“We could meet outside in a yard and sit around with our scripts,and basically,not have too much anxiety about whether we were going to get each other sick or not,” he says. “And we were able to have a kick-off dinner at an outdoor restaurant on this farm because where we were,it was not very densely populated.”
It was not Shannon’s first trip to Australia;that dubious honour belongs to the cliche-laden 2003 comedyKangaroo Jack,which starred Jerry O’Connell,and in which Shannon played a mobster. The film was shot in Sydney and Alice Springs.
“And both are very different places to Byron Bay,obviously,” Shannon says. “I had never encountered anything like Byron Bay before. It was wonderful. It’s a beautiful,beautiful part of the world. The beaches there are extraordinary. The countryside is extraordinary. It’s very peaceful.
“In a way it was kind of a healing experience,ironically,considering what the show is about,because the first four months of COVID-19 had been for me,very tough,being in New York City and not working. And to just get that opportunity to work and be somewhere so beautiful. I felt very fortunate.”
Working with Kidman as a producer,Shannon says,was a revealing experience. Kidman and Per Saari executive produced the project,along with Bruna Papandrea,Kelley,Levine,McCarthy and Moriarty.
“She’s been doing it a very long time and she knows what works and what doesn’t,” Shannon says. “And when she’s on set,she goes very deeply into the character. She doesn’t bring[the producing] side of it to set,really. She has a wonderful partner,Per,and he’s always there,doing an extraordinary amount of work.
“I think they probably talk off set a lot about how it’s going or whatnot,but I think more than anything,it’s just experience that she brings. And she probably does a lot leading up to when it starts,that I wouldn’t really be aware of. I was really struck with just how deeply and thoroughly she was into the character Masha,all pretty much any time I was with her.”
Many of Shannon’s scenes were with another familiar Australian face,actress Asher Keddie. “I feel like actors,no matter where they’re from,are pretty different,” Shannon says. “But I just adored Asher. Going into it,I wasn’t terribly familiar with who she was. But I met her and just right away,it just all made sense. And she’s got a real natural gravity to her.
“In America,we think of Australian actors as being extremely hardworking,” Shannon adds. “The fact that so many of them have been able to make their way into the American industry. And a lot of times,they stand out. If you go see a movie,you walk out and you’re like,oh,who’s that? And they’re Australian. If you made a list of the most interesting actors in the world right now,I feel like a lot of them would be Australian.”
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Unusually for an actor in the television streaming era,Shannon still works prolifically in film. In the last half-dozen years he has worked on 16 films,includingElvis&Nixon andThe Shape of Water.
“It all goes back to the material and whether the material itself is interesting,” he says. “If it’s really,really interesting you can make it into a limited series,but a lot of stories,I think,benefit from being a little bit more concise. You can see with some of these limited series that they’re treading water for an episode or two.
“What any corporate entertainment conglomerate is trying to do is just get you to keep watching stuff for as long as humanly possible,that’s just the way it works. And that’s fine,that’s the way the world works,” he says. “But I do say what’s interesting is it’s just getting downright difficult to find movies to work on.”
Nine Perfect Strangers streams on Amazon Prime.