Michael Sheen played David Frost in the stage play of Frost/Nixon, about the interviews between David Frost and Richard Nixon in 1977. The play was first staged in London at the Donmar Warehouse, transferring to the Gielgud Theatre and then to the Bernard B. Jacobs theatre on Broadway in New York.
In this article Michael Sheen talks about how he came to do Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan, the challenges of playing real people, David Frost, his daughter being in LA, and acting on the screen vs the stage.
When you’re playing a fictional character, you don’t know where you’re going to end up. You have the boundaries that the writer sets. But with a real person, you look at the footage and you know that’s what you have to end up like. That’s quite weird; you have to put everything into reverse. You already see what you’re trying to do, and then you have to work backwards, try to build it from the inside and hope that eventually the inside and the external meet.
Michael Sheen
Broadway.com Q&A with Michael Sheen (29-03-2007)
