Posts Tagged ‘Beautiful Boy’

Another year almost over dear friends, so I thought I would take this opportunity to look back at some of the highlights of 2011 before it is over.

January
	At the start of the year, Michael was seen on TV, first in Shooting The Hollywood Stars with British photographer, Rankin, where he portrayed the iconic film star, Charlie Chaplin; then later we saw Michael being honoured with a Best Actor award at the LA BAFTA Britannia Awards that had taken place back in November.
	The dates for Hamlet were announced, and false rumours were abound that Michael had been cast as Blofeld in the next 007 film.
	News broke that the forthcoming ‘Passion’ play would be made into a feature length film, as Michael arrived in his home town of Port Talbot to begin preparations with the community for the Passion.

February
Tickets went on sale this month for both Hamlet at the Young Vic, and also for National Theatre Wales’ Passion
.Michael Sheen received the James Joyce award from the  Literary and Historical Society of University College, Dublin, followed by a Q&A. He also made an appearance at Treat Trust’s gala dinner to raise much needed cash to fund a world-class health and rehabilitation centre in Wales.
National Theatre Wales launched a web community for NTW13 (the Passion Play) as a means to keep the public informed of the progress of the play and to encourage the community to get involved in the project.

March
	Beautiful Boy premiered at Dallas Film Festival to great critical acclaim. Michael continues to visit sections of the Port Talbot community, including the RNLI.
	The viral campaign for the Passion commenced with the launch of Port-Talbot.com, and news that a local Port Talbot man had gone missing. He was later seen in a video for Comic Relief along with other Welsh celebrities miming to a parady song called ‘Newport State of Mind’.
	The rumour that this site broke, of Michael Sheen gaining a voice over guest spot on the forthcoming series of Doctor Who was confirmed by the episode’s writer, Neil Gaiman.

April
Tron Legacy, the sequel to the classic Disney sci-fi film of a cyber world ran by a master program, was released on DVD and BluRay.Jesus Henry Christ premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and the official website launched.
The press surrounding the Passion reached fever pitch. Michael spent a few very busy days appearing on multiple TV and radio shows, including Fern, BBC Breakfast, This Morning, Radio 2 with Simon Mayo and a Q&A at The Laugharne Weekend.
Finally, during an uncommonly warm and sunny Easter weekend, the whole of Port Talbot became the backdrop for the Passion.Michael stayed in the character of ‘the teacher’ for the whole 72 hours of the performance, which featured 1000′s of local people, as well as Welsh rockers, the Manic Street Preachers.

May
	Midnight In Paris opened this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Michael and his co-stars do a lot of publicity through out the month as the film gets a limited release in the US.
	A portrait of Michael appeared at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ annual exhibition.Michael appears as the voice of the House in a Neil Gaiman penned episode of Doctor Who.
	Midnight In Paris continues to do well at the Box Office, to go on to be Woody Allen’s highest grossing movie.
	Michael Sheen delights Twilight fans when he reads out some fan fiction during an interview on VH1 Buzz.

June
Beautiful Boy gets limited US release and generated potential Oscar buzz throughout the media.
A BBC making of documentary called Passion of Port Talbot airs on BBC One. It followed Michael as he worked with the locals of his home town in the production of the Passion play.
A teaser trailer of Breaking Dawn was released, showing Michael as the character of Aro and a release date for Resistance was announced.

July
	Doctor Who series 6, which features the episode Michael appeared in as House, is released on BluRay and DVD.
	Michael Sheen takes a turn at DJing on BBC 6 Music, and got to spend an hour talking about, and playing, his favourite songs.
	Michael is snapped at the premiere of Deathly Hollows along with his daughter, and her mother, Kate Beckinsale.
	Behind the scenes images from a photoshoot by photographer Steve Carty. The photos were to be used as promotional images for Michael’s upcoming Hamlet production.

August
Beautiful Boy is released on DVD in Sweden before anywhere else.
Rose Theatre in Kingston On Thames announced that as part of their Time To Talk series, there would be holding a Q&A with Michael in the following January.
During a press interview promoting Midnight In Paris, Michael Sheen revealed that he would also be appearing in the untitled Terrence Malick project.
In a series of 4 episodes, Michael reads letters from renowned Kenneth Tynan, as part of a BBC Radio 4 program.

