Michael Sheen is looking pretty spiffy in his fine-tailored suit as he finishes signing posters for his new movie The Damned United in a Toronto press office before our interview with him. We’ve shown up to talk to him about his latest take on a real life person, something Sheen has become quite proficient at doing, having played Tony Blair (three times) and British talk show host David Frost, both in the stage and screen versions of Frost/Nixon. We certainly weren’t expecting to feel particularly underdressed for the interview.
This time around, the Welsh-born actor who turned 40 earlier this year is playing Brian Clough, the brash loud-mouthed British football manager who spent years taking his team Derby County from the bottom rungs of the lower league to the very top in order to face their arch-rivals, Leeds United. Years later, Clough’s arrogance would be his undoing when he got a job managing Leeds and the players he insulted for years refused to play well for him.
Directed by Tom Hooper, the man behind hit HBO movies and mini-series like “Longford” and “John Adams,” it’s another terrific spotlight for Sheen’s talents at bringing charisma to every role, but he has a great supporting cast in Tim Spall as Clough’s right hand man Peter Taylor and Colm Meaney as his arch-rival Don Revie, the previous manager of Leeds, as well as Jim Broadbent, Stephen Graham and Peter McDonald.
Last November, when ComingSoon.net sat down with Michael Sheen and his frequent collaborator Peter Morgan–you can read that
