Inside Michael Shannon's Cozy Brooklyn Home | Open Door | Architectural Digest

Hello AD, welcome to my home. Come on in. Howdy doody. This is the living room. This is my beautiful sofa. It's leather. It's vintage. It's had some use over the years but I think that's what gives it a lot of the character. It's super comfortable. It's got a little bit of bucket seat action but you can also lay down on it. This is my backgammon set I got from MTV. See there's the MTV guy. They gave me this when I did George and Tammy as a present. And then this chess set I got in Budapest, Hungary. It was a prop. I just did this show called Death by Lightning where I played President James Garfield and this was my chess set in the White House. So they let me keep it when I finished. This is my apple. This is not a real apple. It's made out of, gosh, marble. It's made out of marble. I got this in Florence, Italy on my 50th birthday. It was a little birthday present to myself. I just saw it and it became my favorite thing. It's very heavy. Yeah, this is one of my all-time favorite movies ever, ever, ever, ever. It's called Alphaville. It's a Jean-Luc Godard film and it's weird. It's kind of about how AI is going to take over the world but it's in black and white and was made over a few decades ago in Paris. It's pretty creepy. This drawing is a drawing that my father did actually. My father was an accounting professor but he always had a knack for visual art. That's a picture that my daughter Sylvia took in Paris. That's a picture of me in a movie called The Bike Riders. Colleen from In Between Studios. We did a lot of talking before she came in and made it all the way I wanted it to be. My grandmother collected a lot of Turkish rugs. I like the way Colleen put the smaller one on top of the larger one like that, a little asymmetrical. I'm big into asymmetry. I like that. The walls, I don't know if you can tell, but the walls are really cool. They have this Venetian plaster on them. They're the softest walls I've ever touched in my life. Here's my record collection. They're all my favorites. I don't get records I don't want to listen to but this is my favorite guy, Thelonious Monk. He's my all-time favorite guy that ever did any kind of art at all, ever. He's the best one right there. And my fake cactus. I have real cactuses upstairs, or cacti. Garfield for President. I played President Garfield and they gave me a little sign to take with me. This is from the big rally at the beginning when I get the nomination. Yep, it's a little prize I got. My little prayer bowl. Then this is the dining room. Fairly simple, but this is a beautiful lighting fixture. The texture of it is really nice. It's very soothing, calm. Everything in here is about being, you know, calm because my life is so chaotic and strange. So when I come home, I want it to be calm, chill, chill, right? So this is really the piece de la resistance. This is Colleen's crowning achievement, I think. It's an Indian window frame that she brought all the way back here just for me, and then they cut out a space for it and sunk it into the wall. Had these shelves put in to accommodate all these goblets. This is my grandmother's. These are all pieces that she got in Turkey. You can't say I used them because I don't even know how to clean them. You shouldn't put water on them, I don't think. Maybe I'll break them out if I ever have a big dinner party or something. It's like a work of art. Here's the kitchen. The first thing you'll notice is that I have a lot of onions and garlic, which come in handy if I'm going to go on a date or something. I eat a little bit of that. No, this kitchen is totally, pretty much new, except I think the wolf stove was here, but all of this countertops and the sink and the doors and all this, the shelves, Colleen set this up for me. It's pretty slick looking. It's very sophisticated. This is another piece that Colleen put into the wall. It's so pretty with the little space for a candle there. Again, the theme of tranquility and calmness and all that. I'm praying that the world doesn't end. Yeah, pretty much. This is a painting of my daughter did of the ocean. Looks like the sun's going down. Yeah, a bunch of birds and stuff. We've done a little bit of cooking in here, but I'd say the thing I make a lot is tea. This is my little teapot. I'm really into tea lately. I also have this beautiful wine fridge. I don't know if you noticed, but there's a staircase here, which leads to the upstairs. Yeah, I got two floors. So let's go check that out. I kind of call this the den. This is kind of an oddly shaped space that we had to figure out what to do with. There's no windows in here, so it gets really dark. If you turn off all the lights, it's kind of like you're in one of them float tanks or something. It's nice for sleeping. You can sleep on these cushions over there. I've had many people say it's quite comfortable, actually. Around the corner, there's a TV on the wall, which I never even turn on, but sometimes my