Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - S9 Ep 23: Michael Sheen

Episode Date: July 8, 2020

Tuning in from South Wales, this week on Table Manners we welcome superstar screen actor, theatre don and fellow UNICEF ambassador Michael Sheen. Sheen talks to us about growing up in Wales, eating his grandmother's famous Cawl and tinned potatoes.Having become an international star (despite being scouted by Arsenal Football club Youth team as a child!) Sheen tells us about his USA go-to diner recommendations, his obsession with coffee & doughnuts & missing Welsh food whilst living in LA. We also talk about the brilliant work he is doing in Wales to support the arts. And if you haven't watched his BBC 1 lockdown comedy, 'Staged', with David Tennant, do it, it's so good.Michael and I are proud UNICEF ambassadors and have both visited Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh where the Rohingya people fled after the atrocities they faced in Myanmar. Cox's Bazar now holds the largest refugee camp in the world. On this episode we share our stories and experiences. Thank you for listening & please do what you can to donate to UNICEF's appeal to help the world's most vulnerable children. You can find out more here - http://unicef.uk/tablemannersMichael, what a pleasure! X Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I really need a drink and I'm here with my mum over Zoom. Hi mum. And I've had a drink. I've sat and watched the footy. I've had to stop halfway. Oh yeah aren't we tuning up? Yeah it's a bit like the Euros or the World Cup when you watch football at six in the evening rather than normal time. Well I prefer that than the new Premier League eight o'clock time. I'm not that yeah it's too late well speaking of footballers the guest that we've got on tonight it's a footballer no got scouted by arsenal when he was young and his parents didn't let him go maybe that was a wise move well instead he just went on to be one of the best actors we've got can we say we've got him because he's actually Welsh? No. So Wales

have. Is it a bit like Ryan Giggs? We want him so much to be our very own. What do you mean? I'm not English. I'm European. Are you? Yeah. Well, what am I? You're European. Okay, cool. So, we've got the incredible

Michael Sheen. We could be Welsh. Really? Well, our niece, your cousin, lives in Wales. Just because we had a chalet in Abbasock in the 80s doesn't mean that we are Welsh. Well, I'm incredibly excited to speak to Michael. Not only is he a fantastic actor

that we've all seen in so many brilliant things, you may have seen him recently in ITV's quiz where he played Chris Tarrant with like the most, it was Trump-ish fake tan. I didn't realise Chris Tarrant was so orange. But anyway, he's brilliant. Frost Nixon, Twilight. Oh, he was in The Good Fight, my favourite. Oh, was he? Yeah.

Oh. He plays the most annoying person in it. The Good Fight gets loads of corker actors. Oh, it was just brilliant. But he played a very annoying person. But he also has played Tony Blair and Richard Nixon. But I wouldn't mind if he didn't do anything tonight, but just did the prologue from Under Milkwood,

which he did when he appeared in that, the Welsh production of it. Oh, that was, yeah. Sensational. And most recently I've been watching Staged, which is I think the first lockdown drama. Oh yeah, with David Tennant. It's so good.

Curb Your Enthusiasm slash The Trip. It's David Tennant and Michael Sheen playing themselves, trying to get this play up and running in lockdown there's a Samuel L Jackson cameo which is so good and they're just both really excellent aren't they so I've been really enjoying that but also something close to both our hearts is that we are both UNICEF ambassadors and I've watched Michael Sheen speak at one of the UNICEF Halloween balls and him to command the whole room he's been on I think many more trips than me but we have both been to Bangladesh to Cox's Bazaar to meet the Rohingyas and I'd love to hear his take on that

and to see whether he has any updates about the people that he met but um you know it's a hard time for charities at the moment to be raising money UN But, you know, it's a hard time for charities at the moment to be raising money. UNICEF, you know, would have had Soccer Aid happening in June and couldn't make it happen. And that's one of their huge sources of money, much like the marathon can go ahead. And that's worrying when there's a pandemic going on

and places like Cox's Bazaar and the refugee camps, the biggest refugee camp in the world is struggling to even get clean water. So anyway, I'm sure we'll talk about this all with Michael Sheen. Michael Sheen tuning in from South Wales, I think. I can't wait. Michael, thank you for joining us. It's a pleasure. How are you? How's the sleep?