September
	The cast list for Hamlet at The Young Vic is released.
	Michael appeared on BBC Radio 2′s Breakfast show with DJ Chris Evans to start off his publicity for Hamlet.
	Due to an early high demand, more tickets for Hamlet went on sale.

October
Beautiful Boy is released on DVD in US. Midnight In Paris gets a UK and European release, as well as being able to pre-order on DVD in US.
A new poster is released for Resistance. An in depth interview with Michael appears in The Times and in The Guardian as part of his Hamlet promotion.
He also appeared on Jonathan Ross’s ITV show.
Michael Sheen and Bill Mitchell win Theatre Awards UK’s Best Director for the Passion.Previews of Hamlet open at The Young Vic

November
	After official press opening night, and Hamlet’s direction receives mixed reviews, but the feeling that Michael Sheen’s performance was nothing short of tortured brilliance was unanimous. The performances continue to rave reviews and sell out audiences.
	It is announced that Prince Charles will attend the premiere of Resistance, which receives a sadly limited release within the UK.
	Michael unveils a blue plaque from English Heritage on the late Richard Burton’s London Home.
	A new promo image of Michael Sheen as Aro for Breaking Dawn is released.

December
WhatsOnStage awards have Michael shortlisted twice for their 2012 awards. Once for Hamlet, and again for the Passion.
Michael makes an appearance on BBC Radio 4′s Great Livesseries to talk about author Philip K Dick.Hamlet continues to wow Hamlet audiences at The Young Vic, and continues to sell out.
Michael appeared alongside Joanna Lumley and Samuel West at an Index On Censorship held an event at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park to highlight the plight of political prisoners in Belarus.

There are a few people who require a special thanks. One such group call themselves the Sheenian Sisters – @mariamuser @teamaro1 @nouarraa @Evangelinered @fulvia_malacart @gginsp @LucianaLycanus @Margarita_Q @NadyJdB @Redfoxi – thank you ladies for all your support in the twitterverse.

More twitter love to @Merlange @Lilyfreeman @magooglersriot, and @YVTeaBitch.

A really big thank you to my husband who supports me and who graciously, and without envy, accepts that he is not the only man in my life.

Finally, a massive thank you to my sista-from-another-mista @Caryn69. The most bodacious of babes, and a true and loyal friend.

Screencaps of Beautiful Boy have been added to the Gallery.

Films >> Beautiful Boy >> Screencaps

Here are a few teasers.

The film is available on DVD and BluRay in the US. Please visit the project page for Amazon links.

The distributors, Anchor Bay, have not given out any definite plans for a release in the UK, but it is hoped to be here on DVD sometime next year.

For those in the US that were not able to catch Beautiful Boy during its limited release, or those who did and would like to see it again, you will be able to pick it up on BluRay or DVD today.

Directed by Shawn Ku, Beautiful Boy is an emotional film focusing on the aftermath of a high school shooting from the perspective of the shooter’s parents. Michael Sheen and Maria Bello play the devastated couple.

You can order them from Amazon using the links below.

DVD	BluRay

I posted back on 18 June that Beautiful Boy appeared in Amazon.com’s catalogue.  According to Hi-Def Digest, Anchorbay announced to retailers the  US release date on BluRay and DVD of Beautiful Boy is October 11.

Beautiful Boy DVD

Beautiful Boy Bluray

There is still no news yet about a UK release.

That is what Kay Shackleton in a recent article for Examiner.com reckons.

Does this mean that it could be a contender for the 2012 Academy Awards (Oscars)? Despite Anchor Bay delivering a relatively limited release, a lot of people seem to think so.  Ropes Of Silicon have it listed as one of their contenders, along with Midnight In Paris.

Midnight In Paris has recently become the highest grossing Woody Allen film to date, much to the delight of distributors Sony Pictures Classic.

For many, this film is seen as a return to form for the veteran director.

The 84th Academy Awards ceremony is still a long way off, due to take place on Sunday, February 26th 2012. At the moment, the Academy are still receiving nominations with the final list is due to be released Tuesday, January 24, 2012 so add this date to your diary.

