In an interview to Deadline’s Contenders Television award-season event, Catherine Zeta-Jones revealed she joined Prodigal Son season 2 to play Dr. Vivian Capshaw because of her fellow Welsh Michael Sheen, who she had never worked with:
“I’d seen the show, I loved the show. I watched it because of my hometown boy, literally from my hometown in Wales, which is this tiny little place in the middle of the map there, is Michael Sheen, who I’d been wanting to work with. So, that’s been in my bucket list and I went, ‘Huh, let me speak to the producers and see what they have in store.’ I’m always drawn toward the darker side of family kind of dysfunctional-ness if that’s a word. I think historically great drama comes out of family stories. You think of The Godfather, you think of The Sopranos on television, you think of, you know, Breaking Bad. I mean, something about the storyline of it being a family because we can relate to it. As dysfunctional as this particular family is, it’s still a family at the end of the day. There are some principles in there that we can all relate to.”
On the experience, she said:
“To work with Michael Sheen, it’s everything now that I hoped it would be because first of all even though we have never met my instinct was right, not just because we’re from the same hometown but you know, we work well together. We pick up on very subtle nuances that we both give off, and like I always say I’m humbled when I work with any actor, especially the ones that feel generous enough to give – you know give, give, give, give, give, to create the better. I always take a little bit of goodness away from them and I kind of do my Irish heritage and rub the belly of it and take it with me in my pocket for future endeavors.”
The full panel video will be released on Monday May 17. Watch an extract below: