Michael Sheen Was Manhandled By The Queen | Extended Interview | The Graham Norton Show

0:00 What a posh couch.

0:01 That's good.

0:02 I'm liking that.

0:03 I'm like and I'm feeling confident tonight because we've all been trained.

0:07 We've all been to drama school with varying degrees of success.

0:13 No, I know cuz I knew Michael when you were at

0:17 I was just saying backstage.

0:19 Yes.

0:18 I've known you.

0:19 You were the funniest person I'd ever met.

0:21 Even at the age of about 18, 19.

0:24 What happened?

0:24 I know.

0:26 Michael G.

0:27 Very exciting.

0:28 Uh since we last saw you on the show and much

0:30 excitement hoopla harra uh you've got your obbe from the queen.

0:34 I HAVE a you a well it must it must have been amazing.

0:45 Did you finally go and everything?

0:46 She thought she was giving it to Tony Blair.

0:49 But did she did that come up?

0:51 Well uh she did she did say to me cuz she I mean this is so extraordinary thing.

0:55 We drove into Buckingham Palace.

0:57 I went with my

0:58 Oh, there's you with the other with the with the other queen, the fake queen.

1:01 Yeah.

1:01 Uh we drove in there and it was strangely like

1:04 Dja Vu because we'd recreated it for the film The Queen.

1:07 So, I sort of felt quite at home there.

1:09 Yeah, I've done this before.

1:11 Yeah.

1:11 And then uh and then you get in front of the actual queen.

1:15 And uh and there's all these rules that you have,

1:18 you know, the etiquette and stuff.

1:19 You have to go in, you must never turn

1:20 your back on the queen and all this kind of stuff.

1:22 So I turn up and and she's sort of and she's got someone next to her going,

1:25 "This is Michael Sheen.

1:27 He's a Herbert from Wales.

1:28 He's an actor.

1:30 Uh you played Blair in that film about you." And you

1:33 come up and she comes forward and she sort of shakes

1:35 your hand and uh and then she and then she sort

1:39 of puts the medal on you and then she said um she said,

1:43 "So what are you doing next?" And uh when

1:46 I told my agent in America that she went,

1:48 "Oh, everyone's an agent." So what are you doing next?

1:52 And uh and I thought and the truth was

1:54 that I was about to do a film called Tron.

1:57 Uh but I thought that probably wouldn't go down well with the queen.

2:00 She might not get that.

2:01 And I've only got a short amount of time to talk to her.

2:02 So I said, uh I'm doing another film about uh ex Prime Minister Blair,

2:08 and this one's about uh his relationship with President Bill Clinton.

2:14 And she got a little sort of sparkle in her eye.

2:15 She went, "Oo, that must be awfully difficult." Uh and then

2:22 uh and then she shakes your hand again and because she must

2:25 meet so many people obviously and all the time and presumably

2:29 a lot of people get a bit rabbit in the headlights with her.

2:32 Uh so she does this thing where she shakes your hand

2:34 and when it's time for you to go she just kind

2:37 of shoves you away and I I come from Port Albert

2:44 which is quite rough and I was like whoa[ __] off.

2:50 Uh, Michael Sheen, you've had the most incredible uh,

2:54 time and I'm sure a lot of people know

2:56 what you have been up to, but if they don't,

2:58 just explain the concept behind your new film, The Gospel of Os.

3:03 Right.

3:03 Well, uh, it the film is called The Gospel of Us, and uh,

3:06 it is a film version of something that I did last

3:11 year in my hometown of Portala over the uh, Easter weekend.

3:15 So, we did a oneoff continuous 72-hour live

3:21 performance uh called The Passion of Port Albert.

3:25 Uh and it took place all over the streets

3:27 and down at the beach and on the mountain

3:29 and in people's houses and in the alleyways

3:31 and in the working men's clubs and everywhere over three days.

3:35 It involved about 2,000 local people.

3:38 Um, and it began at dawn on Good Friday morning on the beach

3:43 with about 200 people gathered to sort

3:45 of witness something uh that wasn't really advertised.

3:48 It just sort of happened.

3:49 And by the Sunday night,

3:51 there were 15,000 people standing around a roundabout watching

3:55 me get crucified uh down in front of the beach.

