Background and career
Michael Christopher Sheen (born 5 February 1969) is a Welsh actor and presenter. After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked mainly in theatre throughout the 1990s with stage roles in Romeo and Juliet (1992), Don't Fool with Love (1993), Peer Gynt (1994), The Seagull (1995), The Homecoming (1997), and Henry V (1997). He received Olivier Awards nominations for his performances in Amadeus (1998) at the Old Vic, Look Back in Anger (1999) at the National Theatre and Caligula (2003) at the Donmar Warehouse. In the 2000s Sheen began screen acting, and he has since made a number of biographical films. For writer Peter Morgan, he starred in three films as British prime minister Sir Tony Blair—the television film The Deal in 2003, The Queen (2006), and The Special Relationship (2010)—earning him nominations for both a BAFTA Award and an Emmy. He was also nominated for a BAFTA as the troubled comic actor Kenneth Williams in BBC Four's 2006 Fantabulosa!, and was nominated for a fourth Olivier Award in 2006 for portraying the broadcaster David Frost in Frost/Nixon, a role he revisited in the 2008 film adaptation of the play. He starred as the controversial football manager Brian Clough in The Damned United (2009). Since 2009, Sheen has had a wider variety of roles. In 2009, he appeared in two fantasy films, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and in 2010, he made a four-episode guest appearance in the NBC comedy 30 Rock. He appeared in the science-fiction film Tron: Legacy (2010) and Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris (2011). He directed and starred in National Theatre Wales' The Passion. From late 2011 until early 2012, he played the title role in Hamlet at the Young Vic. He played a lead role in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 in 2012. In 2013, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in Showtime's television drama Masters of Sex. Sheen played an incarcerated serial killer surgeon in Fox's drama series Prodigal Son (2019–2021), Aziraphale in the BBC/Amazon Studios fantasy comedy series Good Omens (2019–2026), and appeared as Chris Tarrant in Quiz (2020). He played himself in the quarantine comedy show Staged (2020–2022) with his friend and Good Omens co-star David Tennant throughout the COVID-19 lockdown. Sheen is known for his political and social activism, and renounced his OBE in 2017.
Michael Christopher Sheen was born on 5 February 1969 in Newport, Wales, the son of Irene, a secretary, and Meyrick, a British Steel Corporation personnel manager. His family name, Sheen, is an Irish surname that is derived from his great-great-great grandfather Edward Sheehan, who lived in Waterford, Ireland, before moving to Wales in 1850 with his wife, Catherine Hickey. Sheen has one younger sister, Joanne. The family had been living in Llanmartin for seven years prior to his birth. When he was five, the family moved to Wallasey for work, but settled in his parents' home town of Port Talbot, Glamorgan, three years later. A keen footballer, Sheen was scouted and offered a place on Arsenal's youth team at the age of 12, but his family was unwilling to relocate to London. He later said he was grateful for his parents' decision, as the chances of forging a professional football career were slight. Sheen was raised in a theatrical family; his parents were both involved in local amateur operatics and musicals, and, later in life, his father worked as a part-time professional Jack Nicholson lookalike, which took him across the world and as an after-dinner speaker. In his teenage years, Sheen was involved with the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre and, later, the National Youth Theatre of Wales. He was influenced by the performances of Laurence Olivier and the writings of theatre critic Kenneth Tynan. In 1984, at the age of 15, Sheen, along with his friend Charles Uzzell-Edwards and Charles' father John Uzzell Edwards, helped salvage the iron and steel gate leading to the terrace of Dylan Thomas Boathouse in Laugharne; they discovered it stuck in the mud below the boathouse during a walk and dug it out. The gate was kept in the Uzzell-Edwards family garden before Charles auctioned it off at a 2014 event marking the 100th anniversary of Thomas's birth. Sheen was educated at Blaenbaglan Primary School, Glan Afan Comprehensive School, and then Neath Port Talbot College, where he sat A-levels in English, drama, and sociology. He considered studying English at university but instead decided to attend drama school. He moved to London in 1988 to train as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), having spent the previous year working in a Welsh fast-food restaurant called Burger Master to earn money. Sheen was granted the Laurence Olivier Bursary by the Society of London Theatre in his second year at RADA. He graduated in 1991 with a BA in Acting.
