Now on bbc news, its hardtalk. Sarah montague has been talking to the actor Michael Sheen. Welcome to the bbcs radio theatre for a special edition of hardtalk. My guest today is known around the world for his film, television and theatre work. He made his name for his uncanny ability to portray other well known people. Tony blair, brian clough, david frost, roles that catapulted Michael Sheen into a life far from his home in port talbot, in south wales. But it was acting that also brought him back there, where he is now immersed in tackling some of the problems that face a Poor Community poverty, debt and homelessness. So how does he straddle such contrasting worlds . Michael sheen, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you very much. Applause so how does the Hollywood Star fit in on port talbots high street . Yeah, its an interesting double life. Inevitably there is a bit of that, that happens anyway. You know, when you start to feel like, oh, this is my hometown, but i sort of feel like my belonging, my sense of belonging is split now, and that just kept extending. So at first it was having moved down to london to come to drama school here, and then starting to work as an actor. And then eventually that leading me to go and live in america for a while. And then, i suppose, and having some fame, and celebrity. That inevitably also can be a separating thing as well, regardless of the geographical space. And then, to the point where i am now where, yeah, it feels very much like straddling two worlds, where i suppose i am essentially trying to have two full time careers. And that is quite challenging. Currently youve just finished a couple of american series, which, just put your name in and youll see, good omens, the good fight, they are travelling very far and fast. I only do projects with the word good in them now. Its just a contractual thing. But your breakthrough role as i sort of mentioned was tony blair, which was back in the deal, and that was a breakthrough here, which was the deal, 2003, focusing on the blair brown relationship and a deal they struck over the leadership. And yet, i was absolutely gobsmacked to see you say, particularly given your subsequent roles, i cant do impersonations. No, ive never been. You know, i think people assume that i was a kid at school who did impersonations of the teachers but i was never any good at it. In fact, it was sort of a joke that i was terrible at that kind of thing. But you wouldnt say that now . Well, i sort of slightly balk when the word impersonation comes up because thats not really in any way what im trying to do. In a way, its the opposite. I dont want people to be worried about the surface although that is part of the challenge, and i think thats why i party like playing those sort of roles. Because you inevitably if you walk on to a stage or in front of a camera and you say, im playing david frost or whoever, someone you know the audience is very familiar with, you cant shirk that. You have to somehow meet that because thats the expectation, but the work i think, is always to try and make sure that very, very quickly, the audience is comfortable with you, accepts that you are playing that person that they are very familiar with, and then just let go of that goes on the journey with you. And you enjoy the fear of that a bit, dont you . I enjoy the challenge of that, the fear or the challenge of playing someone very familiar is quite different for a camera than it is on stage. So when i was playing frost on stage, just walking out from behind the wings and coming in front of a live audience, and saying, hello, good evening and welcome or whatever, was like, i realised that im i sort of realised im a theatre animal in that sense. I like being in the room with you, and being able to kind of smell you. And then to dominate you. Laughter. Thats what i like. Whereas on camera you cant do it. Its very different, they are just out there somewhere and its a very different beast. But ive only done it once on stage, which is frost. 0k, and you havent done theatre in a while, so its quite interesting, this sort of environment, i suppose. Yes, im very aware of you. I want to get in amongst you. Audience laughs tony blair, did he did you ever meet him afterwards . Did he ever comment on what you made of him . Yes, well, i played him three times. There was the deal, the one that you mentioned, which was actually the first time i ever played a real person, in that sense. Although i played mozart before, but no one really knows what he sounds like, so you can kind of get away with that. So that was the first time id ever played a real person and that was i mean, it was terrifying. What did he say about it though . Um, i was at a dinner or something in new york and at the time, Wendy Murdoch was there and she came up to me and said, im having a dinnerfor tony soon, would you like to come . And i thought, well, ive played him twice now. You know, it would be interesting to see how he moves through a room and that kind of stuff. So i thought yeah, alright. And then, of course, i realised, hang on, that means. Where is this dinner . Oh, its our place in la. I ended up going to Rupert Murdochs house which was on the top well, it still is, presumably on