OK. Yeah, the sleep is a bit tricky at the moment. Babies just cut two teeth simultaneously. Oh, teeth are a bugger. Yeah, I know. If only we didn't use them. Yeah, exactly. We could just give everything a nasty suck instead. That would be good, wouldn't it?

So she's a bit, yeah, she's a bit disturbed by that. Oh, so rubbish. And it's very hot. It's very hot here today as well, particularly. Where are you? Are you in North or South Walesales i'm in south wales on the edge of what is known as the brecon beacons breconshire national park oh it's beautiful gorgeous is that where you're from yeah so i'm from so i'm still this is technically neath port albert and i'm from port albert originally

my family is still there my mum and dad dad are there. And my sister's just a bit further up the road with her family. So I'm back in Port Talbot, essentially. But I'm just a little bit into the country. When I grew up in Port Talbot, I didn't even know there was countryside anywhere near Port Talbot. It was just the steelworks and the beach. But there is a bit, so you get closer to Breconshire and so I'm just out there surrounded by sheep and llamas. There are llamas in the field next door I noticed today.

Oh, wow. Amazing. They're really odd looking. Oh, wow. Are you near Abergavenny by any chance? Abergavenny. Abergavenny. No, no, I'm not near Abergavenny.

I mean, nowhere's that far away in Wales, but I'm not near Abergavenny, no. I hear that's really foodie. Like it's a big old foodie place. Oh, there's a lot of very foodie places in Wales, but I'm not near Abergavenny, no. I hear that's really foodie. Like it's a big old foodie place. Oh, there's a lot of very foodie places in Wales. Yeah. If you go out, like if you're driving across Wales and you go, you know, you get out of the industrial south particularly. I mean, there's some nice restaurants in the industrial south, but once you get out into like West Wales and Mid Wales and North Wales, you come across these amazing places. Yeah,

it's gorgeous foodie places. And I think you're right. I think Abergavenny is quite foodie. I've heard that. I don't know how much you know about this podcast, but we talk a bit about food and a bit about kind of growing up and food memories. But firstly, we're both UNICEF ambassadors. And I met you at a Halloween ball. I just got off stage where nobody had listened to me

because you don't do an acoustic gig at a very um well it's it's worth every penny but you know it's a pricey ball and nobody wants to hear an acoustic song they want to hear like thumping music but the way that when you went on stage and command the audience with your speech I was like oh god you're you're actually the best um and it was really inspiring and it was a pleasure to meet you. But, yeah, so we are both UNICEF ambassadors. That night, you're bringing back real terrible, like, NAMM flashbacks now. That was the worst gig I've ever had to do.

Because, you know, nobody wants to... If you think nobody wants to hear an acoustic song, nobody certainly wants to hear someone come out and talk about the work that UNICEF is doing. You know, people are out for a night out. They're, you know, quite well-to-do people, not used to having to shut up for others. And I had to walk out there thinking, no one is going to listen. And I'm about to put my heart out there. No one is going to listen.

And I'm about to put my heart out there. Like I'm talking about my daughter and seeing children going through terrible things. And it was just horrendous. And I went out and I had to muster every single bit of whatever I've got in me that tries to make people listen to me. And people did. People shut up. I couldn't believe it. They actually listened. I was amazed. It was the performance of your life I think it was and you know only those people saw it

well I saw it and it was amazing well thank you how did you get involved with Unisurf um originally it was through uh Soccer Aid I took part in Soccer Aid as the captain of the rest of the world team for uh for many years um I think I started in 2010, I think it was. And, you know, I was a huge football fan. I mean, I wanted to play football professionally when I was a kid. Yeah, you got scouted, didn't you? I sort of did, yeah. I was on a family holiday at Pontins on the Isle of Wight when I was 12.

And Tony Adams' dad was also on holiday with a very young Tony Adams and long story short I ended up being offered to go and play for the Arsenal youth team. Did you and Tony have a kickabout? Oh I skinned him, skinned him. That is amazing. I think you dodged a bullet you wouldn't have wanted to play for Arsenal. Did you give him his bad back? That's a whole other story Jessie. No I, the chances of ever making it to the first team of a club like that, I mean, are so remote. Well, Tony Adams did and you were better than him. Well, no, I'm saying that.

I was 12 and he was 15 or 16 and I think he let me run rings around him a little bit. You're modest. Yeah. He was off-season, it was a holiday. Exactly, yeah. rings around him a little bit. You're modest. Yeah. He was off-season. It's a holiday. Exactly, yeah. He just had a big lunch.

