In the romantic comedy Midnight in Paris, from writer/director Woody Allen, actor Michael Sheen plays Paul, an intellectual visiting Paris with his wife (Nina Arianda), while he lectures at the Sorbonne. At the same time, Inez (Rachel McAdams) is there with her fiancé Gil (Owen Wilson), who is taking time away from his successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter to pursue his aspirations to be a serious novelist, much to her dismay. When Inez unexpectedly runs into Paul, who she has had a crush on since college, she immediately finds him as charming as he is cerebral, while Gil finds him to be an insufferable know-it-all that he can’t stand to be around. As Gil is increasingly absent to focus on his writing, Paul and Inez find themselves growing increasingly closer.
At the film’s press day, Michael Sheen talked about how much he enjoyed working with Woody Allen, how amazing it was to have some of the film’s Paris locations all to themselves, how much fun his character was to play, and how he thought Owen Wilson found a really good balance between having the angst, anxiety and neurosis of a Woody Allen character. He also talked about what’s in store for his character Aro in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, and said that the talk of him doing Dark Shadows was a bit premature
What can you say about what you’ll be doing in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn?
SHEEN: It’s the same part that I played before – Aro.
Was there anything you got to discover in playing him this time around, that you hadn’t learned the last time you played him?
SHEEN: He’s more of a presence in these films than he was in New Moon, so I got to explore the character a bit more and probably fleshed it out a bit more. I don’t think that there’s anything that I learned. I just was able to go into the insanity of the character a bit more. I got to show what’s under the surface a bit more this time, which was fun.
How was Bill Condon to work with, as a director?
SHEEN: Bill was wonderful. He was terrific. He’s a very, very friendly, warm person. He obviously has a very varied and interesting body of work, and brought that to bear. He made everyone feel very comfortable. It must be quite hard, coming onto a film where people have already been together for a long time. Each film is a different director and you think, “What’s this one going to be like?” But, everyone really warmed to him and thought he was terrific. I think he did a really good job. It was a huge organizational thing. We had something like 40 new characters being introduced in this film, and the big battle scene took about four or five weeks to film. It was a huge undertaking, and he handled it brilliantly.
When a new director comes on and you already know the characters from having done previous films, do you feel like you know the characters more than the director, or does each director really bring something new out of you?
SHEEN: Personally, I was only on New Moon for two weeks, so it’s not like I got used to it. But, for the other actors, there’s probably a wariness about, “Is this person going to come along and not really get what it is we’re doing, or are they going to try to change it too much?” For a director coming on board, I would imagine there’s the pressure of wanting to make your mark and be different to what other people have done, but at the same time, not wanting to go against the flow of the whole series. I would imagine it’s quite a difficult balance to strike, but everyone seemed very happy on it and seemed to enjoy working with Bill.
Star Kellan Lutz was spotted holding a container of O.N.E
. coconut water while leaving the studios of the Chelsea Lately show has crossed the TDIV news desk. What a week!
