Michael Sheen Quotes

I am prone to get carried away thinking about creative projects.

With vampires, there is such a great tradition that you suddenly find yourself a part of. Each generation reinvents what that means to them.

My dad is a Jack Nicholson lookalike and a frustrated performer, my mother's into reading and poetry. I suppose the thing I owe them most is my confidence.

I've always loved animation and animated films.

I think the story of 'Alice in Wonderland' in a way is a reminder that life is frightening, it can shift on you at any moment.

Well, I think tone is very important with this show [Masters of Sex] because there are certain elements or certain aspects to the show that may be reminiscent of other shows. But, it really is a very new kind of show, in terms of the subject matter and the way it's being dealt with, and the fact that it's about real people and real events.

I'm not a Tony Blair impersonator.

It has to be absolutely believable. It's also going between images and scenes with nudity and sexuality that would be seen, in conventional terms, as kind of sexually exciting. It's up against things that are much more medical and gynecological, and notoriously we, as a culture and a society, have some issues with that kind of thing.

Hopefully, any character I play has an anchor in reality. The more fantastical characters, or fantastical worlds that they inhabit are really fun and allow you, in some ways, to tell stories and reveal things about our lives that would be harder to take, in a more realistic setting.

My tragedy is that all I want is a dog, and yet I have been cursed with cats all my life.

Everyone deserves compassion.

I'm a big fan of vampire movies generally and that sort of tradition of characters.

I think parenthood is a wonderful balancing act. On the one hand, you want to spend as much time with your children as possible. On the other hand, you want to set an example for them to see that you're fulfilled in your life and in your work.

I try not to pay any attention to clothes fascism and I'd rather be thought of as someone who has his own sense of style.

When you're working on something where there's usually one sex scene in the film, it all gets a little bit of a gray area and people get a bit uncomfortable and awkward. You just get through it. But, it became very clear on this that that can't happen. There can't be any gray areas on this because there are actors and actresses coming in for a day or a couple of days, as well as people who are there regularly.

I love watching Jeff Bridges act. He's brilliant.

When you look at all the miracles attributed to Jesus, they're all about change.

Getting older is a struggle. I always feel that just under the surface of acceptance and enjoyment of the ageing process is a terrible hysteria just waiting to burst out.

On the one hand Twitter gives you the opportunity to engage with people, which is great, but on the other there are people who feel they can say whatever they want, put poison out there, really, without fear of any repercussions.

Acting itself is quite scary. Some people say that actors are show-offs, very egotistical and all that kind of stuff, but it is quite scary.

Having said that, what I think we found, in doing the show, and in life, generally, is that the more you try to separate sex from everything else, it's impossible. You can't. The act of observation affects the actual experiment, and we see that in this.

It's interesting that in searching for monsters to play you often end up playing leaders.

I don't do the whole L.A. nightlife thing.

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.

I was obsessed with football when I was growing up.

I love being able to play as many different characters, in as many different worlds as I possibly can. That's what I really enjoy.

Although my family - parents and sister - all work in the personnel management business, their real passion is performing, amateur operatic societies and so on.

I suppose I've got a reputation for playing quite extreme characters and making them quite believable.

By the time you are 30 you are still trying to make your 15-year-old self happy but you are a different person. You need to be brave and let go of that.

I think when you work on a Woody Allen film the actors become a real company, probably more than on any other film.

The first job I ever did in the theatre, I was supposed to be a genius piano player. I couldn't play the piano, but you just sit there at a piano like you're playing, and suddenly all this amazing music comes out and the audience believes you can do it. It's the same with computers. I love scenes where there are people yanking at monitors, "yes I'll put you through now," and you know they're just doing that. But you can look brilliant at all this technology. I love it.

In the case of two actors connecting with each other and trusting each other, our bodies have memories without us having to consciously think about it, so rather than think, "Oh, I must think about my daughter dying," you just let that go and trust that you have all the emotions you need in there, and by losing yourself in the scene, that stuff kicks in without having to spend the day thinking about horrific things happening to your own child.

It's funny the more technological advanced everything gets, the more like acting in your bedroom when you're a kid it is.

My own daughter is a big fan of the 'Twilight' stories, the books.

I perceive and relate to the world through where I grew up; that's part of me. It's what I judge everything else against.

I don't find the life in Hollywood all that meaningful or inspiring.

Hopefully, any character I play has an anchor in reality.

My taste in watching things runs from dramas and low-budget films to high-end fantasy/science fiction.

We knew, very early on, that we had to be very, very clear that directors need to speak to actors and actresses and be very clear about what is expected, and find out whether they're comfortable with that. Wardrobe has to be in place. There have to be checks.

What's enjoyable for me, as an actor, is to do as many different things as possible.

You don't want to get into doing the same thing, over and over again. I know I don't.

But obviously, things have changed in many ways since the '50s, when the show is started, in terms of sexuality, and how much access we have to images of it and information about it. But, the same problems always apply. It doesn't matter whether we know a lot more about sex now or if there's a lot more access to it. The same problems of intimacy, of dealing with other people, of connecting and being vulnerable with other people, which is what the show is ultimately about, still applies now, I think.

We live in a bubble of the fantasy of death, but the reality of it is something that we obviously all face and have to deal with, at some point.

And so, in terms of setting the right tone and finding a way of presenting all of these things, that creates a cohesive whole and doesn't alienate the audience, is tough. That's a challenge. And I think the tone of a lot of shows is discovered through experimentation and actually making it. Eventually, it starts to cohere.

I enjoy doing things that involve research because it's part of what I enjoy about acting.

I think I'm becoming more relaxed in front of a camera. I suppose I'll always feel slightly more at home on stage. It's more of an actor's medium. You are your own editor, nobody else is choosing what is being seen of you.

I'm a huge fan of science fiction and fantasy - not so much horror because I get a bit scared.

'Hamlet' is one of the most dangerous things ever set down on paper. All the big, unknowable questions like what it is to be a human being; the difference between sanity and insanity; the meaning of life and death; what's real and not real. All these subjects can literally drive you mad.