By
Harry Haun
08 Jan 2007
Michael Sheen took a slide Jan. 7 from his London hit, Frost/Nixon — a long trans-Atlantic slide across the pond — and showed up at The Supper Club for the 72nd Annual New York Film Critics Circle Awards to present and to pick up prizes.
"If I seem a little bit vague, it's because I've just spent seven hours sitting next to the man whom I'm about to give this award to on a plane, and it's a heavy experience," he declared, prior to presenting the critics' award for Best Screenplay to Peter Morgan. "He only got me to be in 'The Queen' because he told me it was going to be called 'Blair.'"
Sheen plays Tony Blair to Helen Mirren's Queen Elizabeth II in the film and, in that capacity, stuck around to accept the Best Actress award for Mirren, who was busy in London with filming. His opening line: "Actually, I am in fact Helen Mirren, pulling off another remarkable disguise." Then, he mimicked removing a computer-generated mask.
Mirren left him a note, which he wittily read: "Thank you very much for this great honor, which is all the more meaningful coming from the knowing and beady-eyed New York film critics. I truly regret not being able to be with you and look you in those beady eyes myself as I say thank you. I am currently working in London and unable to get away."
"The Queen" deals with the personal crisis that occurred behind closed palace doors following the death of Princess Diana — and the efforts of Prime Minister Blair to prod a show of public compassion from the queen. Mirren's astonishingly life-exact portrayal has captured every major Best Actress honor of the season, and Sheen's diplomatic nudging on the sidelines puts him in very good standing indeed for an Oscar nomination.
"I think I'm probably the luckiest actor alive at the moment," said Sheen, "because not only have I been able to perform in Peter's extraordinary script, 'The Queen,' on film this year but I also have the great honor of going up on stage every night — every night, apart from tonight — and perform his equally extraordinary script, Frost/Nixon. He gives an actor everything he could possibly need or wish for. His characters have wit. They have intelligence. They have, above all, humanity. Whenever anyone goes to watch a film or play of his, I think everyone comes out feeling like the characters they've watched have grown three dimensional. They know more about themselves as well as about the characters. He puts so much of himself into it. That's what he has done with 'The Queen.' He has taken these iconic figures that we feel we're all very familiar with and made them live and breathe and give of them such humanity which I do hope they actually have." Sheen will conclude playing David Frost to Frank Langella's Richard Nixon in London on Feb. 3. Then, after a few weeks rest, director Michael Grandage will put the two back in harness and rehearse here in mid-March, starting preview April 8 for an April 22 bow.