Once upon a time, Michael Sheen was known simply as a very good actor – riding high in the UK and Hollywood with roles in everything from Frost/Nixon to the Twilight series.
But then in 2011, he went back to his hometown of Port Talbot in South Wales to play a Christ-like figure in a three-day-long retelling of the Passion story, staged across different locations – and the experience truly changed his life.
‘I got more involved with various organisations and supporting community development [causes], and I realised I had a choice to make,’ he tells Metro. ‘I could be involved in them in a fairly superficial way or I could get more [invested] – and that led me to where I’m at now.’
Fifteen years on, that is a pretty remarkable career position, where he has become as well known for his headline-making social activism as he is for his performances on stage and screen.
Now comes perhaps his most consequential project of all – setting up a new Welsh National Theatre, to boost the country’s’ theatrical ecosystem. It’s currently kicking off its programming in fine style with a production of the US classic Our Town, which after opening in Swansea, has now crossed the border for a run at Kingston’s Rose Theatre.
Thornton Wilder’s tender play about an American small town community in the early 20th Century may on paper seem like an odd choice to launch a Welsh company – and yet, with the accents switched and a few other minor changes, it works beautifully.
Michael is the narrator character of the ‘stage manager’, and says the play has stayed with him ever since he saw it in New York around the time he was doing Frost/Nixon on Broadway.
‘Its profound message is saying “life is short and you must make the most of every moment”. You come out of it feeling like you’ve been woken up to something: it’s like The Matrix, when they talk about taking the [red] pill’.
And for Michael, the show’s carpe diem message has only become more urgent due to global events in recent days and weeks.
‘[Wilder] consciously sets the play over a period of time that ends in 1913 [the year before the First World War], so the play ends on the cusp of massive apocalyptic change,’ he explains, pointing how it includes rain and thunder as a metaphor for looming conflict. ‘[Performing it] while bombs are falling in Tehran and Israel, you can’t help but feel that.’
With Our Town’s brace of four and five-star reviews, Michael has certainly got Welsh National Theatre off to a strong start. He came to set it up with his own money after its predecessor, the National Theatre of Wales, was sunk by the removal of its Arts Council funding in 2023.
‘I knew that there was a [small] window of opportunity to actually reimagine [the company] and keep it going, and so I just figured “I’m in a position to do something about this”.’
His strategy, he says, is at its core ‘to go big’: the shows need to ‘resonate with audiences in Wales and also be something that we can also then take out of Wales, get on West End stages, on international stages, take it to the world’. His starpower will undoubtedly help in his mission, but his tenacity may be even more crucial.
Even just as a performer, Michael has always stood out as a unique force, thanks to his transformative ability for playing famous figures in our national landscape – from Tony Blair to Chris Tarrant.
Growing up, he loved mimics like Mike Yarwood and Rory Bremner, but ‘I had no ability to do that myself. I wasn’t one of the kids in school who could do impersonations of teachers or friends,’ he says.
It was only years later when reading stories to oldest daughter Lily and playing all the characters that ‘I started to realise I could get quite close to [what they were supposed to be like]. In retrospect, I’ve said ‘that was part of what allowed me to do it’.
One of his biggest acting tests came a couple of years ago when he played Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in miniseries A Very Royal Scandal, which centred on the former prince’s infamous 2019 Newsnight interview about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
‘Of all the characters I’ve played based on real life people, it was the one that was hardest to stay neutral on, to stay outside of. And because there was so much that was unknown [about Andrew], a lot of it is guesswork.’
Soon, he will be seen as none other than Winston Churchill in the spy film Fortitude: it is ‘very much a cameo’, he says, although he appreciated joining the great pantheon of actors who have played the cigar-chomping prime minister. ‘I bumped into Gary Oldman recently, and he was incredibly gracious and talked about us both playing him as if we were on a par.’
As for other upcoming projects, in May, Michael will appear one last time as the angel Aziraphale in the one-off finale of fantasy series Good Omens.
Then in November comes another turn for Welsh National Theatre: he will star in new historical epic Owain and Henry as 15th Century Prince of Wales Owain Glyndŵr, who led a 15 year rebellion against British rule. He’s also presenting a two-part BBC documentary, Buried, which will investigate serious claims of dangerous chemicals contaminating communities in South Wales.
Indeed, it’s clear that at this stage in his career, rather than coveting any particular roles, Michael is much more focused on the bigger impact he can make with his platform.
When it comes to his theatre company, he says it currently takes up ‘all my [mental] space’ and he’s certainly aware of the challenges ahead with it: when I suggest he has “saved” his country’s National Theatre, he demurs.
‘I would be a little wary of saying that. So far, we’ve managed to keep it going… if [it] can be sustainable, or self-sustainable as much as possible, for at least 10 years, then we can talk about [that].’
Years ago, it was misreported that he was quitting acting full stop to go into politics. But would he ever consider taking the plunge and become a politician proper?
‘Why on earth would I want [a job] where other people tell me what to say or and I have to find myself doing things that I don’t believe in?” he says plainly. I have more effect on Welsh politics than most Welsh politicians have. It’s not about being in politics, it’s about addressing things you care about.’
It’s a fair point – though, given his combination of charisma, canniness and full-throated conviction, I’d imagine he’d have plenty of people courting him, should he ever change his mind.
Our Town is at the Rose Theatre, Kingston until March 28.
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