Frost/Nixon - Michael Sheen interview

MICHAEL Sheen – who recently became an OBE in the New Year’s Honours – talks about playing David Frost on stage and on-screen and why he feels drawn to portraying real-life characters. He also considers why the story of Frost/Nixon remains such an enduring one for audiences (both on stage and on-screen) and why he became a stalker to the real-life David Frost while preparing to do the film! He was speaking at a UK press conference at the London Film Festival.

Q. You’re no stranger to playing real-life characters but Frost is different in that you sense he is always giving a performance. How do you do that?

Michael Sheen: There is a definite self-consciousness about him. He developed a persona for himself, I suppose, that allowed him to be comfortable and also as an interviewer his technique was to try and put people at their ease. It suited him to be under-estimated and certainly in our story the very reasons that he’s under-estimated are the reasons why Nixon feels it will be alright to do an interview with him. But the challenge for me was to play someone who, on the surface, has a superficiality – a light weightness I suppose – but to try and get across how much things are unravelling underneath. And that was the big difference between doing it on stage and on film. On film, I just have to trust that the inner life – if it was there – would be picked up by the camera, whereas on stage there is a certain amount of projection required and broad strokes. So, the challenge is to play that developed persona that he has but also to have a real inner life going on at the same time.

Q. Is it coincidence that you’ve played so many real-life people or are you drawn to it?

Michael Sheen: I’m drawn to people who say: “We’d like you to do this job!” [Laughs] It’s kind of as simple as that. I’d like to say that it’s because I’m drawn to iconic characters but when Ron Howard says: “I’d like you to do this part…” you just say: “OK!” Also, most of the real-life characters I’ve done have been written by Peter Morgan, so obviously that’s part of the relationship. But having done a lot of those characters, I do really enjoy it and the challenge of playing real people that I’ve experienced over the last couple of years, it’s sort of like a tightrope walk because, on the one hand, you start with a script and the character exists as a character in this story but then the more research you do you start to feel protective towards the real person. I find myself, anyway, that with all the things I’ve done about real-life people… the more I found out about the real person, I start to say to the director or the writer: “Maybe we could put this in…” Or “Can we include that?” And you have to realise it’s not a character study, it’s a story, so finding that balance between responsibility to the story and responsibility to the real person is a bit of a tight-rope walk.

Q. Given the number of times you’ve played this character on stage and now on-screen, have you changed it over time?

Michael Sheen: There’s always a moment, in doing the research and working on the actual character, where I connect with the person that I’m playing. To begin with, it’s just a person on a screen and you’re watching and it seems very separate and then at some point something happens and instead of looking at this person from the outside, you find yourself looking out with their eyes in a way… something connects and then it’s all about how you relate to the other person, so I learned more about Frost through how he related to Nixon than I did just studying Frost on his own.

Over 400 performances of the play that we did it was always fresh because if you’ve got a great actor like Frank [Langella] it makes my job easy because all I had to do was react to him, listen to him and react off him, and I felt every time we did the performance and then the film it always felt real. There was always something real going on and it was never a repeat of what had been done before. That was the same with doing the film with all these new guys – Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, etc – people say: “Was it a worry about doing it on a film after doing it on stage?” Well, when you’ve got actors like this around you, injecting completely fresh energy to the story and seeing it in a different way, all I had to do was listen to them and get out the way. Trying to get a word in with Oliver Platt was certainly a challenge!

Q. Why are people still interested in the story 30 years on?

Michael Sheen: As specific as the story is about a particular series of events there’s also a lot of universal stuff in it, a lot of archetypal things, as Frank [Langella] has said, the David and Goliath thing. So, there’s obviously a lot of resonance about this story. But ultimately… we’ve talked to people who’ve seen the play and subsequently watched the movie and most people tend to say: “It gets to a certain point and I realise I haven’t breathed for about a minute.” Any story that has the ability to make someone so engaged and tense is a good sign.

I think the thing that we were surprised by when we first started doing the play was that people were so on tenterhooks about it… especially when most people know the outcome. But then I suppose most people know the outcome of Romeo and Juliet and it doesn’t stop people going to see it. Just because it happened a long time ago.. I’m going to misquote Bill Hicks and say: “Jesus died on the cross a long time ago, and people are still talking about it…” So, you know, some stories have a lot of resonance and it’s a way of looking at present day events from a slightly different angle. Obviously, there’s a lot of resonance in this story about things that have been going on in the recent past as well and maybe by looking at it from a different point of view, you see the present in a different way as well.

Q. How important was it for you to get Sir David’s blessing and did you give any tips to Ioan Gruffudd ahead of him playing Tony Blair in W.?

Michael Sheen: Ioan gave me a call, we used to live together anyway, so we had a little chat about it over breakfast one day. But I had nothing to offer other than just support more than anything else. In terms of Sir David’s blessing, I kind of avoided meeting Sir David until after we’d opened on stage because I was a bit worried about feeling protective about him too early, because it’s a fairly warts-and-all portrayal and he’s such an engaging, nice man. The danger was that I might avoid going into certain areas because I’d feel we had already established a relationship.

So, when we were rehearsing I’d been sworn off going to see him by Peter Morgan. But then I saw him walking down the street one day. So, I have to admit that I was his stalker and I followed him around and watched how he walked and all that kind of stuff and took pictures of him on my mobile phone! To this day, I don’t know if he is aware… and that’s why now there’s a restraining order on me [laughs]. But, no, obviously if you’re playing a real person and they’re involved you kind of want them to go along with it but it says a lot about him that it’s not a particularly pretty picture, and it’s certainly a rounded portrayal, but he has been so supportive and generous to us all.

Q. Does the film also remind you of a time when politicians weren’t so polished?

Michael Sheen: People are so coached now, partly because of the events of this film. That’s how and why it started. Just look at what happened to Sarah Palin. She goes on and does an interview with Katie Kurik, messes up a little bit and that’s it… after that she’s coached and coached and coached, precisely to avoid the events of this film.

Q. Did your Port Talbot upbringing help in finding David Frost, given that you both came from humble beginnings and may have felt like outsiders when coming to big cities to pursue careers?

Michael Sheen: Interestingly for this project, David Frost came from very humble beginnings and the idea of being slightly out of your depth is something that’s very strong in this film. And having come from where I’ve come from, and having a grounding in the culture of Port Talbot, really did help with this – always feeling you’re a bit of an outsider. It’s one of the qualities that does get explored in the film – the similarities between Nixon and Frost, I would say. That feeling of not being allowed into the club, and that you’re always going to be slightly on the outside because your background is holding you back in the eyes of other people.

For a guy like Frost, who seems like the ultimate club member now and knows everybody, he introduced me to Gordon Brown last night for heaven’s sake. This is the guy that has a picture of himself with every important person on the wall, and I think that’s coming from a feeling of not being really accepted in the club and that’s something Nixon shared with him as well. That phone call scene in the film brings out a lot of the similarities between them, and, yes, that’s something I experienced coming from Port Talbot and going to drama school and then going to the big city and that feeling of always slightly feeling: “Am I going to be accepted?”