Welsh actor Michael Sheen is winning renown for his portrayals of historic figures like David Frost and Tony Blair. But his hardest role? A werewolf movie in New Zealand, he tells Helen Barlow
KEY POINTS:
When Michael Sheen came to play Tony Blair in The Queen - after portraying him in television's The Deal - he had never met the British Prime Minister. So when the cheeky Welshman ran into Blair's teenage daughter, Kathryn, at a party, he bombarded her with questions.
"We'd just had a costume fitting that day and we were trying to work out what Blair would wear in bed. So I asked her and she said, 'Well, boxer shorts and a T-shirt, but in the summer, nothing'. So I went, 'We don't want to go down that path, really'."
At the time the classically trained actor had already been playing David Frost to acclaim on the London stage, alongside Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon, about the famed 1977 series of interviews between the British broadcaster and the disgraced US president.
When the play also became a hit on Broadway, its cinematic future was sealed. In reprising his role for the film, Sheen again faced the underwear dilemma.
"There a lot of women who you could talk to testify to what David Frost wears in bed and none of them were letting me know," Sheen sniggers.
"On stage we ended up going for silk boxers, which felt kind of right, or at least felt kind of good, and in the film we went for completely naked - if you remember."
The 39-year-old Sheen is a very funny man, even if his humour doesn't often come across in his movies. A big actor in a small man's body, he can bellow with such force and conviction that you can see why he's played the Roman emperors Caligula on stage and Nero on screen. To play the more amiable Blair and Frost he studied their real-life characteristics and then made the men his own.
"I picked up on Frost's sense of mischief and cheek," he explains, "and because you sort of follow the story through his eyes, you really need to enjoy his company. At a certain point you have to let go of all you know, because you have to find your own connection. That's what's great about working with actors like Frank and Helen [Mirren in The Queen], it only really takes off when you forget about the mannerisms and you start playing the scene between two people. Then it kind of flies."
Frost/Nixon marks Sheen's third collaboration with Peter Morgan, the wry screenwriter who also penned The Deal and The Queen. Initially it seemed that the recounting of the series of interviews would tilt in favour of Nixon, yet as in reality it surprisingly became an even match.
In the film it was a wise move to retain the actors who had so embodied the stage roles for three years, and while initially it seemed a little strange that Ron Howard should direct, he has turned the film into one of the major Oscar contenders.
"Ron really understood what works in this story," says Sheen. "He made it more adversarial, like two pit bulls, and since the camera can be so close you pick up lot of the subtleties. You can show more than you can on stage. Ron really brought out Frost's dilemma in having to win the sponsors over."
Indeed, Frost ended up personally financing the interviews' costs - Nixon alone received US$1 million - as he was keen to crack the American market, which had long eluded him.
Before Frost/Nixon, Sheen was mostly known for being the ex-partner of Kate Beckinsale, with whom he has a 9-year-old daughter, Lily.
Beckinsale famously left Sheen for their Underworld director, Len Wiseman - when he was dressed as a werewolf and she a rubber-bodied vamp. Now Sheen spends as much time as he can in Los Angeles to be with his daughter, so his career is steering more towards the American market.
Sheen, who is also based in London where he has a non-celebrity girlfriend, values family above all. He becomes animated when talking about his father, a Jack Nicholson look-alike.
"He's not an impersonator," Sheen is quick to point out. "He happens to completely and coincidentally look like somebody else who's very famous. He doesn't really do an impersonation, but he has a go. What I always say is what he lacks in specificity he makes up for in commitment.
"The influence is in seeing someone who just gives 150 per cent - it's that kind of balls-and-all attitude that I've inherited from my father."
It's also a Welsh thing. "I mean, you look at Tom Jones, who doesn't hold back, Shirley Bassey's not known for her subtlety, Anthony Hopkins, Richard Burton - these are full-on forces of nature, and that's the kind of stock I come from."
To be in the company of Tom Jones has been one of his life's highpoints. "I sang the Welsh national anthem standing next to him when they opened the Welsh Assembly," Sheen chuckles at the memory. "About halfway through he forgot the words and just looked at me, winked, and then kept on singing. It was hilarious."
Initially meeting David Frost had been a little frosty. "He was just a bit shaken up by seeing the play. It must have been an overwhelming experience to see very important events depicted from your life and to watch someone being you. But he got over that and kept coming back and kept watching it. Whenever I meet up with him now it's always a real pleasure. He is good fun to be around."
Sheen greatly enjoyed his time in New Zealand earlier this year, when he shot the Underworld prequel, Rise of the Lycans.
"It's very, very sexy, like werewolf porn," he says of the film where he has it on with Beckinsale's replacement, Rhona Mitra (from Boston Legal).
"It was the hardest work I've ever done. It's not nice playing a character who never gets any older when I do. Here Lucian is even younger than he was in Underworld and since I'm getting more and more decrepit as the days go past, it required a lot of working out for months and dieting.
"But I was thankful once I did get in shape - then I could just stand in front of the mirror every day for hours looking at myself and going, 'You are magnificent!"'
A fan of fantasy films, Sheen was affected by being in the land where The Lord of the Rings was filmed. "There's a way of looking at the world that is really powerful. I was incredibly moved by the country itself and I'm sure that some of that goes into these films."
The versatile actor has just completed the nuclear weapons thriller, Unthinkable, where Sheen spends a lot of the film being tortured.
"Where I had to look as good as I possibly could with my clothes on in Underworld, in Unthinkable I decided to put on a bit of weight, even though I spent the whole film just in a pair of boxer shorts.
"I only hope people take note that this is the least vain choice I've ever made in my life."
LOWDOWN
Who: Michael Sheen, who plays David Frost in Frost Nixon.
Key Roles: The Four Feathers (2002), Bright Young Things (2003), Underworld (2003), The Deal (2003), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Underworld: Evolution (2006), The Queen (2006), Blood Diamond (2006).
Latest: Frost/Nixon opens in New Zealand on Boxing Day.