the top of one of the hollywood hills. Just this. It was like a bond villains lair. I mean, it really was. It was just up on the top of a hill, looking out across all of la. And i get there, and i get out of the car, and there are people, snipers up on the roof and stuff, and it was like walking onto the death star. And i go in and wendy comes out and immediately ushers me straight through, out to this sort of area where people were Milling Around and suddenly im standing in front of tony blair and she is saying, tony, look, its you and the two of us are just standing there, kind of looking at each other, not quite knowing what to do. And then people said, so tony, what do you think of michaels performances . And he said, um, ive never seen them. Never seen them. Seriously . Yeah, and then people went away and then he talked to me in detail about scenes within each little thing. So, you know. Laughs 0k. Now, the second time you played him was in the queen, which is of course the queen played by helen mirren, and you have been refreshingly honest because this was sort of your Breakthrough International role about the reaction to her, and the other more subdued reaction to you. Yeah, so i sort of started, i would say to peter morgan, who wrote it, i said, look, you keep writing these things thats about two people. And the other one is always more interesting. Why do i always play the boring one . And ive always thought, well, certainly at that time the things that he was writing about often were about and i dont mean this in a pejorative way it was the monster at the heart of the labyrinth and then theres the hero who goes looking for it, you know . And the audience find their way through with the hero, but its the monster thats interesting. Its the monster thats fascinating, and in the queen, the monster is the queen. In frost nixon, the monster is nixon, and thatsjust the way it was. Now, across all your roles, millions of people will have seen you, but it was something that presumably only a few thousand people saw, that you described as undoubtedly the most significant thing in my career but also the most significant thing in my life, probably. And this was, of all things, its quite hard to explain but it was, the passion play in port talbot. Its interesting because, not even quite sure what it was called. That gives a sense of the extraordinariness of the event, so for anyone that doesnt know, in 2011, i created and was part creator of a production, theatrical production, i guess, in my hometown of port talbot, for the national theatre, wales. It took about 2. 5 years to develop, and ultimately it was a single performance, a Live Performance that lasted non stop for 72 hours, that took place all over the town. And it was about the town, and it was with, i worked with about 2,000 local people on it, ultimately. And it took place over the easter weekend. And it was. So the template for the production, it was a story based on the events of the passion of christ. But, it was a modern day story and it was telling, ultimately, a story about that town, now. So you, the jesus type figure, i know you dont. He was called the teacher, yes. I know you balk at being. He was a local comprehensive School Teacher who disappeared. And you were crucified at the end of it. He was ultimately killed on the roundabout in port talbot, yes. And when we began, so the First Official episode then, because we sort of did it in what i called episodes and the First Official episode didnt happen until, i believe it was like 2 00 on good friday afternoon. But i spread rumours that if you were to come to the beach when the sun rose you might see something. So there were maybe 100 or so people there. Ok, but we should explain, by the end. By the end, depending on who you ask, there was anywhere between 10 15,000 people. And were talking about a town that is a population of 40,000. Yes. So my character, the point of my character was that he arrived, he was someone from the local community who had disappeared, he had some sort of breakdown. And then on the morning of good friday, he appears down by the sea, with no memory. Hes lost his memory, and over the weekend he asks people to tell him stories about the town, and what has been lost, and what has been there, and what people have memories of. And he starts to become a receptacle of all this stuff and when he is finally on the cross, he remembers everything. And he starts listing a sort of, a litany of things in the actual town that have disappeared. And that motivation for you was an inspiration that came i think, when you were in the vatican . Because you thought, what is happening now in port talbot is what was happening then. I was on holiday in italy, and i went to rome, ive never been to rome before, and i was very excited to go to rome. And i went to st peters basilica, and i was quite overwhelmed by it. For anyone thats been there, its quite overwhelming being in there. And i thought, ijust need to have a little sit down for a minute and i saw, off in the corner, just a little area that had some chairs and there was no one there, so i went to sit down, there was a sort of light on it. And i sat in this and it turned out to be stjosephs chapel. And i sat there and there were