Michael Sheen: people always mistake me for Gollum

Michael Sheen has said people often mistake him for the “hideous” Lord of the Rings character, Gollum.

The Welsh actor, 55, told The Graham Norton Show: “A lot of people think I am Andy Serkis from Lord Of The Rings.

“I was once followed out of a restaurant in LA by someone screaming ‘Gollum! Gollum! Gollum!’ I am not recognised as Andy, but just the hideous character he plays. It’s terrible.”

Gollum, a fictional character in JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth series, is corrupted by the power of the ring turning him from Hobbit to cave-dwelling creature. He is portrayed in the films as bug-eyed, straggly-haired and thin with greyish skin.

Sheen was recounting being mistaken for other actors or their characters alongside Sir Ian McKellen on the chat show.

Sir Ian, 84, who played the wizard Gandalf in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy and The Hobbit films, shared that he has previously been mistaken for the late Sir Michael Gambon, who played Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films.

He told Graham Norton: “Michael Gambon, who played the other wizard, and I were often mistaken for each other, and an odd thing happened last week.

“I was waiting for a train and two women in their 20s said, ‘Are you Michael Gambon?’ I told them that he was dead, and they said, ‘Yes we know but are you him?’ I think they thought they had seen a ghost.”

Sir Michael died aged 82 in September 2023.

On the show, Sheen also spoke about directing the three-part BBC drama series The Way, which airs weekly on BBC One at 9pm from Feb 19.

Written by James Graham, whose credits include the TV adaptation of Quiz, and filmed in and around Port Talbot, the series imagines a family caught up in a civil uprising which begins in their small industrial town.

Sheen told Norton: “I loved it. Some people say the hardest thing about directing is being asked so many questions all the time, but that’s the bit I like.

“I am a control freak and I want it to be my decision. I really enjoyed it.”

He added: “The difficulty of filming in my home town [Port Talbot] was that while I was in the middle of directing so many people I know were coming up for a chat or asking me to fix things in the town like the state of the bins.”

The Graham Norton Show airs on BBC One at 10.40pm and is also available on BBC iPlayer.