Michael Shannon Cannot Understand Why He's a Late-Night Reject In "The Iceman," you're pretty scary as Richard Kuklinski, the contract killer who claimed to have killed more than 200 people. Ray Liotta and Robert Davi, who can be pretty scary too, are also in the film. Did you guys ever talk about being scary? Not really. Robert Davi talks a lot about his singing career. He was playing the Venetian, and he kept asking me if I was going to be in Vegas any time soon. Ray Liotta really didn't say much, except every once in a while he would complain about something. Have you ever felt close to killing someone? No, I can't imagine doing that. When I was younger with my mom, we would get into some pretty heated rounds. There was one time when I really just wanted her to shut up, so I went in the kitchen and got a knife. But I wouldn't have done anything with it. It didn't really work. What were you fighting about? I don't remember. It was immediately after she divorced my stepfather, so it was basically me and her and the three kids she had with this other dude. She was a social worker; she didn't make a dime. They weren't happy days. Your mother and father were married five times each. Did you enjoy all those weddings? I wasn't around for all of them. I would have rather skipped Mom's wedding to a fellow she met while she was working at Eastern State Hospital, a rather famous mental hospital in Kentucky. He was a chiropractor who had been in for a nervous breakdown. They tried to open a chiropractic to get him back in the game, but nobody came. Mom did the front desk; he cracked the necks. It's very hard to get people to come to a chiropractic office even if you haven't recently been released from a mental hospital. That is very funny, but I can't tell whether you intended it to be because you haven't cracked a smile. I have a very dry sense of humor. You were nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2009 for your role as the unhinged son in "Revolutionary Road." You didn't look too homicidal the moment you lost to Heath Ledger. I'd had a lot of gin. I was pickled. From the time I was nominated to the awards, it was like a steady litany of every human being on Earth telling me how I wasn't going to win. It was like being beaten by broom handles. The bus driver being like, "You're not going to win." The guy selling me my paper, the guy giving me my coffee, my publicist. By the time I got there, I was like, If I win I'm going to have to say something like "praise Satan" and talk like Linda Blair from "The Exorcist." Tracy Letts, the playwright, suggested that when you first started doing plays in Chicago, you were sleeping in the park. I never slept in the park in Chicago, not a single night. I was actually in a little studio apartment that my father was very kindly helping to pay for. Tracy is one of my oldest, dearest friends, but these are fibs; they're exaggerations. You don't think this feral mystique has helped your career? I don't really. I'm not some wild animal, some freak. If you tell stories about sleeping in the park, then you can't get on "Letterman." How many movies do you gotta do to get on "David Letterman"? All I've wanted since I was 15 freaking years old was to be on "David Letterman." I mean, I'm in "Man of Steel." I think they all think I'll be violent. Your publicist, presumably, has tried to get you on "Letterman"? That's what they say every time they cash their checks. I had to audition to be on "Craig Ferguson." Some producer was asking me what restaurants I like to go to. I'm like: Are you serious? I don't even want to be on "Craig Ferguson." I just want to be on "Letterman." How did your appearance on "Ferguson" go? I didn't get on! It's like I went to the bulletin board the next day, and my name wasn't on the list. Maybe you should start doing that. You should have auditions before you waste an hour of your life talking to some uninteresting fool.