paintings on the wall around me depicting jesuss ministry. So, all the things he did, you know, theres the hes tending to the sick, and with children, the dying, and the grieving, and all that kind of stuff. And as i sat there, i thought, that is exactly what people are doing in port talbot right now. There are organisations and charities and support groups, and you know, carers and teachers and nurses and hospices, and all these things and i was like, oh, that that is whatjesus did. And that is what community is. That is how we Keep Community going and in that moment it clicked for me. I was like, im telling the story ofjesus, but its not the story ofjesus. It is the story of the community that are doing that, and that port talbot was the kind of marginalised. The motorway goes through it, no one stops in port talbot. It is seen as being dirty because of the industry and it would be if it was a person, it would be a person thatjesus would have dealt with. But the interesting thing for you, you insists you are not religious you do this play and then you, yourself, for example, take on the moneylenders in wales. And you set up this end high cost credit alliance. Yes, well i suppose what happened, the passion happened in 2011, and as a result of that, and me becoming more connected to these different groups and organisations in the town, and having a sense of what it is that keeps communities alive, in very challenging circumstances. I wanted to stay connected. Obviously, and they wanted me to, you know, talk about them, have a photograph, because the other experience i had over the 2. 5 years, or whatever it was, developing it, i would come to the town and then go away, and come back, and go away. And each time i came back i would notice that something had gone. Something had disappeared, that some service had been cut, so i was very aware of the challenges that were there and how support was being taken away, actively taken away, because of Council Budgets been cut and all that kind of stuff. My awareness of the importance of what people were doing there was very connected to a bigger picture, more political with a capital p, i suppose, sense of what the context of that was, and i started to not only want to become more involved with the groups, but also started wanting to try and see if i could do something in terms of the big picture as well. And so that eventually led to me getting to the point where i was like, i dont want to just have a picture taken, i dont want to just have my face in the paper or my name as the patron saint, i want to do more than that. I was getting to a point in my career as well since 2011, over the next five or six years or whatever, where work was very good for me. I had a lot of choice, i didnt have to audition for things anymore, i could sort of work whenever i wanted to, which meant that i had a fairly steady supply of financial resources, i had a media resource, i could come and talk about things and i thought, right, either i have to take a step back now because its too much, or i have to take a step forward and ijust have to change things. And the circumstances of my life were such that our daughter was about to leave home, i had lived in america because she had grown up there, and i wanted to be with her, and so she was leaving, and all the planets just aligned to go, you can go and spend more time in britain now, and really do this. But did you get pushback from people perhaps still who say, what do you know . Youve got this hollywood life, seriously, what difference can you make . And thats a very good thing to say. I think anyone who gets involved in the sort of things ive got involved in, needs to be. People need to be suspicious of me, people need to not trust that what you say is going to happen. I mean, just because you have some celebrity doesnt mean you get a free pass. These are important things. People rely on this stuff. People are dependent on the kind of support groups and the work that people are doing, you cant mess around with that. And so i think it is important that people are like, really . And what i have realised, of course, is that one of the most important resources i can give, one of the most valuable things i can give, is time, so that you are notjust turning up, doing something and running off, that your commitment is long term, and that you really commit to really trying to do as much as you can understand these issues, because they are incredibly complicated. You know, its notjust soundbites, its notjust going on twitter and writing something ranty. These are really complex. Ok, so lets look at one of the things you are doing, because you lead the bid to get the homeless football world cup in cardiff, which is coming up next month. And it is a strange idea, homeless football. It is hard to imagine even how you get a team together, because youve got 500 people, 50 countries. There are over 500 players coming to represent their countries, and they are coming from over 50 different countries, yes. How does it work . And whats the point . So it started for me with an organisation called street football wales, which is a kind of grassroots organisation, and they are the people who create the welsh teams for the homeless world cup each year, and they