“I remember one time I was doing a play at the Public Theater in New York, The Little Flower of East Orange, and Philip Seymour Hoffman was directing. The main prop in the play was a hospital bed, because my character’s mother, who was played by Ellen Burstyn, was in the hospital. We had this bed in the rehearsal room. One day we took a lunch break and everybody split, but I didn’t typically go anywhere for lunch; I’d just look at my script out in the hallway. So I’m out there, and I walk back into the rehearsal hall, and Phil is there all by himself. He’s just lying on the hospital bed in the middle of the room, staring at the ceiling. I walk up to him and I’m like, ‘Are you okay?’ He just kind of blinks. And finally he says, ‘You know, Shannon, one day you’re going to know what I’m feeling right now.’
“I didn’t know what to say, but in my head I was like, Shit. Then he says to me, ‘Sometimes I wish I could change my name and just drive away and go work in a gas station somewhere, where nobody knows who I am. Just disappear.’
“You get to a certain point, like he did, and everybody wants something from you. People loved Phil. Everyone was like, ‘Phil, Phil, Phil, we need Phil!’ I think he just felt overwhelmed. When he told me about wanting to disappear, I imagine he’d probably just gotten off the phone with his agent and there were like 10 offers pending. ‘Have you read this script? What do you think about that? I really think you should do this.’ Meanwhile he’s trying to direct this play his friend wrote. You can’t even have the experience you’re having right now because somebody is constantly asking what you want to do a month from now.” -Michael Shannon, 2018
Photos of Phil directing The Little Flower of East Orange in 2008 by Monique Carboni
