Michael Sheen says he initially turned down Tony Blair role in The Deal

Actor Michael Sheen has said he initially turned down the role of former prime minister Sir Tony Blair in The Deal.

The 56-year-old said he was approached while watching a play in London and offered the role of Sir Tony in the Channel 4 drama, a role he reprised for the 2006 film The Queen and 2010 film The Special Relationship, but had to turn it down as he was to play Emperor Caligula on stage.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs: “I went to go and see a play I remember, when I was back in London for a little bit, and whilst I was there, a lady came up to me who I’d never met before, in the interval.

“And she said, ‘I’m working on a love story about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and casting it, and I think you should play Tony Blair’, and I just thought she was a mad woman, ‘what are you talking about?’, and this was The Deal.

“I was committed to doing a play, and I said, ‘well, I can’t do it because I’m doing this play’, and everyone was like, ‘well, you need to not do that play’.”

Sheen said that if he says he is going to do something then he “can’t go back on my word” as he did not “want to let people down”, but eventually worked out a way to film the show and appear in the play.

The Welsh actor added: “We managed to work it out for me to do the play and play Caligula … at night and filming The Deal in the day, and I would film, and then someone would run on to the set and say, ‘right, you’ve got to go now’.

“And I would run off, and I would wet my hair so there wasn’t Blair hair any more, put a helmet on, get on the back of a motorbike, where someone would then ride me across London to the theatre, where I would get off and by the time I took the helmet off, my hair had gone all curly again.

“And then (I’d) go into the theatre and play Caligula and then get up the next morning and do that over and over.

“I was absolutely exhausted, but I have a really strong memory of being on the back of the motorbike whizzing through central London, going past Rada (his old acting school).

“And just thinking if someone had come up to me when I was at Rada and said, ‘one day, you will be playing Tony Blair in a drama for Stephen Frears in the day, and going and playing Caligula at the Donmar theatre at night, I mean, I can’t imagine anything better.

“I remember thinking being tired is a very small price to play.”

On the show, Sheen’s song choices included Ultravox’s Vienna, Talk Talk’s Desire and the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter.

The actor is best known for his portrayals of real people including former Derby County and Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough in The Damned United (2009), journalist Sir David Frost in Frost/Nixon (2008) and TV presenter Chris Tarrant in ITV drama Quiz (2020).