Michael Sheen's Quotes

My tragedy is that all I want is a dog, and yet I have been cursed with cats all my life.

The secret to acting is don't act. Be you, with add-ons.

We see death constantly on film.

When I'm in America, I like to be near the sea, listen to music, watch films, read and write.

While I enjoy spending time in L.A., Britain is my home.

Part of the fun of life is interacting with people and not knowing what the truth is inside. Letting them reveal that to you is what binds you to people.

A lot of children are interested in fairies, especially young girls, and Tinker Bell is the ueber-fairy. She's the pin-up girl of fairies. She's the ultimate fairy, but she's also got a mischievous spirit and she's very strong-willed. I think a lot of youngsters recognize themselves in Tinker Bell.

Although my family - parents and sister - all work in the personnel management business, their real passion is performing, amateur operatic societies and so on.

By the time you are 30 you are still trying to make your 15-year-old self happy but you are a different person. You need to be brave and let go of that.

For a culture that has such a problem with death, we seem to deal with it in a quite bizarre way. We see people shot, killed and blown up, and we find it funny and sexy and all those things. But, the reality of it is that every day people die, and people are really sad and they grieve and they go through a really difficult process with it.

I always say if I'm not good at something it's just because I've not had time to focus on it... it's just uncrafted, like a slab of rock that contains the statue of David within it.

I cry when I feel moved by incredible generosity or a connection to someone. We spend so much of our lives being separated. It's the relief of connection that produces the tears.

I find increasingly that the more extreme are the things going on in your life, the more cultural reference points fail you. More mythical reference points actually help, and you realise that's what myths are for. It's for human beings to process their experience in extremis.

I have a terrible temper. I have absolutely no problem with getting shouty or a bit physical. It's not something I'm pleased about and it doesn't happen very often, but it's very much there.

I think being a parent is the most challenging thing you do. That's why we're here. It's at the heart of what it is to be a human being. It's the ultimate experience because it questions everything about who you are. But it's difficult.

I think I'm becoming more relaxed in front of a camera. I suppose I'll always feel slightly more at home on stage. It's more of an actor's medium. You are your own editor, nobody else is choosing what is being seen of you.

I think it's quite tough for people like Tom Cruise where you can never really get away from being Tom Cruise in something. You're so familiar to people and people know so much about your life.

I think parenthood is a wonderful balancing act. On the one hand, you want to spend as much time with your children as possible. On the other hand, you want to set an example for them to see that you're fulfilled in your life and in your work.

I'd love to go back to Europe in the '20s and '30s, for the beginning of the Psychoanalytic Movement, and Freud and Jung, and all that was going on with discoveries in quantum physics. The whole nature of reality was changing and being challenged.

I'd love to go back to Greek times and see the birth of theater and performing, in that time. It would be so extraordinary to see the need that theater came out of, in the first place. I think we could probably all learn a bit from that.

I'm always aware that there are, broadly speaking, two different ways to act: there is acting, and then there's being, and I'm always more interested in that.

In some ways any film that you do has an artificiality about it. Even when you're doing the most kitchen-sinky, gritty, realistic scene you've still got 50 people standing around watching you with cameras and lights and things.

My dad is a Jack Nicholson lookalike and a frustrated performer, my mother's into reading and poetry. I suppose the thing I owe them most is my confidence.

Normal people - i.e., people who aren't actors - are the most bizarre people you can ever come across. I'll talk to someone and come away thinking, 'They are clinically insane.'

On the one hand Twitter gives you the opportunity to engage with people, which is great, but on the other there are people who feel they can say whatever they want, put poison out there, really, without fear of any repercussions.

Sometimes you see things in a script, and it doesn't necessarily mean the director sees the same things. And if you think you're going to be making a different film, then that's not gonna work.

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.

The first thing, when I read the script, is that I need to care about what happens and feel compelled by the story and engaged by the characters. It needs to resonate with me, even if what the characters are going through is not something that I have experienced in my life. I have to feel like it has some sort of meaning to me.

There are times in my career where I can see it would be helped by having a bit more of a profile, but it's not like I refuse to do interviews, no, not at all.

When I was at drama school, I wanted to change the world, and thought I had some great wisdom to impart to people about humanity. Now that I'm older, I know enough to realise that I know nothing at all.

You know, we're each the hero of our own story and we perceive what's going on around us, and especially in a relationship, from the kind of viewpoint of, 'Well, this is my story, and I'm the hero of that, and I justify what I do around it.'

Getting older is a struggle. I always feel that just under the surface of acceptance and enjoyment of the ageing process is a terrible hysteria just waiting to burst out.

I've always loved animation and animated films.

When you look at all the miracles attributed to Jesus, they're all about change.

'Hamlet' is one of the most dangerous things ever set down on paper. All the big, unknowable questions like what it is to be a human being; the difference between sanity and insanity; the meaning of life and death; what's real and not real. All these subjects can literally drive you mad.

A lot of the times when I've auditioned for parts in America, the answer is, 'Sorry, we need a bigger name.'

A parent can seem very kind and gentle, but as any child knows, as soon as that parent gets stressed, they can suddenly turn and get a bit angry.

Acting itself is quite scary. Some people say that actors are show-offs, very egotistical and all that kind of stuff, but it is quite scary.

Americans are much more open than people in Britain.

As a general thing, I've always been drawn to characters who appear to be one thing on the surface, but are actually something else underneath.

Everyone deserves compassion.

For me, what makes life enjoyable is having a shared culture and shared references.

Hopefully, any character I play has an anchor in reality.

I am prone to get carried away thinking about creative projects.

I am very impatient.

I can be a lazy dresser.

I don't do the whole L.A. nightlife thing.

I don't find the life in Hollywood all that meaningful or inspiring.

I don't want to do something that I've done before; I can't see the point of it.

I enjoy doing things that involve research because it's part of what I enjoy about acting.

I have a daughter, and fairies meant a lot to her growing up.

I live a very Kenneth Williams-like existence.

I love watching Jeff Bridges act. He's brilliant.

I perceive and relate to the world through where I grew up; that's part of me. It's what I judge everything else against.

I suppose I'm something of an eccentric dresser.

I suppose I've got a reputation for playing quite extreme characters and making them quite believable.