Michael Sheen has just realised he’s got a problem. He can no longer enjoy his favourite weekday quiz show the way he used to. He and his partner Anna Lundberg had a routine when it came to House of Games. “We put the kids down to bed. They’re four and seven, and are usually asleep by 8.15pm. We come downstairs, put the TV on and watch House of Games on iPlayer. It’s going to be a very different experience watching it now.”
We meet at the House of Games studio in Salford’s MediaCity. Sheen has just done a day’s filming (they record the week’s five episodes in a day), and he looks very much at home in the iconic red tub armchair, which he’s still sitting in. As a presenter, he adopts Osman’s gentle manner, but gets a tad more animated when everything’s to play for. At 57, Sheen is shabbily handsome, with a lilt so serenely seductive it’s tempting to close your eyes and think of Wales when he’s talking.
Sheen is an unexpected choice for the job. After all, Hollywood stars aren’t famous for rushing to take over TV quiz shows. Sure, the likes of Stephen Fry, Bradley Walsh and Alexander Armstrong host quizzes, but they’re as famous as “personalities” as they are actors.
Sheen, though, has a rich and varied acting CV, as well known for playing real people with eerie accuracy (Brian Clough in The Damned United, David Frost in Frost/Nixon, Tony Blair in The Queen, Prince Andrew in A Very Royal Scandal, Chris Tarrant in Quiz) as for his roles in the Twilight and Underworld movie franchises.
Sheen says the notion that doing light entertainment makes you unsuited to play a Shakespearian tragic hero is nonsense. Are there people who still think that? “There might be, but I don’t really care about them. Doing whatever, being on The Traitors or presenting House of Games is not going to take away from me being able to play King Lear. They are completely different things, and they draw on different parts of you.”
We’re going to see lots of Sheen as himself on TV over the next few weeks. Like House of Games, Celebrity Traitors started in the first week of October and at the time of our interview he was sworn to secrecy about it on pain of death. Don’t even mention the T-word, I’m warned by the publicist before the interview.
Then again, in recent years we’ve become increasingly used to seeing Sheen as Sheen. He was wonderfully open and engaging as the first guest of The Assembly, the interview show where a large group of autistic, neurodivergent, and learning-disabled individuals interrogate celebrities. He was a team leader on the Sky panel show There’s Something about Movies. And in August, he appeared in the hard-hitting documentary Buried, investigating the dumping of “forever chemicals” in Wales by Monsanto, leading to an apparent rise in cancers locally.
We shouldn’t be surprised by anything Sheen gets involved in these days. He has an extraordinary facility to pursue any number of passions simultaneously. In 2016, it was reported that he was giving up acting and leaving Hollywood to commit to political activism. It was partly true. He did leave Hollywood and returned home to Port Talbot where he grew up, and he did become an activist on a number of fronts. But he didn’t give up acting. Instead, he rebranded himself as a “not-for-profit actor”.
A few years ago, he put £250,000 of his own money into Mab Gwalia (Son of Wales), a charitable fund that supports veterans, local journalism, autism, mothers, drama and Oxford University scholarships for students from lower-income families, and also Street Football Wales, which put on the Homeless World Cup in Cardiff in 2019. I feel exhausted just typing all this, never mind overseeing it. And we’ve not even mentioned the Welsh National Theatre, which Sheen launched last year after the National Theatre Wales closed in 2024.
Does he still regard himself as a not-for-profit actor? He smiles. “I’m still paying for certain things that I put money into, so I guess that means I’m still a not-for-profit actor because I’m not making that much profit. When I was part of putting on the Homeless World Cup in Cardiff, I had two properties at the time and I remortgaged both of them so I’m still paying off that.”
And the money that comes in from House of Games will be very handy. “It’s not just about money, though,” he stresses. “It’s also to do with profile. It’s more that than anything to be honest. The more familiar people are with you, the more willing they are to watch something that’s very different that I’m doing, or it opens doors, brings people together and makes things happen. So that is as important if not more important than the financial stuff.”
Many of his interests are intensely serious, so presumably one of the attractions of House of Games is that it’s pure fun? His face immediately lights up.
Osman did House of Games for nine series. I ask Sheen if he thinks he’s in it for the long haul. Well, he says, he’s only signed up for one series. Would he like to do it longer? “I’d love to. I’d love to do it for as long as I can.” But he’s not counting his chickens. He admits he was terrified of following in Osman’s footsteps – not least because the show was so linked to him that it was called Richard Osman’s House of Games.
A couple of years ago Sheen told me that as a young man he was absolutely focused on his acting, determined to become the best in the world. What does he think that young man would say to him today?
Does he ever feel he’s spreading himself too thin with so many things on the go? He shakes his head. “No. I never feel it’s out of control. I feel very fortunate that I get to do as many different things as I do get to do. I have found a contentment in having so many outlets for my interests. Things that I’m passionate about. Part of happiness is feeling that you’re engaged and you’re doing something about the things that you care about.”
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