Sheen worked predominantly in theatre in the 1990s and has since remarked that he will always feel "slightly more at home" on stage. "It's more of an actor's medium. You are your own editor, nobody else is choosing what is being seen of you." His first professional role, while still in his third and final year at RADA, was in When She Danced at the Globe Theatre in 1991. He later described the role as "a big break. One day, I was at RADA doing a movement class, the next I was at a read-through with Vanessa Redgrave and Frances de la Tour." Milton Shulman of the Evening Standard praised an "excellent" performance while The Observer wrote of "a notable West End debut". In 1992, Sheen's performance in Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Exchange received a MEN Theatre Award nomination and led theatre critic Michael Coveney to declare him "the most exciting young actor of his generation ... a volatile, electrifying and technically fearless performer". His 1993 turn as Perdican in Alfred de Musset's Don't Fool With Love at the Donmar Warehouse was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award. and was described by The Independent as "quite thrilling". Also in 1993, Sheen appeared in the world premiere of Harold Pinter's Moonlight at the Almeida Theatre and made his television debut in the 1993 BBC mini-series Gallowglass. Sheen played the title role in Peer Gynt in 1994. The Yukio Ninagawa production was staged in Oslo, Tokyo and at the Barbican Centre, London. The Times praised Sheen's "astonishing vitality" while The Independent found him "sensationally good" and noted that "the Norwegian press were grudgingly captivated by the mercurial Welsh boyo". In other 1994 work, Sheen appeared in Le Livre de Spencer at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Paris and starred in the cross-dressing farce Charley's Aunt at the Royal Exchange. In 1995, he appeared opposite Kate Beckinsale in a production of The Seagull at the Theatre Royal, Bath and, with the encouragement of Thelma Holt, directed and starred in The Dresser at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth. In addition, Sheen made his film debut that year, appearing opposite Kenneth Branagh in Othello. 1996 saw Sheen at the National Theatre for The Ends of the Earth, an original play by David Lan. A minor role in Mary Reilly marked the first of three film collaborations with director Stephen Frears. Sheen's most significant appearance of 1997 was the title role in Henry V, staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at their Stratford-upon-Avon theatre, which earned him a second Ian Charleson Award nomination. The Times praised "a blisteringly intelligent performance". Also in 1997, he appeared in a revival of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the National Theatre, directed by Roger Michell, and directed Badfinger, starring Rhys Ifans, at the Donmar Warehouse. The latter was staged by the Thin Language Theatre Company, which Sheen had co-founded in 1991, aiming to further Welsh theatre. He then appeared in the biographical film Wilde, playing Robbie Ross to Stephen Fry's Oscar Wilde. In early 1998 Sheen formed a production company, The Foundry, with Helen McCrory and Robert Delamere to promote the work of emerging playwrights, and produced In a Little World of Our Own at the Donmar Warehouse, which gave Colin Farrell his West End debut.
From 1998 to 1999, Sheen starred as Mozart in a successful revival of Amadeus. The Peter Hall-directed production was staged at the Old Vic, London, and later transferred to the Music Box on Broadway. Ben Brantley, chief theatre critic for The New York Times, was particularly vocal in his praise. He noted that "Mr. Sheen elicits a real poetry from the role" and felt that, while watching him, "you start to appreciate the derivation of the term star. This actor is so luminous it's scary!" The Independent found him "quite stunning as Mozart. His fantastically physical performance convinces you of his character's genius and the play catches fire whenever he's on stage." Sheen was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actor. In 1999, Sheen explored the role of Jimmy Porter in the National Theatre's production of Look Back in Anger. In 2003, Sheen described the production as "the most enjoyable thing I've ever done ... everything came together". "Sheen has cornered the market in explosive energy", said The Independent, "but this thrilling performance is his finest yet." The Financial Times noted: "As Jimmy Porter, a role of staggering difficulty in every way, Michael Sheen gives surely the best performance London has yet seen from him ... You hang on every word he utters ... This is a dazzlingly through-the-body performance." He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor and an Evening Standard Award for Best Actor.
