Michael Sheen, actor

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Sheen is an award-winning actor.

After finding his love for the stage with the West Glamorgan Youth theatre as a teenager, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

He spent the 1990s making a name for himself as a stage actor, shining in the classics from Romeo and Juliet to Peer Gynt as well as in 20th century masterpieces such as Look Back in Anger and Amadeus, receiving several Olivier Award nominations along the way.

A relocation to the US in the early 2000s with his then partner, the actress Kate Beckinsale, and their young daughter Lily prompted a move into films. His breakthrough came in 2003 when he portrayed Tony Blair in a Stephen Frears film called The Deal. It was the beginning of what became an unlikely specialism: morphing into real people from recent history: Kenneth Williams, David Frost, Brian Clough, Chris Tarrant, and Prince Andrew – with two more outings as Tony Blair thrown in for good measure.

Michael was born in Newport, South Wales, in February 1969, the eldest of two children to Meyrick and Irene. He grew up in Port Talbot from the age of eight and considers it his hometown.

His first love was football, and he was spotted as youngster by an Arsenal talent scout to play for their youth team. His parents decided against moving the family to London and he turned to acting instead and graduated from RADA in 1991.

Alongside the classic dramas, his range extends to appearing in fantasy and science fiction films such as The Twilight Saga and Tron: Legacy.

Michael has said that the most meaningful project to him was a modern restaging of the passion play in Port Talbot in 2011, which involved the participation of a thousand local people, because it opened his eyes to the difficulties many of them were experiencing. He has since used his own money to fund the 2019 Homeless World Cup in Cardiff and set up an organisation which supports community groups.

Michael lives in Wales with his partner, the actress Anna Lundberg, and their two young daughters.

DISC ONE: Vienna - Ultravox DISC TWO: The Ecstasy Of Gold - Ennio Morricone DISC THREE: Desire - Talk Talk DISC FOUR: Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones DISC FIVE: Ready for Drowning - Manic Street Preachers DISC SIX: Passion - Peter Gabriel DISC SEVEN: Dark Secret - Lau DISC EIGHT: Oh Yeah - Yello

BOOK CHOICE: The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell LUXURY ITEM: A football CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Vienna - Ultravox

Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Sarah Taylor

There are more than 2000 programmes in our archive available for you to listen to. We have cast away other notable actors including Sir Anthony Hopkins and some of the people Michael has played including Kenneth Williams, Chris Tarrant and Tony Blair. You can find all those episodes and more by searching BBC Sounds.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:07.3	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron.
0:10.5	Evil genius.
0:11.6	He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it.
0:15.5	That's like hiding at your own funeral.
0:17.1	Yeah, a bit great gig.
0:18.6	I'm Russell Kane.
0:19.6	Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.
0:42.7	Hello, I'm Lauren Levern and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4.
0:50.0	Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:57.4	For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds.
1:02.3	Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else.
1:54.1	I hope you enjoy listening. My castaway this week is the actor Michael Sheen. He's widely regarded as one of the best actors of his generation. His talent was obvious from the beginning. He left Rada early to pursue a burgeoning career on stage and with a string of acclaimed performances under his belt moved to Hollywood. Success on the big screen followed and alongside other high-profile roles, he garnered special praise for his portrayal of real people, Kenneth Williams, Brian Clough, David Frost, and no less than three times, former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
2:01.6	This impressive trajectory, however, is only half the story, because while he was in Hollywood, his heart was in his hometown of Port Talbot,
2:07.7	South Wales. In 2011, he went back there to work with the local community. He cites the 72-hour play they created, The Passion, featuring a cast of thousands, as his proudest achievement and a major
2:13.5	turning point in his life. Reconnected with his community and newly connected with the local
2:18.5	charities and campaigners, he moved back home with a commitment to use his platform and resources
2:23.8	to work on the issues he cares about. This year, he also founded a new Welsh national theatre,
2:29.9	of which he is artistic director. The curtains due to go up on their first performances early in 2026.
2:36.7	He says,
2:37.1	I've got no control over what people remember once I'm not around.
2:41.2	Legacy is for other people, but I can do something about now,
	...

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