Read the interview Michael has given to the Australian newspaper about the Fox production as it comes to the country by Foxtel:
Ler maisIn Prodigal Son, Michael Sheen plays Martin Whitly, a highly intelligent, charming and cultured medical practitioner. But he’s also a serial killer, kept under close surveillance in a prison where he is visited by profiler Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne), who comes seeking insights into a copycat killer using Whitly’s murderers as a template.
There’s an unmistakable echo in all this of The Silence of the Lambs, and not only because Sheen is, like Anthony Hopkins, who played Hannibal Lecter in the 1991 film, so proudly Welsh.
“One of the useful things about this story is that it touches tropes and little motifs from other shows and stories in the genre,” says Sheen, speaking via Zoom from his home in Port Talbot, Wales, where he is spending – and largely enjoying – lockdown with his partner and young child.
Watch an interview Michael Sheen, co-creator Simon Evans, editor Dan Gage and composer Alex Baranowski gave to Sam Cook about Staged, available on BBC iPlayer (UK residents only):
Alternatively, an uncut version of Michael’s interview has been released:
Yesterday the SAG-AFTRA Foundation released a Q&A session with Michael Sheen recorded virtually in which he discussed the three-part drama Quiz, currently on air on AMC. Watch the full interview below:
Also, check out screencaptures from the interview on our photo gallery:
Read below an interview the Staged stars gave to the magazine, out this week. Staged is going to be aired tomorrow, June 10, on BBC One at 10.45 PM GMT.
The two stars talk about the production, working together again and filming at their homes with their families:
Ler maisDavid, Michael, what can you tell us about the show?
Michael Sheen: What can I tell you about the show? Well, it’s about two young, plucky, upcoming actors David and Michael. We play ourselves – David Tennant and myself – we’re the best casting for it. The premise is that we were going to be doing a play together. Then lockdown happened and the director of the play, Simon, who also plays himself, wants to try and keep things going whilst we’re in lockdown and puts forward the idea that we can rehearse using video calls. Then when lockdown finishes we’ll be ready to go into a theatre before anyone else. That idea goes down better with David than it does with me. The rest of the episodes are about how that plays itself out.
David Tennant: It’s about two actors called Michael and David who are trying to keep rehearsing even after they’ve been locked in their houses due to a global pandemic. It’s got a certain topicality.
The play is being directed by Simon, who is a bit like theatre director Simon Evans.
The two actors are quite like Michael Sheen and David Tennant. They are locked in their houses with their respective partners Georgia and Anna, who happen to be not unlike Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg.
Michael Sheen and David Tennant star in Staged, a BBC series in which they play actors who had to halt their rehearsals for a new West End play due to the pandemic. They talked about the production with TV & Sattelike Week and TV Times, out this week, and you can read on our photo gallery:
The actors talked to The Time about reuniting for lockdown production after Good Omens, plus the future of their future projects:
Michael Sheen and David Tennant talk to Dominic Maxwell about Staged, a TV satire of Zoom, filmed from their homes
Well, this is unsettling. I’ve just watched the first episode of Staged, an enjoyable new BBC comedy series in which the actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen spend lockdown staring into their laptops as they talk to each other on Zoom. And now, minutes later, here I am on a Zoom call with David Tennant and Michael Sheen.
More than that, Sheen, 51, is sitting in the same position in his kitchen in south Wales as he does throughout the series. Behind him is a stone fireplace and a sign with the full name and birthdate of his new baby daughter, Lyra, written on it. His beard is as generous as his manner. Meanwhile, Tennant, 49, is unshaven, lank-haired, looming over his laptop. He apologises for his “ludicrous” hair: blame his role as Phileas Fogg in the BBC’s new version of Around the World in 80 Days. He had just come home from doing some filming for it in Cape Town when lockdown began. Had the pandemic kept its filthy paws off us, he would be shooting it in Romania today.
Instead he is at home in west London. He has chosen the room to talk from on the basis that it is the only one that doesn’t have one of his five children in it. It has been the same making Staged, he says; we get to see all over his house because he’s forever trying to keep Ty, 18, Olive, 9, Wilfred, 7, Doris, 5, or Birdie, 8 months, out of shot. “The house is full of children home schooling or practising drums or whatever it might be,” he says, “so you just have to go to wherever the pocket of least resistance is at any given moment.”
Ler maisMichael talks about the scandal, doing the minisseries, playing Chris Tarrant, and more:
Ler maisMichael Sheen, who plays Chris Tarrant on Quiz, talks about his getting a unique perspective on the Ingrams’ guilt and what it was like playing British TV legend Tarrant.
Q: Did you remember this scandal?