got in touch with me and said look, we use football as a way to try and break down boundaries around homelessness and social exclusion, and we create tournaments and leagues and teams. Do you want to come and get involved . And my reaction was exactly the same, why are you putting money and energy into doing football for Homeless People . Just deal with the homelessness. And then i realised the brilliance of how it works, which is that of course the football is the hook, that is what brings people in, that is what gets people to. People who feel like they have been on the outside for so long, feel very alienated, might have all kinds of difficulties around socialising and having access to services and that kind of stuff. Suddenly people are coming, they get a bit of self confidence, they feel part of a team, suddenly they are a bit more motivated, health and well being starts to pick up a little bit, and then if you take that to the next stage, which is, you get to represent your country, you know, i went to the first homeless world cup i went to was in oslo, in norway, a few years ago. And there were people there who at that point were struggling with addictions, may be to do with heroin or alcohol, you know, struggling with that at that time. And i remember watching someone score a goal for the first time. Theyd never scored a goal. It was a woman called dee, she doesnt mind me saying her name, she scored a goal for the first time and i had just been sitting with her and hearing her talking about how she hadnt seen her children for so long and how she was having a tough time that day with stuff, and i watched her score a goal. Sorry, im very tired at the moment. And i saw how transformational that can be. Notjust scoring a goal, but being a part of that event, and i saw how it affected her after that. Ive got to ask you, you go from that, which obviously has a profound effect on you, and then you are filming. Yeah. Is that hard . Its not hard. Its. So for instance, you mentioned good 0mens, which is a tv series that is out of the moment, that i was in. And we shot a lot of that in 0xfordshire. And at the time i would be travelling from where we were filming in 0xfordshire back to port talbot, the same day, because part of my contract part of what i now do is make sure that if i am filming on something for a long time, i have enough time within it to come back and forth and be able to do the things i need to do around the other work. And so i would be travelling from 0xfordshire to port talbot. And i would be going from the most beautiful postcard kind of villages, with gorgeous amenities, and really lovely communities there, with all kinds of wonderful things, and then going back through the m4 corridor, through the south wales valleys, where there was very much not that being the case. And that makes you feel like this is not a level playing field. It is nothing against the people, but it just reminds you that there is. The context that this takes place in is not random. It is not by chance. And were talking about a time when the area you were in, which was very strong labour supporting, in the most recent european elections, the brexit party topped the poll with 32 , from nowhere. Yeah, i mean theres a lot of contradictions. Think about the miners strike around 84 85, and that a lot of the people in the areas that were fighting during the miners . Strike to hold onto their work, and the people they were fighting against, you could say that they ended up voting in lockstep around brexit. And that is just fascinating. That is very interesting. Why might that happen . So i was sort of interested in that. Ok, but youre not accepting that it is wanting out of the eu because of what the eu stands for . I think its a lot of things. I think some people absolutely were voting because theyjust dont like the idea of what being part of the European Union is to them, and i think everybody has a very personal thing about it. I think there definitely is, because i have seen it and i have spoken to people, there is a huge amount of anger and resentment in a lot of communities about what was being lost and what was not replaced, and a lot of blame for that goes into all kinds of areas, and it is very interesting to look into that. My biggest motivating factor around the effects of brexit, or the aftermath of the brexit vote, what i have held onto, was that in that first period afterwards, it was a huge shock for the country, i think, in terms of its self image, and particularly in the sort of metropolitan centres, and within the media. And there was a sense of, oh my goodness, our country is not what we thought it was, and we now have to open up to what is going on in communities that we dont often go and look into, we dont report from. There was a real effort to kind of open that window, and i have watched as that has closed. I have watched as, in that shock, i think part of me was feeling like, well, there is a very positive aspect to this, which is that maybe the plight of these communities. And you dont think that is any longer the case . I think that slowly started to change into, whos on this side, whos on that side . And the media as well started to kind of go, oh, no, were in control of this again. No, we know