Today, AD is welcomed by actor Michael Shannon to tour his cozy Brooklyn home inside a converted church. Instantly drawn to its warmth and intimate size, Shannon knew it was the perfect space for him and his two daughters. With the help of interior designer Colleen Newell of The Inbtwn Studios, he created a cozy home inspired by his grandmother’s antique collection amassed during her years in Turkey. A ceiling mural echoing her rugs envelops the primary bedroom, while a vintage Indian window panel repurposed as shelving displays her silver goblets. Shannon’s family history is woven throughout, creating the soulful, meditative retreat he envisioned.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello, A.D. Welcome to my home. Come on in.
00:16Howdy doody. This is the living room. This is my beautiful sofa. It's leather. It's vintage.
00:23It's had some use over the years, but I think that's what gives it a lot of character.
00:28It's super comfortable. It's got a little bit of bucket seat action, but you can also lay down on it.
00:33This is my backgammon set I got from MTV. See, there's the MTV guy.
00:39They gave me this when I did George and Tammy as a present.
00:42And then this chess set I got in Budapest, Hungary. It was a prop.
00:46I just did this show called Death by Lightning, where I played President James Garfield.
00:50And this was my chess set in the White House, so they let me keep it when I finished.
00:54This is my apple. This is not a real apple. It's made out of, I think, gosh, marble.
01:02It's made out of marble. I got this in Florence, Italy on my 50th birthday. It was a little birthday
01:08present to myself. I just saw it and it became my favorite thing. It's very heavy. Yeah, this is one
01:14of my all-time favorite movies ever, ever, ever, ever. It's called Alphaville. It's a Jean-Luc Godard film.
01:22And it's weird. It's kind of about how AI is going to take over the world, but it's in black and white.
01:27It was made over a few decades ago in Paris. It's pretty creepy.
01:32This drawing is a drawing that my father did, actually. My father was an accounting professor,
01:38but he always had a knack for visual art. That's a picture that my daughter Sylvia took in Paris.
01:44That's a picture of me in a movie called The Bike Riders. Colleen from In Between Studios.
01:50We did a lot of talking before she came in and made it all the way I wanted it to be.
01:56My grandmother collected a lot of Turkish rugs. I like the way Colleen put the smaller one
02:00on top of the larger one like that, a little asymmetrical. I'm big into asymmetry. I like that.
02:06The walls, I don't know if you can tell, but the walls are really cool. They have this
02:09Venetian plaster on them. They're the softest walls I've ever touched in my life.
02:15And here's my record collection. They're all my favorites. I don't get records I don't want to
02:20listen to, but this is my favorite guy, Thelonious Monk. He's my all-time favorite guy
02:25that ever did any kind of art at all, ever. He's the best one right there. And my fake cactus,
02:33I have real cactuses upstairs or cacti. Garfield for President. I played President Garfield and
02:38they gave me a little sign to take with me. This is from the big rally at the beginning when I get
02:46the nomination. Yep. That's a little prize I got. My little prayer bowl.
03:00Then this is the dining room. Fairly simple, but this is a beautiful lighting fixture. The texture
03:07of it is really nice. It's very soothing, calm. Everything in here is about being, you know,
03:12calm because my life is so chaotic and strange. So when I come home, I want it to be calm, chill,
03:20chill. Right? So this is really the piece de la resistance. This is Colleen's crowning achievement.
03:28I think it's an Indian window frame that she brought all the way back here just for me. And then they
03:33cut out a space for it and sunk it into the wall. Had these shelves put in to accommodate all these
03:40goblets. This is my grandmother's. These are all pieces that she got in Turkey. You can't say I use
03:47them because I don't even know how to clean them. I want to, you shouldn't put water on them, I don't
03:52think. Maybe I'll break them out if I ever have a big dinner party or something. It's like a work of art.
03:57Here's the kitchen. The first thing you'll notice is that I have a lot of onions and garlic, which come
04:16in handy. If I'm going to go on a date or something, I eat a little bit of that. No, this kitchen is
04:24totally pretty much new except I think the wolf stove was here, but all of this countertops and
04:31the sink and the doors and all this, the shelves. Colleen set this up for me. It's pretty slick
04:38looking. It's very sophisticated. This is another piece that Colleen put into the wall. It's so pretty
04:46with the little space for a candle there. Again, the theme of tranquility and calmness and all that.
04:53I'm praying that the world doesn't end. Yeah, pretty much. This is a painting of my daughter
04:59did of the ocean. Looks like the sun's going down, yeah. Bunch of birds and stuff. We've done a little
05:05bit of cooking in here, but I'd say the thing I make a lot is tea. This is my little teapot. I'm really
05:13into tea lately. I also have this beautiful wine fridge. I don't know if you noticed, but there's a
05:20staircase here which leads to the upstairs. Yeah, I got two floors, so let's go check that out.
