Michael Sheen has spoken to ThisIsSouthWales about his Passion play, and what he hopes it will achieve, and what inspired him. You can read the interview below, or online HERE.

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YOU’D be lucky to get within shouting distance of your average Hollywood superstar. Their entourage and bodyguards would see to that.

But then Michael Sheen is nothing like your average Hollywood superstar. Not only does he make regular visits to his childhood home of Port Talbot, he also wants to get the whole town involved in a project like nothing he has tackled before.

There was no entourage in sight when Michael turned up at the Seaside Social and Labour Club in the town’s Sandfields estate to meet volunteers who had answered his casting call for Passions.

He’s the artistic director of this unique production, which will be staged continuously at locations across the town for three days over next Easter weekend, and will also play Christ.

The actor talked at length about what is obviously a labour of love for him, becoming visibly moved at times, and at others showing a quick wit and refreshing self- deprecation.

He was approached by Lucy Davies, producer with National Theatre Wales, a year ago, who asked if he wanted to take part in a project.

“At first I was a bit dubious because I thought they were going to want me to do a play at the New Theatre in Cardiff. I wasn’t particularly interested,” he said. “I met Lucy and she started talking about the vision of National Theatre Wales.

“It isn’t a building-based company.

“She wanted to do things that are more experimental in terms of where they happen, rather than be in a theatre.

“Maybe playing around with spaces where the performances would take place.

“The productions would be much more closely connected to the community where they were taking place.

“I started to get more interested. But first of all, if I was going to do something, there was only one community I wanted to do it in, and it’s this one, because it’s where I grew up and it’s my home.”

Passions, penned by Welsh writer Owen Shears, is inspired by the traditional passion play that then-teenager Michael remembers having a profound effect on him when he watched it at Margam Park.

“It was a very powerful and moving story. When I was a kid I didn’t fully understand the story because it has a mystery at the heart of it. There was something very powerful about it.”

But it was not his sole inspiration.

“Earlier this year, I went to Rome on holiday. It’s just covered in all this religious iconography.

“I was in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican and I was sitting in the Chapel of St Joseph. It was quiet and beautiful and there was sunlight coming through the window.

“I was looking at all the pictures and statues. They were depicting Christ with people, Christ with the dying, Christ with children. Suddenly I was really struck by the fact that the events in the pictures were happening at that exact moment, everywhere in the country, in the world. I got very moved. It was a revelation.

“I wanted this project to be a celebration of community, and specifically our community, because it’s the one I know and it means the most to me.

“It comes back to a very simple truth about life. Life is hard. We have to help each other and that’s it. It’s as simple as that. It isn’t something that we can take for granted. It is something we have to work for and earn and passionately defend.

“There’s something in our culture and society that doesn’t want to look at the harder aspects sometimes.

“I don’t want to have to deal with death and sickness and people who are dependant on me until I really have to.

“I want to know people are being looked after but I don’t really want to get involved myself until I really have to. That is prevalent in society.”

He had to control his emotions as he paid tribute to people who give up their lives — for little or no money — to care for others.

“Part of what I want this to be about is telling the stories of those people. In St Peter’s, I was thinking about Christ’s ministry and Christ’s mission, and it seems what he represents is alive in every single person who looks after someone else.

“It isn’t big, dramatic, grand-scale charity work, although that is going on as well. It’s just little miracles happening all the time.

“When someone helps someone else and does something that is not for their own gain, it’s a miracle.

“It transcends death and separateness and makes us all feel together.

“It’s what keeps us together even when everything in life is frightening and scary. That is to me what the strongest message about Jesus is about.

“That through his passion and sacrifice on the cross and giving up his life for others, you transcend death and you live forever.

“The message is both simple, and the most mysterious and complicated thing you can experience. It can tap into that and it can tap into all our stories and all our lives.

Passions will be produced in partnership with Wildworks, which specialises in large- scale outdoor performances.

Michael will remain in character throughout the three days, even if that does mean him spending one night sleeping on a mountainside.

It will be, he said, a contemporary play inspired by the story of the passion.

“It isn’t going to be back in the olden days. It’s very much about what is happening now. Someone appears in the town, who has a profound effect on the town and people, who goes through some kind of sacrifice, is reborn and then leaves.

“A lot of people thought I was going to do a secular, non-religious version of the story. That isn’t what I want. The very heart of the story is something that goes beyond the individual, that is bigger than all of us.

“I don’t want it to become so watered down that it is meaningless. I have a strong core of belief and faith in my life and that has to be at the very heart of this.”

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