Article from USA TODAY dated 22 Jun 2011

There’s been a Sheen in the headlines the past few months. And while it may not be Michael Sheen, the Welsh actor is totally cool with his sort of under-the-radar living.

The star of Frost/Nixon, The Queen and last winter’s TRON: Legacy laughs at the idea that some American audiences might think he’s related to Charlie Sheen, that famous purveyor of “winning” and tiger blood.

“Well, I met Martin Sheen (Charlie’s dad) a few times, and he’s the most wonderful man,” Michael Sheen says. “I have such admiration for him. I’m not at all upset about being associated with the family at all.”

The thing is, though, Michael Sheen, 42, is much more concerned with being a good actor than being a tabloid-ready celebrity. He stars in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (in theaters now) as an American tourist in France, and he plays the father of a university school-shooter alongside Maria Bello in the emotional drama Beautiful Boy.

Midnight in Paris gave him a chance to revisit the famous city he’s been to many times, but offered him a different way of working: When he was filming the movie, Allen never gave him the whole script, keeping things mysterious to his cast, including Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams.

“You show up and you do your bits and you don’t really know what’s been going on with the other characters, don’t know the whole story of the piece, and you work out little bits and pieces from it,” Sheen says.

“There was actually something quite liberating about it. You can’t really do any preparation,” he adds, laughing.

For Beautiful Boy, however, Sheen had plenty of places for insight. To play the father dealing with the aftermath of what happens when his teenage son opens fire on his college campus, the actor read background material on other school-shooting incidents .

“It’s a combination of preparation and openness,” Sheen says of his performance. “And obviously you have to bring your own experiences to bear as well and try and connect with what the character’s going through, even though you may not have experienced that specific thing yourself.

“You try and find a way to connect to it with what’s happened to you. It’s that leap into the imaginative dark.”

Sheen says he brought a lot of his own feelings about his own child to the role. He has a 12-year-old daughter from his previous relationship with actress Kate Beckinsale. To be closer to Lily, Sheen rents a place in Los Angeles, a city he’s grown more attached to the past nine years.

“It’s a beautiful place, and there’s lots of wonderful things there,” he says. “People have a stereotypical idea of Los Angeles, which has some truth to it I’m sure, but I’m not really part of that scene, really.”

While he’s playing American roles in his two newest films, Sheen sticks close to his European roots with his acting performances. In October, Sheen takes on the title role of Hamlet for the first time on stage at the Young Vic in London.

He’s had memorable roles in the Twilight series as a royal vampire, a werewolf in Underworld and as Tony Blair in The Queen and HBO’s The Special Relationship, and that kind of variety keeps him busy as well as entertained.

“The big stars in our industry are partly big stars because they’re recognizable for doing a particular kind of thing, and I’ve never really been that interested in doing that. It’s the difference in parts that I play that I enjoy the most,” explains Sheen, who appears in November’s Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 and the indie comedy Jesus Henry Christ later this year.

“I’m not surprised that people might go, ‘Well, hang on. He’s the guy who plays the politicians.’ Or, ‘No, he’s the guy who does the werewolves and vampires.’ I’m not really looking to become the sort of actor who gets known for doing one thing. I quite like the fact that people don’t know what column to put me in.”

Sheen’s also found himself a Hollywood girlfriend in McAdams, his Midnight in Paris co-star. He says they met on the French set but didn’t get together romantically until later.

“For actors, you tend to meet people through the work you do,” Sheen says. “I would imagine that’s a lot of people’s experiences. You spend most of your time doing that kind of thing. It’s literally how you meet people.”

Sheen and McAdams returned to France and hit the red carpet for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival in May to promote Midnight in Paris, publicly confirming their romance. Yet for those obsessed with following the social lives of celebrities, Sheen says he’s not going out of his way to be that type of guy.

“People who are into the kind of work that I do know me and are interested in the kind of work I do and look out for it. I don’t think the people who are necessarily interested in what Charlie Sheen is up to are going to be as into what I’m up to,” Sheen says with a laugh. “And that’s fine by me.”