05:36I kind of call this the den. This is kind of an oddly shaped space that we had to figure out what
05:48to do with. There's no windows in here, so it gets really dark. If you turn off all the lights,
05:54it's kind of like you're in one of them float tanks or something. It's nice for sleeping. You can sleep on
06:00these cushions over there. I've had many people say it's quite comfortable actually. Around the corner
06:06there's a TV on the wall, which I never even turn on, but sometimes my daughters look at it and there's
06:12a lot of really groovy artwork and knickknacks in here. This cross beam here in the wall is really
06:20cool detail. I feel like I should have like a hookah in here or something, like a little,
06:25but then it would smell like that. That would be awful. There's some really cool lamps over here
06:30that Colleen got. They make this amazing pattern, like this kind of watery, shimmery pattern. There's
06:37one there and one there. My younger daughter likes to have like secret space, so there's a little,
06:44I can't even barely get in here, but it's for her to come and she can like hide out in here.
06:50And it's really cool. This is her little lounge. It's very tranquil, private little space. It's got
06:58some really cool wallpaper. The second floor is for my daughters, basically. I have to be frank,
07:04I don't spend a lot of time here, period, in any part of it. I'm always on the road, you know,
07:10making art for the people. Yeah. And my daughter, Marion, she likes cool colors, like purple and blue
07:17and whatnot. So she got to dictate the colors in here. And then their room is my other daughter,
07:25got to dictate the colors in there, which are warmer.
07:40So this is the girls' room. And as you can see, it has a warmer color palette than the den. This
07:48beautiful kind of a sunflower type vibe, really pretty light fixtures and a couple of mushrooms,
07:56because we're into mushrooms, not the medicinal kind, the other kind. And then these are the real
08:02cactuses. Like I said, I have a fake cactus downstairs. Cactusing was Colleen's suggestion,
08:09because she thought I would enjoy having some greenery, but something kind of low maintenance.
08:14I got a little patio, which is nice. Not today, because it's raining, but in the summertime,
08:21it's nice to go out there and hang out. And these beautiful headboards for the bed,
08:27although because of the way the beds are arranged, it's kind of a sideboard, I guess. But it's similar
08:34style to the furniture downstairs from India. They get their own bathroom. This wallpaper is beautiful.
08:41I really like this. And Colleen put that in and a little smiley face rug, which is always a nice
08:48reminder to smile, smile. Well, lucky you. You're in my bedroom. This is where I sleep at night and dream.
09:11What do you dream about? None of your business. My grandmother lived in Turkey for a long time.
09:18This is way before I was born, when my father was a little boy. She collected Turkish rugs and Turkish
09:24artifacts of all kinds. And Colleen had the idea to paint a Turkish rug mural on the ceiling,
09:33which is really cool. And I would come by when the painters were doing it. And I've painted a few
09:39ceilings in my day. And it's not easy, even just if you're using a roller and putting some primer up
09:45there. It's pretty hard on your shoulders. And these poor painters were on this scaffolding. It
09:50was like the Sistine Chapel or something. They had these tiny brushes. There's a lot of detail
09:55in this painting. It's pretty astonishing what they did. I also have these large pillows here
10:02that are made. This rug was in a kind of a state of disrepair. Colleen took it in to have it looked at,
10:09and they said, yeah, it's seen better days. So she said, well, with your permission, can I cut it up and
10:15make it into these throw pillows? I think that turned out real nice. Oh dear, there's a sign over
10:19there you maybe shouldn't look at. A headband. Somebody gave it to me for my birthday when I was
10:25turning 50. This is a very peaceful room, you know, even despite the fact that the Brooklyn Queens
10:31Expressway is just over there a little ways. Oh, the vintage speakers, they don't function. They're not
10:37plugged into anything. Actually, my father-in-law's speakers, they're from the 70s, I believe. I just
10:44like the way they look, the ribbed texture. And then one of my favorite bands, Deer Hoof,
10:50I have their poster up there. And then I have a poster for this movie I made, Take Shelter, that's
10:56very dear to my heart. Whenever anybody asks me what's my favorite movie I've made or whatever,
11:02I usually say that one. So I don't need a lot of space. I'm actually not home all that often. So
11:11I didn't need anything too grandiose. I just wanted to be comfortable. Yeah. But when I moved in here,
11:18it was very bare bones. So it was, Colleen definitely made it more homey.
11:41One of the things that's really important to me is safety. So I've got this, my arsenal here on the
11:47wall to make sure that no matter what happens, I'm prepared. So no, this is just some old weapons
11:55from Turkey. This is a firearm that could not work under any circumstances. It's a rusted shot or
12:03something. But yeah, it's pretty cool looking. My cousin did this painting. His name's Thomas Baker.
12:08He lives down in Kentucky. He sent me a picture of it. I said, Tom, I got to have that in my house. So
12:13he tried to cut me a deal on it, but I said, no, charge me what you would charge anybody else. Because
12:19it's a hard life. Sometimes I kind of feel like this guy, you know? I mean, who doesn't? Just falling
12:24through this beautiful chaos. Well, AD, thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed the tour
12:43and see you somewhere down the road.