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Michael Shannon

American actor

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ41449 ↗
Source-derived summary

Michael Corbett Shannon (born August 7, 1974) is an American actor. Known for his forceful and intense style of acting, he has twice received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Revolutionary Road (2008) and Nocturnal Animals (2016). He received Actor Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role in 99 Homes (2014).

Shannon's film debut was in Groundhog Day (1993). He appeared in Jesus' Son (1999), Pearl Harbor (2001), Kangaroo Jack (2003), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), The Iceman (2012), The Night Before (2015), The Shape of Water (2017), Knives Out (2019), and Bullet Train (2022). He is a frequent collaborator with director Jeff Nichols, having appeared in all of Nichols' films to date: Shotgun Stories (2007), Take Shelter (2011), Mud (2012), Midnight Special and Loving (both 2016), and The Bikeriders (2023). He played General Zod in the DC Extended Universe films Man of Steel (2013) and The Flash (2023).

Shannon made his Broadway debut in the 2012 play Grace. He returned to Broadway playing James Tyrone Jr. in the revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night (2016), earning a Tony Award nomination.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Michael Shannon” is american actor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Michael, Shannon and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1974, 2008, 2016, 2014—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1974-08-07. For this dossier, Michael, Shannon and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american actor” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q41449. VIAF identifies the subject as 107563738. The Library of Congress control number is no2006031203. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1974, 2008, 2016 and 2014.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Michael Shannon”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Michael Shannon primary sources, Michael Shannon archive and Michael research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Michael Shannon”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Michael Shannon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.