3:58 And so this film is not a documentary.

4:01 There were documentaries made,

4:02 but this film is an actual sort of feature film based

4:05 on what happened that a director called Dave McKeen has made.

4:10 And were you kind of worried about making it

4:12 a film because because it was such a special thing?

4:16 Well, it was Yeah, it was it was such a particular thing.

4:18 It was live.

4:19 It was, you know, was 72 hours long.

4:21 Yeah.

4:21 And we had no idea how many people were going to turn up, you know.

4:23 I mean, you I worked on it for about two and a half years before we did it.

4:27 Um, and you know, you try and work out as much as you possibly can,

4:30 but ultimately you have no idea who you're going to be

4:33 doing it for, how many people are going to be there.

4:35 And uh, so it was such a particular live thing.

4:38 So the film of it, how Dave managed to make this film,

4:42 I have no idea because also I I said, "You can't have cameras here.

4:44 You can't have cameras there." Because I wanted to defend,

4:46 you know, and protect the live experience for the audience.

4:49 So I said, "You can't have cameras here." So he

4:51 hid cameras in bushes and in people's houses and on tops

4:55 of trees and uh and there's there was even

4:57 a tiny little camera on the top of the cross.

4:59 So there's this extraordinary shot as the cross comes up where the camera

5:02 is on the cross and you see what I saw as I came up.

5:05 And it reminded me of that joke, you know,

5:07 where they say uh when the Jesus calls one of the disciples over and says,

5:10 "I can see my house from here." I actually could see my house.

5:15 I could see my but yeah it's it's an and Dave

5:18 has done the most extraordinary thing with this film.

5:21 It's incredible.

5:22 Absolutely incredible whether you know for people who were there

5:24 it's amazing but for people who weren't there it there

5:27 are images that you could never see and you know

5:29 15,000 people walking through a small town and it's incredible

5:33 because you directed the whole thing.

5:34 I mean the the live event but that sounds like kind of like a trained

5:39 person should you know like how do you prepare who knows what they're doing?

5:42 You know what I mean?

5:42 That's like 12 people.

5:44 That's like that's Well, and that's the other thing that, you know,

5:46 there was a point at which where I got arrested

5:48 in the scene and we were out in outside the car park

5:52 of the seaside social club which is where we had

5:54 our version of the last supper and the Manic Street Peaches played,

5:57 you know, in front of 200 people on the stage of the working

6:01 men's club locally and Paul Pot sang and all this kind of stuff.

6:03 And then we came outside and I got arrested

6:06 by the local police who were all local community performers,

6:09 you know, and the audience cuz we don't

6:12 we could only get 200 people inside the place.

6:14 Thousands were outside in the car park watching what was happening

6:17 on a big screen with a bar out in the car park.

6:19 So a lot of fairly drunk people by the time

6:22 I came out and I got arrested and put on the back of a flatbed truck and sort

6:26 of got put on trial and the crowd were going crazy.

6:30 And like people said afterwards, if you'd said,

6:32 "Let's trash this place," there would have been a riot, you know.

6:35 And so the the the boundaries between fiction and reality all

6:38 got completely blurred and and it got quite hairy at times.

6:42 We've got a clip h and it's sort of that what you were just talking.

6:46 It's sort of it's sort of what you were talking about,

6:48 but you'll see how it's been kind of

6:50 transformed into something else by by the film.

6:52 Uh here it is.

6:55 Answer me.

6:56 I'm glad you picked it up, son.

6:59 I'm proud of you.

7:00 I don't want to TALK TO YOU.

7:01 SAY IT.

7:02 YOU ARE THE KING OF THIS TOWN.

7:04 Say it.

7:05 I don't know the man.

7:07 Are you ready, sir?

7:08 Are you ready for your journey?

7:10 You're going to be followers, aren't you?

7:11 Are you?

7:12 Are you, sir?

7:13 I AM NOT.

7:14 I AM.

7:25 TAKE HIM.

7:33 BIG MOVE.

7:36 BIG.

7:50 And if you want to see the movie, it's on limited release from tonight.

7:54 Very good.

7:55 Congratulations.

7:56 What an amazing amazing thing to have done.