A touch of Frost

On Sunday 04 January, Andrew Marr interviewed Michael Sheen, Actor

Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

Acclaimed actor on the famous men he's portrayed, from Prime Ministers to TV interviewers.

Michael Sheen, Actor

ANDREW MARR: Now then, what do the following have in common - Tony Blair, H.G. Wells, Kenneth Williams, Mozart and Caligula?

Well they've all been portrayed to huge acclaim by the actor Michael Sheen who was recognised with an OBE in the New Year's Honours List.

In his latest film, he plays another celebrated man - Sir David Frost - who in the 1970s, and against all the odds, convinced the disgraced US President Richard Nixon to sign up for a remarkable, soul baring television interview.

FILM CLIP: FROST/NIXON

ANDREW MARR: Michael Sheen is with me now.

That was a remarkable moment actually in a remarkable drama and film when the money has to be paid over because the great thing about what David Frost did was that he did put his own, if not his own money, at least his own reputation.

MICHAEL SHEEN: Well David told me that when he actually signed that cheque, he knew that the money was not in the bank, so he said it was one of the most heart stopping moments of his life.

ANDREW MARR: Hence your little sideways glance to the camera...

MICHAEL SHEEN: Exactly, yeah.

ANDREW MARR: ...at that moment.

MICHAEL SHEEN: To John Birt, and John Birt knows that I know that I don't have that money. So it's a kind of a scary moment.

ANDREW MARR: A scary moment. What did David Frost think of the performance because it must be very, very strange to see yourself portrayed both on stage and then in a film?

MICHAEL SHEEN: Yeah, I think he was... I mean I was thinking what would it be like if I was watching events from my life being portrayed and it would be awful. You know and he also understands that certain things have to be leaned on a bit more to make the plot work, you know. He sort of has to be underestimated. It's a bit like Rocky for interviewers, and I think that was a bit difficult for Sir David to deal with.

ANDREW MARR: Lots of people saying, "But he's a lightweight, but he's a lightweight", isn't it?

MICHAEL SHEEN: Yeah. And I think my take on it was that he's a man of instinct...

ANDREW MARR: Yeah.

MICHAEL SHEEN: ...and so he may not be analytical about why he's doing it and everyone assumes that he's doing it for the wrong reasons, but in fact he's just a very instinctive, kind of spontaneous interviewer.

ANDREW MARR: It's very strange sitting here opposite you hearing that Welsh voice coming out of you because I so associate you not just now with David Frost but with Tony Blair, both from The Deal and then from The Queen. What I was interested in is, I mean you portrayed Tony Blair when he was young and very fresh-faced in that wonderful sort of perky way with David Morrissey as Gordon Brown, and then a little bit older in The Queen. Are you sort of tracking him? Are you stalking him? Are you going to do him again?

MICHAEL SHEEN: Well it was always seen as being... When we first did The Deal, it was always seen as being a sort of trilogy of films, and so there is a third one. We haven't made it yet, but it's going to concentrate on the special relationship between Britain and America. So it will sort of... It'll certainly take us up to if not the Iraq War and everything, but at least looking at why maybe Blair aligned himself with Bush and all that kind of stuff.

ANDREW MARR: When I was talking to that Mr. Morrissey about doing Gordon Brown, he said he did feel after a while a certain sense of fellow feeling. You know you track somebody, you're observing them very, very closely. Did you feel that with Tony Blair? Did you find that you were kind of, a sort of doppelganger figure in private life watching him?

MICHAEL SHEEN: Well it's inevitable. Any character you play, whether it's fictional or based on a real person, you feel protective towards and you do have... The whole point of what I try to do as an actor, and I think what most actors try to do, is to understand the motivations of the person, and all you can do that through is connecting with it yourself.

You know I look for what I identify with, so inevitably I feel close to them. And when I hear Blair on the TV or on the radio, it's like my ears prick up, you know, and it's like listening to a member of my family or something.

ANDREW MARR: And particularly complicated because, as a lot of people have said, there is a thespian aspect to Tony Blair and always has been as well, so presumably as you're watching these tapes of him, you're thinking that's him acting and that's him acting not so well; that's him act ...you know.