But I didn't go down that route because my mum and dad said, no, you can't go and live in London. You're only 12 and we're not moving. And that makes them sound like they weren't supportive. They were very supportive, but there was just no way that could happen then. So I didn't go down the football route, but I was still very into football and and

when I got to about I guess when I got to about 14 13 14 I started to get into acting and doing youth theatre and plays and and so it kind of switched then my obsession switched but early on I was very into football so years later when I'm asked do you want to be the captain of the rest of the world and play with people like Zinedine Zidane? And, you know, I mean, incredible. At Old Trafford in front of, you know, 80,000 people or whatever. I mean, it was an amazing experience. So I jumped at it. And to be honest, I barely noticed UNICEF had anything to do with it, to be honest. But then once you're there and you're part of it, the people from UNICEF come

and sort of talk to you a bit about, you know, what the money's going to go towards and all that kind of thing. And I was sort of fascinated by it. And they show you a little, you know, films and things that other ambassadors have done. And so through that, then they asked if I would be interested in getting more involved and maybe going on a visit, a trip somewhere. in getting more involved and maybe going on a on a visit a trip somewhere so I started off going to the first trip I did was to Chad in Africa and it was uh they were sort of letting me in easy a bit just to see sort of you know it wasn't too distressing yeah yeah um and but even so that was kind of mind-blowing really when I went to that that was that really opened my eyes in all kinds of ways about things and then I then I went on from there then

and and visited places like um the Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon uh eventually I went to the Zatari camp in Jordan as well the Syrian refugee camps um I went to Guatemala and the last time I went on a trip was to Bangladesh to the Katabalong camp at um in Cox's Bazaar there with all the Rohingya refugees um which I think you've been to as well you've been to that one yeah so I went in 2017 in December when the Rohingya people had fled from Myanmar and that was in August the big influx of refugees that entered into Bangladesh and so I went went four months after that. And it was really harrowing and really, I mean, just so upsetting. And they were just kind of setting up the camps, even though it was already the biggest refugee camp in the world.

Yeah, and has got bigger. Yeah. So when did you go? Well, I was there in 2018 as well, in April. So I was there just before the monsoon was about to start around sort of they thought in about June time but it's kind of you know anytime around there March to I think July is sort of um one period of time and then uh I think September to December is another cyclone seasons but um the the big fear was that there was here was this huge camp that had been kind of deforested

the hillsides deforested to just build, you know, to put settlements on. And, of course, if the rains were to come, if the monsoon rains were to hit hard, then the flash floods and landslides, you know, was a terrifying prospect with so many people there. I mean, at that point when I was there, I think there was maybe like 500,000 people or something like that. I mean, there's now 854,000 people, I think, in the camp now.

But, you know, it was massive enough at the time. And the thought of the destruction that could come from the monsoon was sort of terrifying. And so the idea was that I would go, I would see what was happening, and then I would come back and be able to talk about it and try and get support for the monsoon season, for people to sort of mitigate the potential destruction that could come with that. And whilst I was there at the camp, and I'm sure like you said, the thing that hits you is just the size of it, the scale of it, the amount of people there. And knowing that half of the camp are children.

And just seeing the conditions you know just literally just bits of cardboard and bits of corrugated iron if you're lucky and some bamboo and that you know just all piled on and I remember being up on a slightly raised hill area and seeing the pretty much the entire camp around me and I was just I was reduced to just you know I couldn't catch my breath it was it was extraordinary to see the scale of it and to think of what could happen with the monsoon. And I remember as I was there, the rain started, and this just torrential thing just started happening,

and it was terrifying. You were seeing not only the workers there in the camp, but also the refugees themselves, volunteers, starting to try and tie things down and do what they could to help, you know. And it really was terrifying. only the the workers there in the camp but also the the refugees themselves volunteers starting to try and tie things down and do what they could to help you know and it was it really was terrifying that was just the beginnings of of a taste of what the monsoon could do and I and I was it was extraordinary that I was there to sort of witness that you think about that there's a survival instinct the fact that they had to flee Myanmar and you know the atrocities that they've seen and

then monsoon hits and then you get COVID-19 um and then it's you know I don't know if you've been I got a call from one of the UNICEF people on the ground and an update about what it's like in Cox's Bazaar with COVID and they've only got like 43 confirmed cases and four deaths but it's apparently because they're too scared to go in and get tested because if you were tested positive you'd be taken into isolation and some of these mothers can't risk leaving their children on their own right and and then there's a stigma attached to if you get a positive result so they're just not getting tested out of fear and you you know what it was like they were so close to each other yeah i mean you can imagine there's far more than 43 cases yeah i mean