At this point in his career, Sheen began to devote more time to film work. Heartlands, a little-seen 2002 film about a naive man's road trip in the Midlands, was his first leading film role. While The Guardian dismissed the "cloying bittersweet-regional-lottery-Britfilm", it noted that "Sheen himself has a childlike, Frank Spencer-ish charm". "It was great to do something that was so different," Sheen has said of the role. "I usually play very extreme characters." Also in 2002, he had a minor role in the action-adventure film The Four Feathers. In 2003, Sheen appeared in Bright Young Things, the directorial debut of his Wilde co-star, Stephen Fry. An adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies, the film followed high society partygoers in decadent, pre-war London. Sheen played a gay aristocrat in an ensemble cast which included James McAvoy, Emily Mortimer, David Tennant, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Broadbent and Peter O'Toole. While the Los Angeles Times said he "shone", The Guardian felt the role "drastically under-uses his talents". Sheen described his character as "possibly the campest man in cinema history" and relished a scene "where I do drugs with [a then 95-year-old] Sir John Mills." In other 2003 film work, Sheen portrayed the werewolf leader Lucian in Underworld and made a brief appearance in the sci-fi film Timeline. Sheen returned to the stage in 2003 to play the title role in Caligula at the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Michael Grandage. It was the first of just three stage appearances during the 2000s; his young daughter was now based in Los Angeles which made more frequent stage runs in Britain impractical. The Independent's critic declared it "one of the most thrilling and searching performances I have ever witnessed" and The Daily Telegraph described him as an "outrageously charismatic actor" with "an astonishing physical presence". The Times praised a "riveting performance" and The Guardian found him "highly impressive ... at one point he attacks his court poet with a single hair-raising leap across a chair and table". Sheen won an Evening Standard Award for Best Actor and a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor, and was again nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor. Sheen's breakthrough role was as British politician Tony Blair in 2003's The Deal. The Channel 4 film explored the so-called Granita pact made by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown prior to the 1994 Labour Party leadership election, and was the actor's first collaboration with screenwriter Peter Morgan. Director Stephen Frears cast him because "he was in Mary Reilly and I knew he was brilliant." Filmed while he was playing Caligula nightly on stage, Sheen has remarked, "It's interesting that in searching for monsters to play, you often end up playing leaders." The Daily Telegraph praised his "earnest, yet steely, portrayal" while The Guardian found him "excellent. This is intelligent and honest casting." In 2004, Sheen starred in ITV's Dirty Filthy Love, a comic film about a man dealing with OCD and Tourette's after a marital separation. Sheen spoke of "treading a fine line" because "a lot of the symptoms are intrinsically comical". He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Television Actor and a RTS Best Actor Award. Also in 2004, Sheen played a pompous rock star in the romantic comedy Laws of Attraction and produced and starred in The Banker, which won a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film. In 2005, Sheen starred in the National Theatre's production of The UN Inspector, a David Farr adaptation of The Government Inspector. The Times wrote of "a scathingly brilliant and inventive performance" while Variety noted that the actor "adds comic finesse to his apparently ceaseless repertoire". The Evening Standard, while conceding that the performance was "technically brilliant", expressed bemusement as to why "one of the most mercurial and inspiring actors we have seems set on impersonating Rik Mayall throughout". Also that year, Sheen took part in the Old Vic's 24 Hour Play, in which The Daily Telegraph felt he "dazzled". In 2005 film work, Sheen starred in Dead Long Enough, a small-budget Welsh/Irish film, with his longtime friend, Jason Hughes. In addition, he had a supporting role in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, made a cameo appearance in The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse and starred in the short film The Open Doors. Sheen came to international attention in 2006 for