Sheen shines as Blair

By Jon Gower
BBC Wales' arts correspondent

Michael Sheen has been in great demand

How do you become the Prime Minister - that was the challenge facing Port Talbot born actor Michael Sheen - who's playing Tony Blair in a powerful new television drama this weekend?

John Gower has been to meet the actor whose fast becoming one of the hottest properties in Hollywood, on Broadway and in the West End.

There's a busy life and then there's Michael Sheen's life.

The young actor has been much in demand nowadays, so much so that when he was filming by day for his role as Tony Blair in Channel Four's drama The Deal he was also starring at night as the Roman Emperor Caligula on stage in the West End.

After a hard day's shooting he'd be given a ride on a motorbike through the streets on London to the Donmar Warehouse, where he put in an award-winning performance.

Where most people would be dog-tired he actually found it energising, for as he puts it "it was such good work".

Charming is the adjective most often applied to Sheen and in the flesh he oozes the stuff.

If the Welsh Development Agency could bottle the 34-year-old actor's warmth the economy would be sorted.

Sheen studied tapes of the prime minister

The actor - who already has a mural of him in his hometown- standing next to those other local heroes Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins - talks about his latest television project as a portrait of two friends, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair at a time when they are about to carve up the Labour party between them.

"We see how the relationship develops in that Brown was always the man who was going to be groomed to become the leader of the Labour party and Blair hadn't even been in politics that long before they met - Blair is a young eager protégé of Brown," he explains.

Sheen studied videos and had voice training to help him with the Blair role - making sure his performance didn't stray into the realm of impressionism.

"You have to find out what you feel motivates him and why he makes the choices he makes and at some point you have to leave behind the idea that he's a real man.

"That's the most daunting thing about playing someone who's so well known, so current."

The Deal, Sunday 28 September 2100 BST on Channel 4 and 2215 BST on S4C