MICHAEL SHEEN: Yeah. Playing a real life person, they tend to be someone who there's a lot of footage of, you know, so it's the same... It was the same with Kenneth Williams, same with Brian Clough - a film I did that'll be coming out later on in the year.

But these are people who are public figures as well as private figures and of course we know them through their public persona, which tends to be a kind of created thing. So trying to sift through that, you know look at well what's real, what's authentic - and of course with Blair, there was a lot of talk of him being a not particularly good actor and I thought he was actually very good - but sifting through what's genuine and what's performed.

ANDREW MARR: Has he ever talked to you about it?

MICHAEL SHEEN: No, I've never met him.

ANDREW MARR: You've never met him.

MICHAEL SHEEN: Never met him once.

ANDREW MARR: You have, on the other hand, or you're about to at some point meet the Queen...

MICHAEL SHEEN: Yes!

ANDREW MARR: ...which again will be, because there was that moment in the film of course where you first come across her, but this is going to happen for real. That's going to be an interesting conversation, that one.

MICHAEL SHEEN: Yeah, it is. I mean I've sort of made quips about I'll see how much like Helen Mirren she looks.

ANDREW MARR: Let's just have a little look at that, just for a second.

FILM CLIP: THE QUEEN

ANDREW MARR: A slightly saucy Queen there, I think. (laughs)

MICHAEL SHEEN: Yeah.

ANDREW MARR: We can agree. A beautiful, beautiful piece of acting there, if I may say so. But I mean going back to Kenneth Williams and Fantabulosa! and so on, you have played a lot of living or recently dead people. Any danger of being typecast doing that? Do you want to get away from being the man with the face?

MICHAEL SHEEN: Yeah... Not at all because in a way playing real people stops me from being typecast because everyone is so unique and different, you know, so I don't... People have said to me maybe you should play fictional characters more now, but actually I love it.

The challenge of it is wonderful. And it first and foremost is the script. You know I'm not just looking to play real people all the time. It's whether it's a good story and a script that I like. And you know a lot of them are based on the fact that Peter Morgan has written them and he writes these things with me in mind now, which is great.

ANDREW MARR: Which is fantastic. I must ask you about the Port Talbot connection because it is an extraordinary place to have produced so many very fine actors in a relatively short space of time. What's that all about - Richard Burton and...

MICHAEL SHEEN: I don't know. I know Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins.

ANDREW MARR: Anthony Hopkins.

MICHAEL SHEEN: I've been very fortunate to get to know Anthony Hopkins, Sir Anthony Hopkins a little bit over the last couple of years. He saw the film The Queen and sent me a lovely card and he invited me to his seventieth birthday party on New Year's Eve last year, so it's been a pleasure to get to know him. But the reason, I have absolutely no idea. It's an extraordinary town. It's a very supportive town.

You know when I was growing up, you know it's a working class town, not a place that you would necessarily associate with being particularly supportive towards being an actor. But of course because Burton and Hopkins are both kind of men's men, there's a lot of support if you want to go into that particular profession.

ANDREW MARR: Yeah. Maybe it's as simple as that. And just returning to the Frost/Nixon story, the other thing that struck me about the film - and indeed the play as well because they're very closely related obviously, basically the same - is that when you're looking for real, gripping drama, there's so much in politics.

I mean you know we tend to assume, you know we read the headlines and they're at it again, but when you dig, drill into these stories and I had forgotten just what an extraordinary story not simply the interview was, but the run up to it.

MICHAEL SHEEN: Yeah, well I mean that's the thing that struck me. When I first read the script of the play, a few years ago now, the thing that took me by surprise was the thriller aspect of it.

You know it's sort of edge of your seat stuff because you realise these two men have so much to lose or to gain by the interview. And it's that Peter Morgan, the writer, has a really good eye for what the real story is, you know the story behind the story kind of thing, and I think that was true of The Queen and true of Frost/Nixon as well.

ANDREW MARR: Well thank you very much indeed for coming in and good luck with the next project.

MICHAEL SHEEN: Thank you.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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