Michael Shannon Strongly Endorses The Bikeriders , Spooky Electronica, and Bobby Flay’s Salmon

Photographs: Getty Images, Disney, Everett Collection; Collage: Gabe Conte

Is anyone as good at playing the weirdo as Michael Shannon? In this month’s The Bikeriders, directed by Jeff Nichols and loosely based on a photobook by Danny Lyon, he flexes that skill again as a member of a 1960s Chicago-area biker gang. Tom Hardy is the tough-guy leader, Johnny, Austin Butler the smoldering heir apparent, Benny, and Shannon is … Zipco, a hirsute Latvian immigrant prone to crushing beers and monologues.

Ahead of The Bikeriders coming to theaters on June 21st, we caught up with Michael Shannon for an edition of Strongly Endorses. Shannon, who also grew up in Chicago, was back in the city for a play he’s working on. He told GQ about why he doesn’t mess with motorcycles anymore, the electronic music he’s playing nonstop, and the best salmon he’s ever eaten.

1. The Bikeriders

It’s a cool name, Zipco. I’ve never heard a name like that before. Jeff had some recordings of Zipco being interviewed and I just loved his voice. I’d never heard a voice quite like it—a mixture of Chicago but also some Eastern European. Which is interesting, because I’m familiar with that part of Chicago. You know I’m from Chicago. Or I lived in Chicago for a long time. It was interesting to tell a Chicago story with Jeff, when I was so used to doing more Southern stories with him. I’ve lived in Chicago for a long time and I’ve never heard anybody talk like this guy. It was fun to work on.

I used to ride around on motorcycles with a buddy of mine. He would do the driving and I would ride on the back. But I fell off once and after that I decided I wasn’t really interested in motorcycles anymore. But I don’t have that masculine obsession with machines. I’ve never had it, really.

2. Turret

My main obsession right now is, I’m doing a play in Chicago with my theater company. It’s called Turret. It’s written by a fellow named Levi Holloway. He had a play on Broadway last year called Gray House. It’s set in the future, I guess. And it’s about a fellow named Green and his protege named Rabbit. And he’s trying to train Rabbit to be a great soldier. But things keep going wrong. I’m Green. Rabbit is a fellow named Travis Knight. I’m a member of a company called A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago. Travis and Levi and a lot of people involved are from the company.

3. Boards of Canada

Whenever I’m doing a show, I look for music to listen to on the way to the theater to help me get in the right frame of mind. And so there’s this band I really like called Boards of Canada. They’re really trippy electronic music. But very creative and just really spooky soundscapes that are the perfect soundtrack for this thing I’m working on. They have a number of great albums. There’s this record label called Matador that has a lot of bands that I like, and they put out a compilation for an anniversary. That was the first time I heard Boards of Canada, on that compilation. I don’t know how many people know about them, but if you’re into electronic music but not your standard club stuff, something a little more experimental, I really dig ‘em.

4. Next

For food, one of my favorite places is Next restaurant in Chicago. Again, I’m in Chicago mostly right now. Next restaurant is the creation of the chef Grant Achatz. He has Alinea there in Chicago. And this is a restaurant he started where they put out different menus—completely different menus. They just start from scratch. This year, they’re doing three chefs. They had Julia Child at the beginning of the year. Now they’re on Bobby Flay. I just took my stepmother there for her birthday, for the Bobby Flay menu. It was out of sight. The best thing was probably the salmon that they had that was covered in pepper. It was a little disc of salmon—the most perfectly prepared salmon I’ve ever had in my life, with a pepper crust over it. It was really yummy. They also had a really nice tuna tartare with these ancho pepper Ritz crackers.

Then at the end of the year they’re going to be doing this legendary Chicago chef named Charlie Trotter. They’re going to be doing a menu of his recipes, which I really, really am looking forward to because I never got to go to Charlie Trotter’s before it closed. I used to walk by it back when I was starving and broke and say, “Man, I’d like to go there someday.”

5. The Old Oak

I was in New York before I was in Chicago. I go to Film Forum a lot there and see movies. The Old Oak is the last movie Ken Loach is ever going to make, I think. And I really loved it and thought it was, as a lot of his movies are, very relevant and timely and I really appreciate his whole body of work. The Old Oak is definitely worth seeing and a great performance in the main role.

Originally Appeared on GQ