Top 105 Quotes & Sayings by Michael Sheen

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Welsh actor Michael Sheen.

Last updated on September 18, 2024.

Michael Christopher Sheen is a Welsh actor, television producer and political activist. After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked mainly in theatre throughout the 1990s and made notable stage appearances in Romeo and Juliet (1992), Don't Fool with Love (1993), Peer Gynt (1994), The Seagull (1995), The Homecoming (1997), and Henry V (1997). His performances in Amadeus at the Old Vic and Look Back in Anger at the National Theatre were nominated for Olivier Awards in 1998 and 1999, respectively. In 2003, he was nominated for a third Olivier Award for his performance in Caligula at the Donmar Warehouse.

Welsh - Actor | Born: February 5, 1969

Source: Wikipedia

If someone has an ability to impress an audience there's a tendency to be tempted into doing just that.

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

I was obsessed with football when I was growing up.

Michael Sheen

'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.

Michael Sheen

I live a very Kenneth Williams-like existence.

Michael Sheen

I cry when I feel moved by incredible generosity or a connection to someone. We spend so much of our lives being separated. It's the relief of connection that produces the tears.

Michael Sheen

Part of the fun of life is interacting with people and not knowing what the truth is inside. Letting them reveal that to you is what binds you to people.

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

I'm not a Christian.

Michael Sheen

I think it's quite tough for people like Tom Cruise where you can never really get away from being Tom Cruise in something. You're so familiar to people and people know so much about your life.

Michael Sheen

Normal people - i.e., people who aren't actors - are the most bizarre people you can ever come across. I'll talk to someone and come away thinking, 'They are clinically insane.'

Michael Sheen

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.

Michael Sheen

The first thing, when I read the script, is that I need to care about what happens and feel compelled by the story and engaged by the characters. It needs to resonate with me, even if what the characters are going through is not something that I have experienced in my life. I have to feel like it has some sort of meaning to me.

Michael Sheen

I can be a lazy dresser.

Michael Sheen

I would like to be taller, thinner and more rakish looking.

Michael Sheen

Everyone deserves compassion.

Michael Sheen

I'd love to go back to Greek times and see the birth of theater and performing, in that time. It would be so extraordinary to see the need that theater came out of, in the first place. I think we could probably all learn a bit from that.

Michael Sheen

I always say if I'm not good at something it's just because I've not had time to focus on it... it's just uncrafted, like a slab of rock that contains the statue of David within it.

Michael Sheen

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.

Michael Sheen

I think the best acting is when you allow yourself to be kind of vulnerable in the moment.

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

I find increasingly that the more extreme are the things going on in your life, the more cultural reference points fail you. More mythical reference points actually help, and you realise that's what myths are for. It's for human beings to process their experience in extremis.

Michael Sheen

I have a terrible temper. I have absolutely no problem with getting shouty or a bit physical. It's not something I'm pleased about and it doesn't happen very often, but it's very much there.

Michael Sheen

There are times in my career where I can see it would be helped by having a bit more of a profile, but it's not like I refuse to do interviews, no, not at all.

Michael Sheen

I suppose I'm something of an eccentric dresser.

Michael Sheen

I've always had an eye for what looks good on a man. But I've not always found it easy to find clothes that look good on me.

Michael Sheen

I'm always aware that there are, broadly speaking, two different ways to act: there is acting, and then there's being, and I'm always more interested in that.

Michael Sheen

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.

Michael Sheen

It's weird that I've ended up playing so many real live people, because I was never any good at impersonations at school.

Michael Sheen

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.

Michael Sheen

I don't want to do something that I've done before; I can't see the point of it.

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

I'd love to go back to Europe in the '20s and '30s, for the beginning of the Psychoanalytic Movement, and Freud and Jung, and all that was going on with discoveries in quantum physics. The whole nature of reality was changing and being challenged.

Michael Sheen

I'm not a Tony Blair impersonator.

Michael Sheen

A lot of the times when I've auditioned for parts in America, the answer is, 'Sorry, we need a bigger name.'

Michael Sheen

For a culture that has such a problem with death, we seem to deal with it in a quite bizarre way. We see people shot, killed and blown up, and we find it funny and sexy and all those things. But, the reality of it is that every day people die, and people are really sad and they grieve and they go through a really difficult process with it.

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

If you can define what God is, I can tell you whether I believe in it.

Michael Sheen

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.

Michael Sheen

I would never use prosthetics. I don't like sticking things on. I don't really like wearing wigs, either.

Michael Sheen

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.

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

A lot of children are interested in fairies, especially young girls, and Tinker Bell is the ueber-fairy. She's the pin-up girl of fairies. She's the ultimate fairy, but she's also got a mischievous spirit and she's very strong-willed. I think a lot of youngsters recognize themselves in Tinker Bell.

Michael Sheen

In some ways any film that you do has an artificiality about it. Even when you're doing the most kitchen-sinky, gritty, realistic scene you've still got 50 people standing around watching you with cameras and lights and things.

Michael Sheen

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.

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

The secret to acting is don't act. Be you, with add-ons.

Michael Sheen

I'm happy in my life.

Michael Sheen

I've never met anyone normal.

Michael Sheen

My rule of thumb is that I want to do things I'd like to go and see myself.

Michael Sheen

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.

Michael Sheen

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.

Michael Sheen

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

Michael Sheen

My chief gifts are - naturally good at all sports with a raw talent for pretty much everything, which if nurtured could develop into improper talent.

Michael Sheen

I've always found it hard to say sorry.

Michael Sheen

A parent can seem very kind and gentle, but as any child knows, as soon as that parent gets stressed, they can suddenly turn and get a bit angry.

Michael Sheen

We see death constantly on film.

Michael Sheen