Summary
Actor Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon; The Queen; Midnight in Paris) explores the life of Philip K. Dick with Matthew Parris, and explains why he had such a big influence on his recent production of Hamlet.
Michael first discovered Philip K. Dick through the film Bladerunner, and moved onto his short stories which got him thinking about science-fiction in a new way. Whilst reading about philosophy, quantum physics, and comparative mythology, it struck him how Dick was intuitively weaving narratives around all the most interesting elements that these fields were throwing up.
He talks about Philip K. Dick's innate interest in multiples realities, and how they overlap with Sheen's own family experiences of mental health issues. In fact the more he found out about him, the more he was drawn to this enigmatic writer.
Producer: Toby Field.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | My name is Annie Matmanis and my name is Nick Grimshaw. How long have we known each other babe? |
| 0:05.0 | Probably 20 years now and in that time we've always worked in and around music right? |
| 0:10.0 | We have. So it kind of makes sense that we do a podcast better. It sounds |
| 0:13.9 | like he's been 20 years in the making. It's not a avatar for podcasts basically, but it is good. |
| 0:18.6 | So we put the world to rights with Thank you for downloading this great lives podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:34.0 | For more information and details of other podcasts just visit BBC.co. UK slash radio 4. |
| 0:41.0 | My guest today is the actor Michael Radio 4. |
| 0:46.0 | My guest today is the actor Michael Sheen. His name became a household name after his portrayals of public figures |
| 0:50.0 | including Tony Blair three times, |
| 0:52.0 | Brian Clough, Sir David Frost and Kenneth Williams. |
| 0:55.6 | He made the leap to Hollywood with the fantasy films Underworld and the Twilight Saga |
| 1:01.4 | and most recently appeared in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris. |
| 1:05.0 | Earlier this year he returned to his hometown of Port Talbot to stage a production of The Passion, |
| 1:10.0 | which took community theatre to a whole different level. He's currently |
| 1:14.6 | playing Hamlet at the young Vic. Michael, whose is your great life? |
| 1:19.1 | Well, my great life is Philip K Dick, the great science fiction writer. |
| 1:26.7 | Is it because of his work alone that you've picked him, or do you actually think that he |
| 1:31.3 | was, because he's going to turn out to be quite extraordinary, |
| 1:34.8 | a great human being? |
| 1:36.1 | I think it's both. |
| 1:37.4 | I think he's someone who created his work out of his life and the two were symbiotic in a way. It's very difficult to |
| 1:44.6 | divide the two from each other. He's someone who was a true explorer, I think, of the human |
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