Michael Sheen (1969-)
After years of performances steadily growing in stature in television and theatre, Newport-born Michael Sheen suddenly became between 2006 and 2009 a strong and much-publicised character actor, in high profile features and docu-dramas.
A consummate impersonator with a perceptive eye for character foibles and fascination for motivation, Sheen has become almost ubiquitous in biopics, making his name playing forceful, influential personalities: Tony Blair with his almost fixed wall-to-wall grin and glad-handing and indefatigable energy; David Frost, with his smug, faintly ersatz affability and permanent aura of 'showbiz' and odd detachment, and Brian Clough, the football manager whose giant ego rarely dented his popularity with the public.
Sheen has usually brought out their vulnerability and conveyed the essence of their appeal or capacity to intrigue.
Perhaps his biggest challenge came with Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon (2009), the Peter Morgan scripted version of his own stage play with Sheen reprising his London and Broadway theatre performances - playing opposite Frank Langella, highly impressive as Nixon.
Sheen might have been just a faceless foil but instead he conveyed somehow what we all feel about Frost - he seemed to have no life outside the studio but could sparkle before the camera given the occasion.
Sheen also played that tortured soul, comic Kenneth Williams in ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ 4's Fantabulosa! (2005). The performance was impressive enough to win a Bafta Best Actor nomination.
Sheen, educated in Port Talbot, was a National Youth Theatre of Wales member, studied at RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) and then played Mozart in Amadeus for director Peter Hall at the Old Vic. He made an impact with his film role as Robbie Ross, a personal friend of the writer and wit in Wilde (1997).
Sheen's career took a big stride forward with his Tony Blair in Stephen Frears' The Queen (2006), from Peter Morgan's screenplay, with Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II. He had also played the former PM in another Frears drama, Channel Four's The Deal (2003).
In Peter Morgan's The Damned United (2009), about Brian Clough's disastrous short spell at Leeds United after his successes at Derby and Nottingham Forest, Sheen caught most of the vocal quirks and much of the body language even if, predictably, he never quite captured the presence of that rarity - a likeable egotist -who was probably literally 'inimitable'.