what this story is. And that has been quite a scary thing, that the actual issues have not changed. Because you have talked about coming back to see if you can try to do something about the frustrations and the anger that is there. Well, thats what i mean. Do you think you can, though . Well, my starting point was to go. Go and listen to people. Go and ask people, what are the things that frustrate you the most . What are the things that youre finding difficult . And of course, even that conversation is difficult. How do you mediate that conversation, as someone who is coming. Has the life i have and is doing the things i do. Already you. It is like quantum physics, just your act of observation affects what you discover. Everything that youre saying leads to the obvious question, which is whether, and why wouldnt you, stand as a politician . Well, theres a lot of reasons for why that is not a good idea for me. And one of them is. Do you rule it out . Well, i dont rule it out because i dont rule anything out. But what is the most effective use of what i can do can change from any moment to moment. And at the moment i do not believe that that is the most effective use of what i can do. At the moment, politicians are one of the strings, one of the levers to pull. Theyre just one of them. I dont want to suddenly become one of those levers, i want to be able to pull as many levers as i can. My biggest strength is i dont work for anybody. No one is paying. Im not getting wages from someone that i have to be answerable to in that respect. I can say whatever i want, and why would i suddenly find myself in a position where i have to go, what does the leader want me to say . I dont want to do that. Michael sheen, thank you for coming on hardtalk. Applause hello there. Thursday was a warm and a sunny day for most of us away from the east coast. But for scotland, wales, Northern Ireland, you saw your warmest day of the year so far. And todays looking pretty similar another dry and sunny one with the highest temperatures across the west. Thats because weve got High Pressure across the country drawing up this hot air from france across western areas. But for the east, youll notice the yellow colours there, thats because weve still got more of an onshore breeze, but not as windy as it was on thursday either. Weve got a bit of a grey start across the east of the country, that cloud will burn back to the coast and most places will be dry and sunny. And the sun will have strength to it. Very high uv levels across most of the country, but especially across england and wales. And temperatures east west divide. Its going to be hot across western scotland. We could see one or two places reaching 30 degrees across the west, but 15 degrees or so across north sea coasts. The same too for wales, western england, a little bit fresher, though, further east with a bit more of an onshore breeze there. Not as windy as it was across the south west. Also worth noting, pollen levels will be high across the country, especially for england and wales. Now, as we head through friday night into saturday morning, it stays largely dry and i think the low cloud across the east will be kept at bay because we all start to pick up more of a southerly wind so that temperatures will rise further, and what will be noticeable is the humidity will rise. So that sets the scene for saturday. Its going to be a hot and a humid one for many, but in particular across england, and Eastern England as well. Now, if we look at the european heat wave, its expected to reach its peak this weekend across parts of spain, france and again into germany. Well be tapping into that heat, with temperatures perhaps reaching highs around 33 or 3a celsius across the south east, mainly for the london area. So southerly winds drawing this heat up. Plenty of sunshine across the eastern half of england. A weather front moving into scotland, Northern Ireland and around irish sea coasts will bring a drop in temperature and also the chance of a a few showers or thunderstorms. So a bit cooler here but very hot for england and wales. Highs of 32 degrees in london, but we could see 33 or 3a celsius, like i mentioned. During saturday night, this cold front spreads across the country. We lose those red hues and see something a little bit cooler and fresher pushing in off the atlantic. So temperatures could be 10 degrees down across south eastern areas compared to what we see on saturday, and therell be plenty of showers across the north west corner of the country. Some of these will be quite heavy, but plenty of sunshine too, with temperatures around the seasonal average thats the high teens in the north, and closer to mid 20s further south. This is the briefing. Im victoria fritz. Our top stories head to head to head ten more democrats face each other in president ial debate and the frontrunner comes underfire. Do you agree today that you were wrong to impose oppose, bussing in america . Do you agree . I did not oppose bussing in america. The heat goes on, much of western europe continues to bake under high temperatures. Wildfires rage in spain. Still stranded at sea, the boat of migrants who have been unable to find a safe port to disembark. And in business, trade war showdown at the g20