth.

Christian Bale, who played super villain Gorr in Taika Waititi Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) previously said that acting in front of a green screen was “the definition of monotony”.

Back in 2014, Idris Elba spoke about the difficult transition from the role of Nelson Mandela Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013) on the supporting role of Heimdall in Thor: The Dark World.

“I was stuck between takes, fake hair glued to my head, that damn helmet while they reset,” he said The Telegraph. “And I’m like, ’24 hours ago I was Mandela’… Then there I was, in this stupid harness, with this wig and this sword and these contact lenses. It ripped my heart out.”

The Lightning hits theaters on June 16th. To read The IndependentHere is the three star review of the film.