As the marketing campaign for Warner Bros.’ Man of Steel has heated up in recent weeks by way of new images and a truly remarkable new trailer, the veil has been lifted with regards to the film’s villain. Michael Shannon seems an inspired choice to play General Zod in director Zack Snyder’s fresh take on the comics character, and we got a few tantalizing glimpses of the actor in action in the most recent trailer.

Steve recently spoke with Shannon in anticipation of the crime drama The Iceman, and the actor also talked a bit about his work in Man of Steel, confirming that Zod’s armor is entirely CG. Additionally, Shannon discussed Jake Paltrow’s upcoming film Young Ones and his next collaboration with director Jeff Nichols, which they hope to start filming later this year. Hit the jump to read on.

When the first photos of Michael Shannon on the set of Man of Steel surfaced, we saw Shannon decked out in a unitard with tracking dots all over it. It was apparent that there would be some sort of CG element to his character’s costume, and when speaking with Steve he confirmed that General Zod’s armor is entirely CG-created much like Iron Man:

“I never wore the armor. That is a CG outfit, I think I can say that without getting assassinated, yes. Honestly, the armor would be very heavy – like in Iron Man, Downey Jr. doesn’t ever wear armor – Oh, but there is a guy who wears it. I know the guy, the guy who was the Iron Man double, who had to wear that freakin suit was on Man of Steel and he said it was a freakin nightmare, it’s so freakin heavy. They wanted me to have freedom of movement and if I would have actually been wearing a giant metal suit I would have been walking around like this, you know? So every time you see me in that metal suit just close your eyes and imagine me in an Arlequino outfit; green, red, blue, with the little tight around the midsection. Yeah, we all looked like bunch of dorks.”

While he obviously can’t say much about Man of Steel, Shannon had high praise for David S. Goyer’s script for the film:

“I thought the whole script was just very sophisticated for the genre that it is. It was as sophisticated as scripts for other movies I’ve done that have been considered more highfalutin, or whatever. It has a lot of deep themes in it, and the way they deal with Kal-El’s journey is really fascinating.”

Shannon also spoke briefly about writer/director Jake Paltrow’s upcoming film Young Ones, in which the actor stars alongside Kodi Smit-McPhee, Elle Fanning, and Nicholas Hoult.

“It’s about the inevitable water shortage that will be happening, or is already starting to happen. It’s set in the future a little bit, there’s not much water left and I play a guy who’s a farmer and his land is completely obliterated by drought and he’s trying to take care of his family. It’s kind of got a Steinbeck-ian vibe to it a little bit. We shot it down in Africa. I think Jake is super smart. He’s really exciting. He reminds me of Jeff Nichols, who is my favorite dude.”

Speaking of Jeff Nichols, Shannon revealed that he may be reuniting with the director sooner rather than later:

“I think Nichols and I are heating up our fourth collaboration to happen in the winter, I believe.”

In January, Nichols revealed that he was writing two scripts at once: the genre film Midnight Special and an untitled, smaller movie. He compared Midnight Special to Starman and described the second pic as “austere, quiet, sad, and beautiful,” but it’s unknown which of these Shannon was talking about shooting this year. Given that the actor has appeared in all three of Nichols’ films thus far, one imagines he’ll be popping up in both anyway.

Look for Steve’s full interview with Shannon on Collider soon.