A: In Britain, I think I was probably similar to most people here who remembered it because it was such a big deal at the time, and the tabloid newspapers were all over it, and it was such a huge show… I think, like most people, I seem to remember watching the episodes when they came out. But they never did come out. They’ve never been shown, so the whole of the country pretty much has misremembered watching the actual episode. What actually came out was the documentary that ITV put out, which is very sort of ITV’s agenda, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?‘s agenda, so very kind of biased towards their guilt — and then that’s connected to the other part, which is my memory of them before I read the scripts for this where I had no question that they were guilty. I just totally remembered that it was this terrible thing and they did this thing and they got done for it and all that. So that’s what I remembered before I read the scripts.
Q: What drew you to the show?
A: How I came to the project was through [Executive Producer] Stephen Frears. Stephen called me. I was in New York and he was coming to New York and he said, “Let’s go and have dinner. Something I want to talk to you about.” And so we went out for dinner, and he told me that he was doing this project and would I think about playing the part… He’s probably my favorite director to work with and he’s had such a huge effect on my life. The first film I ever did was with Stephen, a film called Mary Reilly many years ago with Julia Roberts and John Malkovich… so obviously if Stephen says he wants me to do something, I’m there. But also in this case it was written by James Graham, who I’d been working with for a little while on another project. So I know James and I’m a big fan of his work and his writing, and I was aware that it had been a play before, which I didn’t see but I had been aware of him. I knew it was a very popular play. It had been a big success. So I was already predisposed to liking it, so Stephen said, “Right, I’ll get the scripts sent to you.”
So before the scripts got to me, I watched that documentary again, and this was before I knew what line the script would take, so I just watched the documentary, thinking they were guilty because that was my memory. And the documentary just seemed so over the top trying to make out they were guilty. By the end of it, I was like, “There’s something not right about this.” And then the script came and I read the scripts, and the scripts are not about trying to say they’re innocent, but they’re certainly trying to say there’s more to this story than people would like to believe, so my instincts from watching the documentary were sort of borne out by the scripts. And I just remember reading all three episodes just straight through. They worked so brilliantly on the page… And so I said straightaway, “Absolutely, I want to do this.”
Michael discusses Quiz, Good Omens, Prodigal Son, fans and being a father for the second time at 50. Read more:
Ler maisLOS ANGELES—Michael Sheen has played Prime Minister Tony Blair, TV broadcaster icon David Frost and renowned human sexuality researcher William Masters, but the role he enjoys reprising these days is that of a father.
It has been 20 years since Michael became a first-time dad when he and Kate Beckinsale had Lily Mo Beckinsale-Sheen. Last September, the English actor returned to playing one of his favorite roles—a father—to Lyra, his daughter with Swedish actress Anna Lundberg.
“It’s been 20 years since I did this,” Michael confirmed in a video call about becoming a dad again at age 51.
“To be a new dad with a little baby in lockdown as well is a very particular experience,” said the Golden Globe nominee for the TV drama series, “Masters of Sex.” “It’s been great because it means that her routine comes first. I know a lot of people have been saying since the lockdown that routine is such an important thing because otherwise, you end up living in your pajamas all day, not doing anything. But, of course, she has a routine that has to be stood by, so she dictates what happens in the day.
The three-part drama based on the true story of coughing Major Charles Ingram and the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? scandal starts on ITV on Monday April 13 at 9PM GMT. Read an interview Michael gave to the British channel on the minisseries:
What are your memories of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? when it first came to the screen in 1998?
I remember being really struck that a TV quiz show was on every night of the week in primetime. It was unheard of at the time. Then watching Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? and being blown away by the tension of it. It was so compelling and really groundbreaking.
In doing the research for this it was fascinating to be able to watch the experimentation they did before they got it right. The version of the show they did before they had all the tense music, the lighting and all of that. It just looked like any game show at that stage.
Apart from the £1 million on offer and the structure of how you could win it, the show was completely different and not in any way gripping. It was really interesting to see the difference the tweaks they made had and how it suddenly became a massive hit. As soon as it hit its groove it was mind-blowing.
Why did you want to be involved in Quiz?
It is an extraordinary story. It’s one of those things that has such potential. At first you think, ‘Oh really? A story about Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? Is that going to be that interesting?’ Initially you think it’s going to be a little bit flimsy, maybe. Then you realise that actually it’s a way to explore all kinds of much bigger, complicated, complex issues. That you can’t take anything for granted when it comes to how it looks on the surface.
I was drawn to Quiz because I remembered what happened. And the fact James Graham had written it and Stephen Frears was directing. You think, ‘This is going to be interesting.’ Then as I started reading the scripts you really get drawn into it. So, I hope that’s the experience for the audience watching it as well. I’m sure it will be. It’s a story about far more than just the ‘Coughing Major’. And yet it says so much about us as a nation as well in so many ways. It says a lot about television, about entertainment, about how public perceptions can be influenced by all kinds of different things. It’s a very British heist that happened.
Ler mais