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Producer · Actor · Writer

1969-02-05 · Newport, Gwent, Wales, UK · Male

57 series in the catalog

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.

Early life and education

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.

Career

Classical stage roles (1991–2001)

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…