Michael Sheen: I’ve become a ‘not for profit’ actor

Michael Sheen has said he has turned himself into a social enterprise, becoming a “not-for-profit actor”.

The star, whose roles include playing Tony Blair in The Special Relationship and David Frost in Frost/Nixon, said helping organise the 2019 Homeless World Cup in Cardiff was a turning point for him.

The 52-year-old told The Big Issue he felt he had to step in when the project ran out of funding.

He said: “I had to make a decision – I could walk away from it, and it wouldn’t happen.

“I thought, I’m not going to let that happen.

“So, I put all my money into keeping it going.

“I had a house in America and a house here and I put those up and just did whatever it took.

“It was scary and incredibly stressful.

“I’ll be paying for it for a long time.

“But when I came out the other side I realised I could do this kind of thing and, if I can keep earning money it’s not going to ruin me.”

He said there was “something quite liberating” about knowing he could give “large amounts of money”, adding: “I’ve essentially turned myself into a social enterprise, a not-for-profit actor.”

The star of Amazon’s Good Omens revealed the first “turning point” in his life was after a 72-hour production through the streets of Port Talbot in 2011.

“I got to know people and organisations within my hometown that I didn’t know existed.

“Little groups who were trying to help young carers, who had just enough funding to make a tiny difference to a kid’s life by putting on one night a week where they could get out and go bowling or watch a film and just be a kid.

“I would come back to visit three or four months later, and find out that funding had gone and that organisation didn’t exist anymore.”

He added: “I realised the difference between that child’s life being a little bit better or not was ultimately a small amount of funding.

“And I wanted to help those people.

“I didn’t just want to be a patron or a supportive voice, I wanted to actually do more than that.

“That’s when I thought, I need to go back and live in Wales again.”

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