Michael Sheen
Michael Sheen
Michael Sheen, OBE is a Welsh actor. After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he worked mainly in theatre throughout the 1990s and made notable stage appearances in Romeo and Juliet, Don't Fool With Love, Peer Gynt, The Seagull, The Homecoming, and Henry V. His performances in Amadeus at the Old Vic and Look Back in Anger at the National Theatre were nominated for Olivier Awards in 1998 and 1999, respectively. In 2003, he was nominated for a...
NationalityWelsh
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth5 February 1969
CityNewport, Wales
'Hamlet' is one of the most dangerous things ever set down on paper. All the big, unknowable questions like what it is to be a human being; the difference between sanity and insanity; the meaning of life and death; what's real and not real. All these subjects can literally drive you mad.
A lot of the times when I've auditioned for parts in America, the answer is, 'Sorry, we need a bigger name.'
Americans are much more open than people in Britain.
No matter how difficult things are, and no matter how much grief and loss there is, you can turn it into something positive.
Everyone deserves compassion.
For me, what makes life enjoyable is having a shared culture and shared references.
I think when you work on a Woody Allen film the actors become a real company, probably more than on any other film.
You don't want to get into doing the same thing, over and over again. I know I don't.
I try not to pay any attention to clothes fascism and I'd rather be thought of as someone who has his own sense of style.
I perceive and relate to the world through where I grew up; that's part of me. It's what I judge everything else against.
I suppose I'm something of an eccentric dresser.
It has to be absolutely believable. It's also going between images and scenes with nudity and sexuality that would be seen, in conventional terms, as kind of sexually exciting. It's up against things that are much more medical and gynecological, and notoriously we, as a culture and a society, have some issues with that kind of thing.
For a culture that has such a problem with death, we seem to deal with it in a quite bizarre way. We see people shot, killed and blown up, and we find it funny and sexy and all those things. But, the reality of it is that every day people die, and people are really sad and they grieve and they go through a really difficult process with it.
Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.