Michael Sheen

**Michael Sheen** *( February 5, 1969)* is a Welsh actor. He portrays Martin Whitly on Prodigal Son.

## Life & Career

Sheen was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales, the son of Irene (née Thomas), a secretary, and Meyrick, a British Steel Corporation personnel manager. He has one younger sister, Joanne. When he was five, the family moved to Wallasey, but settled in his parents' hometown of Baglan, Glamorgan, three years later.

Director Sam Mendes has described Sheen as "a stage creature" and attributed that to the actor's Welsh roots: "I'm serious. He's Welsh in the tradition of Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton: fiery, mercurial, unpredictable." 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 "so slim".

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 look-alike. In his teenage years, Sheen was involved with the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre and, later, the National Youth Theatre of Wales. "It was a brilliant youth theatre", Sheen has said, "and it taught me not only a lot about acting, but also about work ethic; it was very disciplined." He was influenced by the performances of Laurence Olivier and the writings of theatre critic Kenneth Tynan—"the combination of those two things kind of blew my head off." Sheen was educated at Blaenbaglan Primary School, Glan Afan Comprehensive School and, finally, 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.

Even though he had burned up the London stage for nearly a decade--and appeared in several films--Michael Sheen was not really "discovered" by American audiences until his critically-acclaimed turn as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 1999 Broadway revival of "Amadeus".

Sheen was born in Newport, Wales, the only son of Irene (Thomas) and Meyrick Sheen. The charming, curly-haired actor grew up a middle-class boy in the working-class town of Port Talbot, Wales. Although his parents worked in personnel, they shared with their son a deep appreciation for acting, with Meyrick Sheen enjoying some success later in life as a Jack Nicholson impersonator.

As a young man, Michael Sheen turned down the opportunity to pursue a possible professional football career, opting to follow in the footsteps of Daniel Day-Lewis and Patrick Stewart by attending the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School instead of university. In his second year, he won the coveted Laurence Olivier Bursary for consistently outstanding performances. While Sheen was still studying, he landed a pivotal role opposite stage legend Vanessa Redgrave in Martin Sherman's "When She Danced". He left school early to make his West End debut and has been dazzling audiences and critics with his intense and passionate performances ever since. Among his most memorable roles were "Romeo" in "Romeo and Juliet", the title role in Yukio Ninagawa's 1994 Royal Shakespeare Company's staging of "Peer Gynt" and "Jimmy Porter" both in a 1994 regional staging in a 1999 London revival of "Look Back in Anger". A critic from the London Times panned the multimedia production of "Peer Gynt", but praised Sheen for his ability to express "astonishing vitality despite lifeless direction". Referring to Sheen's performance in "Look Back in Anger", Susannah Clapp of The Observer hailed him for his "luminous quality" and ability to be goaded and fiery and defensive all at the same time. Sheen also managed to set critics' tongues wagging with a deft performance in the role of "Henry V", not a part traditionally given to a slight, boyish-looking actor. One writer raved: "Sheen, volatile and responsive in an excellent performance, showed us the exhilaration of power and conquest".

In 1993, Sheen joined the troupe "Cheek By Jowl" and was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award for his performance in "Don't Fool with Love". That same year, he excelled as a mentally unstable man who becomes enmeshed in a kidnapping plot in Mystery!: Gallowglass , a three-part BBC serial that aired in the USA on PBS' "Mystery!" in 1995. The actor nabbed his first feature film role in 1994, playing Dr. Jekyll's footman in Mary Reilly opposite John Malkovich and Julia Roberts, but that film did not make it into theaters until 1996, a year after Sheen's second movie, Othello, was filmed and released. Perhaps his most memorable big screen role at that point, however, was "Robert Ross", Oscar Wilde's erstwhile lover, in the 1997 biopic Wilde. He would also be seen in the Brit road film Heartlands opposite Mark Addy.
Hot off the success of "Amadeus", Sheen began racking up even more notable big screen credits, starring opposite Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley and Kate Hudson in The Four Feathers and landing a major role opposite Kate Beckinsale in the action-horror blockbuster Underworld, along with supporting turns in Bright Young Things Timeline and as British Prime Minister Tony Blair in director Stephen Frears' film The Queen. Next, Sheen grabbed good notices played a divorce-embattled rock star, stealing scenes from Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore in the romantic comedy Laws of Attraction.

Back on the stage, the actor earned raves for his performance as "Caligula" in London, for which he won the Evening Standard Award and Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, along with a nomination for the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award.

## Notes

* Known for playing real-life figures such as *David Frost* and *Tony Blair*.
* Portrayed British Prime Minister *Tony Blair* three times.
* Sheen was in a relationship with English actress Kate Beckinsale from 1995 until 2003
* In mid-2019, Sheen announced that he and his partner, Swedish actress Anna Lundberg, were expecting their first child

## Episode Guide

* Pilot
* Annihilator
* Fear Response
* Designer Complicity
* The Trip
* All Souls and Sadists
* Q&A
* Family Friend
* Pied-A-Terre
* Silent Night
* Alone Time
* Internal Affairs
* Wait & Hope
* Eye of the Needle
* Death's Door
* The Job
* Stranger Beside You
* Scheherazade
* The Professionals
* Like Father...