Michael Shannon sought to ‘capture heart’ of serial killer in making ‘Iceman’

TORONTO – Michael Shannon doesn’t expect everyone will appreciate how he prepared for “The Iceman,” a big-screen retelling of the life of contract killer Richard Kuklinski, who is thought to have killed between 100 and 250 people over several decades before he was finally busted in 1986.

While quick to insist he doesn’t condone the actions or choices made by the man who was nicknamed Iceman — after he began storing the bodies of his victims in industrial freezers — Shannon said he wasn’t judgmental about Kuklinski’s life and did everything he could to understand him and “capture his heart.”

“I think it may be perplexing for people to hear that but it really was what I was interested in, just the way it felt to be him,” said Shannon during an interview at September’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The actor, who plays General Zod in the upcoming Superman movie “Man of Steel,” studied hours of jail house interviews with Kuklinski to mimic some of his mannerisms and gain insight into how the family man who was adored by his wife and children could be capable of killing. Kuklinski, an imposing figure at about six-foot-four and 300 pounds, settled scores for New York mobsters and got wealthy doing it.

“There are people who have jobs to support their families, they go out and they do things that they know in the back of their mind are detrimental to the world or maybe to other people — look at the world of finance right now and what people do with money and ways they make money by screwing other people over, by poisoning this lake or chopping down that forest,” said Shannon.

“So to me it’s an analogy, it’s like, there are lots of people that make a living doing things that maybe aren’t totally on the level and this is an extreme, almost like a Grimms’ fairy tale version, of that.

“It’s one of the aspects of why I thought it was a compelling story because I saw that analogy and I think, maybe, some other people might see it too.”

Ray Liotta plays Roy DeMeo, the mobster who recruited Kuklinski as his go-to guy to do his dirty work. Liotta also tried to draw some human qualities out of the loathsome, brutal character.

“He was a great father — aside from killing people and not thinking twice about it,” said Liotta.

“What’s so interesting about this story is (their violent work in the mob) becomes compartmentalized. These people still have families and kids and responsibilities and mortgages and it just so happens that’s the way they make their money and that’s the life they’ve chosen.

“You start seeing — it’s going to sound odd — but you see a complete human being.”

Despite all his research, Shannon acknowledged there’s much to Kuklinski’s story that can’t be corroborated. When asked about how many people he killed, Kuklinski was inconsistent and gave different numbers in several interviews. He died in prison in 2006 at age 70.

“A lot of what he says is probably not true and it’s really kind of a ghost story because the only people that were around while it was happening don’t wanna talk about it anymore: the family don’t want anything to do with it, and in terms of the criminal component … a lot of them are dead or in prison and they’re not going to talk,” said Shannon.

“So it’s kind of a phantom story, you really have to use your imagination.”

“The Iceman” opens Friday in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.