daughters look at it. And there's a lot of really groovy artwork and knickknacks in here. This cross beam here in the wall is really cool detail. I feel like I should have like a hookah in here or something, like a little, but then it would smell like that. That'd be awful. There's some really cool lamps over here that Colleen got. They make this amazing pattern, like this kind of watery, shimmery pattern. There's one there and one there. My younger daughter likes to have like secret space. So there's a little, I can't even barely get in here, but it's for her to come and she can like hide out in here. And it's really cool. This is her little lounge. It's very tranquil, private little space. He's got some really cool wallpaper. The second floor is for my daughters, basically. I have to be frank. I don't spend a lot of time here, period, in any part of it. I'm always on the road, you know, making art for the people. Yeah. And my daughter, Marion, she likes cool colors like purple and blue and whatnot. So she got to dictate the colors in here. And then their room is, my other daughter got to dictate the colors in there, which are warmer. So this is the girl's room. And as you can see, it has a warmer color palette than the den. This beautiful kind of a sunflower type vibe. Really pretty light fixtures and a couple of mushrooms because we're into mushrooms, not the medicinal kind. And then these are the real cactuses. Like I said, I have a fake cactus downstairs. Cactusing was Colleen's suggestion because she thought I would enjoy having some greenery, but something kind of low maintenance. I got a little patio, which is nice. Not today because it's raining, but in the summertime, it's nice to go out there and hang out. And these beautiful headboards for the bed, although because of the way the beds are arranged, it's kind of a sideboard, I guess, but it's similar style to the furniture downstairs from India. They get their own bathroom. This wallpaper is beautiful. I really liked this and Colleen put that in and a little smiley face rug, which is always a nice reminder to smile. Smile. Yeah. Well, lucky you. You're in my bedroom. This is where I sleep at night and dream. What do you dream about? None of your business. My grandmother lived in Turkey for a long time. This is way before I was born, when my father was a little boy. She collected Turkish rugs and Turkish artifacts of all kinds. And Colleen had the idea to paint a Turkish rug mural on the ceiling, which is really cool. And I would come by when the painters were doing it. And I've painted a few ceilings in my day. And it's not easy, even just if you're using a roller and putting some primer up there, it's pretty hard on your shoulders. And these poor painters were on this scaffolding. It was like the Sistine Chapel or something. And these tiny brushes. There's a lot of detail in this painting. It's pretty astonishing what they did. I also have these large pillows here that are made. This rug was in a kind of a state of disrepair. Colleen took it in to have it looked at and they said, yeah, it's seen better days. So she said, well, with your permission, can I cut it up and make it into these throw pillows? I think that turned out real nice. Oh, dear. There's a sign over there you maybe shouldn't look at. A headband. Somebody gave it to me for my birthday when I was turning 50. This is a very peaceful room, despite the fact that the Brooklyn Queens Expressway is just over there a little ways. All the vintage speakers, they don't function. They're not plugged into anything. Actually, my father-in-law's speakers, they're from the 70s, I believe. I just like the way they look, the ribbed texture. And then one of my favorite bands, Deer Hoof. I have their poster up there. And then I have a poster for this movie I made, Take Shelter, that's very dear to my heart. Whenever anybody asks me what's my favorite movie I've made or whatever, I usually say that one. So I don't need a lot of space. I'm actually not home all that often, so I didn't need anything too grandiose. I just wanted to be comfortable. Yeah, but when I moved in here, it was very bare bones, so Colleen definitely made it more homey. One of the things that's really important to me is safety. So I've got my arsenal here on the wall to make sure that no matter what happens, I'm prepared. No, this is just some old weapons from Turkey. This is a firearm that could not work under any circumstances. It's a rusted shot or something. But yeah, it's pretty cool looking. My cousin did this painting. His name's Thomas Baker. He lives down in Kentucky. He sent me a picture of it. I said, Tom, I gotta have that in my house. So he tried to cut me a deal on it, but I said, no, charge me what you would charge anybody else, because it's a hard life. Sometimes I kind of feel like this guy, you know? I mean, who doesn't? Just falling through this beautiful chaos. Well, A.D., thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed the tour, and see you somewhere down the road.