Welsh-born Michael Sheen has long been one of ComingSoon.netâs favorite actors to talk to and when we learned that he was going to be in Toronto for his new football (soccer) biopic The Damned Unitedâhis first time at the Toronto International Film Festival since starring in Stephen Fryâs Bright Young Things in factâwe had to take some time to sit down with him.
Sheen has been extremely busy as of late, following his turn as David Frost in Ron Howardâs Oscar-nominated Frost/Nixon with a number of other high profile films. Later this year, heâll be seen as the Italian vampire leader Aro in The Twilight Saga: New Moon and he also voiced the White Rabbit in Tim Burtonâs Alice in Wonderland, out in March.
The most recent announcement was that Sheen would be playing a role in Disneyâs upcoming Tron Legacy and everyone automatically assumed heâd be playing a villainâwhy do they always assume that? Do they not realize what a nice guy he is?âbut earlier, he revealed exclusively to ComingSoon.net that he would in fact be playing a nightclub host in the Tron world.
âThat was amazing, because thereâs a lot of green screen in that,â he told us, âBut my stuff was mainly in this amazing set that they built because Iâm a nightclub host, so they built the nightclub and there were hundreds of extras and it was one of those great scenes where thereâs just loads going on.â
He went on to comment on the much-viewed short film (the Grid VFX Concept Test) that was used as a demo to get the film greenlit, saying that the movie has far surpassed the impressive CG work in that film. â[Director Joseph Kosinski] did that to get Disney to give the okay to make the film. Joe now says that he doesnât like people seeing that because itâs moved on so much from that, and that looks awesome.â
The young female fans of the âTwilightâ series who may be unfamiliar with Sheenâs previous work, except possibly his turn for the âother sideâ playing a werewolf in the âUnderworldâ movies, should be pleasantly surprised by what he brings to the series as Aro, although he already knows that heâll not be in Eclipse, even though he believes his character will indeed be back for the fourth film, Breaking Dawn.
(Unfortunately, we didnât get a chance to ask him about the rumors of another âUnderworldâ movie and whether he might be involved, but hopefully, weâll have a chance to ask his co-star Bill Nighy about that tomorrow.)
You can look for the entire interview with Sheen closer to the U.S. release of The Damned United in select cities on October 9.