Port’s editor-in-chief Dan Crowe introduces our autumn issue featuring versatile actor Michael Shannon
Via his critically acclaimed theatre work on Broadway; his Oscar nominated performance in Revolutionary Road and recent lead roles in The Iceman and $225 million blockbuster Man of Steel, Michael Shannon has acquired, in Hollywood fashion, the typically reductive label of ‘bad guy’. He can look mean. He can sound terrifying. So, he is the new bad guy. On this subject, during our cover shoot in London this summer, he says to me (even though I’m not interviewing him): ‘Do not ask me about bad guy roles. It’s done.’ And so I don’t. Instead, we talk about music, his band, directors he would like to work with, scientists, his friend – and Port’s film editor – Samantha Morton, Werner Herzog and David Lynch’s superior hairstyle.
“Do not ask me about bad guy roles. It’s done.”
Port’s Autumn issue also features:
• William T. Vollmann interviews three transwomen about the process of self-possession, physical transformation and self-acceptance
• In the Commentary section: war reporter Janine di Giovanni explains why older women have taught her the most; Nathaniel Rich illuminates the darker side of New Orleans, and exclusive fiction from US author of note Dennis Bock
• In The Porter section: Roots Manuva on the work of acclaimed performance poet Linton Kwesi Johnson; as the explorer Ben Saunders prepares to embark on the longest unsupported polar journey in history, he turns his mind to the nature of motivation – reminding him that imagination is mightier than brawn; the recording industry’s vanity press is a long-running escapade with hugely varying results – music aficionado and author Michel Faber turns back the clock to consider why bad used to be so much better• In the Design section: a look at the Italian version of The National Trust, FAI, and the extraordinary buildings they protect; Singapore’s extraordinary Gardens by the Bay, the worlds greatest synthetic garden
• In the Style section: the rebel Prince of ballet, Sergei Polunin, captivates Port with his inimitable bravura during rehearsals at the London Coliseum, plus extended autumn styled shoots on location
And Elsewhere…
• The Extract: Rick Moody, incredibly, impossibly, interviews a certain Jimi Hendrix; ‘What I Like, What I Dislike’: Susan Sontag’s diaries revealed a witty fondness for the humble list and her list of likes and dislikes has become justly notorious. Here Will Self picks up the baton