his portrayal of Tony Blair in The Queen. The film focused on the differing reactions of the British royal family and the newly appointed Prime Minister following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997; it was Sheen's third collaboration with director Stephen Frears and his second with screenwriter Peter Morgan. He enjoyed reprising his role because Blair, at this point in his career, had "a weight to him that he didn't have before". When asked to discuss his personal opinion of Blair, Sheen admitted that the more time he spent working on the character, the "less opinion" he has of the politician: "Now when I watch him on TV or hear his voice, it's sort of like a cross between a family member, a friend and seeing a really old embarrassing video of yourself." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised "a sensational performance, alert and nuanced" while Empire spoke of an "uncanny, insightful performance". Sheen was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His second film appearance of 2006 was a supporting role in Blood Diamond as an unscrupulous diamond dealer. Also in 2006, Sheen starred as the troubled English comic actor Kenneth Williams in BBC Four's Fantabulosa! In preparation for the role, he lost two and a half stone (approx. 35 lbs), studied archival footage and read Williams' published diaries. Sheen has said he is "fascinated by finding the private side of the public face". The Times found his performance "mesmerising" while The Observer described it as "a characterisation for which the description tour-de-force is, frankly, pretty faint praise". He won a RTS Award for Best Actor, and received his second BAFTA nomination of 2006, for Best Television Actor. Sheen starred in two other BBC television productions in 2006, playing H. G. Wells in H. G. Wells: War with the World and Nero in Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire.
From 2006 to 2007, Sheen starred as the television broadcaster David Frost in Frost/Nixon at both the Donmar Warehouse and Gielgud Theatre in London and the Jacobs Theatre on Broadway. The play, written by Peter Morgan, directed by Michael Grandage and co-starring Frank Langella, was a critical and commercial success but Sheen initially accepted the role as a favour to his friends and "never thought it was going anywhere". The Guardian said the actor "exactly captures Frost's verbal tics and mannerisms while suggesting a nervousness behind the self-assurance". "He's got the voice, the mannerisms, the blaze," said the Financial Times, "but, more than that, Sheen – as viscerally exciting an actor as any in Britain today – shows us the hunger of Frost's ambition ... and fox-like instinct for the hunt and the kill". Sheen was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor and a Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance. Sheen next appeared in the 2007 film Music Within as a political activist with cerebral palsy. He spoke of having a "responsibility" to accurately portray the condition. Variety said his performance was "remarkable.. utterly convincing", USA Today found him "outstanding" while the Los Angeles Times felt he was "reminiscent of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, bringing a vibrancy and wit to the role". Also that year, Sheen starred in the short film Airlock, or How To Say Goodbye in Space with Derek Jacobi and was invited to join the actors' branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Sheen reprised the role of David Frost in 2008's Frost/Nixon, a film dramatisation of The Nixon Interviews of 1977. Despite appearing in the original stage production in a part written for him by Peter Morgan, Sheen was surprised to have been cast in the film: "Peter said he'd only be prepared to give the rights to someone who would cast me as Frost, which was very nice, but when the studios get their hands on something... Right up until we started filming I was prepared to be disappointed". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times asserted that Sheen embodied his character in a "compelling, intense" performance while The Wall Street Journal felt he was "a brilliant actor" who "grows his character from a bright-eyed social butterfly to a gimlet-eyed interrogator". However, The New York Times felt "the likable, watchable Mr. Sheen has been pitted against a scene-stealer" in Frank Langella's Nixon. Frost himself later said it was "a wonderful performance". Sheen was the recipient of the Variety Award at the British Independent Film Awards 2008., while Langella was nominated for an Academy Award.