you can't social distance no it's just ridiculous and you know just being able to wash your hands do things as basic as washing your hands is really hard there as well and and just to get the information across like you say you know the stigma is there there's always cultural things that are difficult to kind of cut through and of course the fact that there are so many children there on the one hand you think oh well children aren't suffering from it as much it seems so that's good but the children who are there you know two of the things that affect people in the camps the most are acute respiratory disease and and diarrhea and so and both of those things hit children under five really hard so you've got children who should be you know not suffering from it as much but actually

so many of them have got underlying conditions that make them even more vulnerable so the prospect of what could happen there like you said at the moment as far as i know yes just only four deaths reported in the camp and you you know, quite low cases. But if it was to really start run rampant there, it's terrifying what could happen. Growing up in South Wales, what was it like? How many, have you got any siblings? And what was it like around the dinner table? What's a memorable meal from your childhood?

So I have one sister who is three years younger than me, Joanne. And growing up, the dinner table was not the most fancy of places. I'll give you an example. This will tell you a lot. So when I was... I'd already moved to London. I'd been in London for years. I'd had my first daughter, Lily, had been born.

My mum and dad came down to London to visit. So this was, what, about 15, 16 years ago, maybe? And we were living in West London at the time and we went to a restaurant there. I think it was like an Ask Pasta place, you know, one of those sort of pasta chain places and we sat down and there was me and my partner

and our little baby and my partner's parents and then my parents and my sister and my dad looked at the menu and went, pasta! Like he had never heard of the concept. And it was sort of quite a bizarre concept. Pasta, is it?

All right, pasta. I was like, what? So that gives you a sense of where I was coming from. When I left Wales and went to drama school in London, well, actually, no, I'd already left drama school and I was living with my girlfriend and she sent me down to the shops to get some potatoes and I came back with a tin of potatoes.

Tin potatoes. That is what I thought getting potatoes was. And you thought that was posh probably. Oh, yeah, absolutely, proper. I was treating her. That's posh. I was treating her. So, yeah, so there wasn't the most i mean you know god

bless my mum she was a working mother she was working every day she didn't have you know huge amounts of time so what did your parents do so my dad was uh worked in personnel i think these days they call it h h and r or hr don't they but in those days it was called personnel he worked in that um he had come up he'd done his apprenticeship in the steelworks and all that but he had had the chance to kind of go into middle management so that was a big step for our family and my mum and and you know this says a lot as well my mum did essentially the same job as my dad in a different company but she was called a secretary and he was called a personnel manager um so that you know that was always quite interesting to to see how that all played out but um yeah so my mum didn't have massive amounts of time and just it wasn't a big kind of cooking house to grow up in to be honest so food wasn't that important i it wasn't something that i didn't

come to really appreciate food and and really enjoy food until much later really until i was sort of you know know, myself working and able to go to restaurants and that kind of stuff. But what did they think about you wanting to go to London? Well, this is the thing. I was very lucky, you see, because not only did I come from an area that was very supportive of acting.

So, Port Talbot, Richard Burton came from Port Talbot, Anthony Hopkins came from Port Talbot. So, there was a real respect. the respect okay oh yeah real respect for acting there you know um so there was that side of it then i also you know very lucky come from a very supportive family so my mum and dad were were really supportive came to see everything i did all school plays and youth theater and all that kind of stuff and my family were very into amateur operatics you know the amateur operatic society that is a, you know, a real lifeblood of the country.

They were like, they used to be, I'm not sure if there is now, but they used to be like six or seven amateur operatic societies just in, you know, the Neath Port Talbot area. And so I grew up going to watch my uncles and aunties and people doing, you know, Gilbert and Sullivan operas and Carousel and brigadoon and

things like that so i grew up on that so they were very supportive of theater and acting so there was a real combination there of coming from an area a very you know tough working class area that you would think wouldn't be that supportive of acting and think it was a bit you know arty farty but actually there was a real respect for acting in the area. And then a family who were very supportive. And then the kind of third column of what supported me, really, was that there was an amazing youth arts kind of infrastructure in the area, in our county. There was the youth dance company that Catherine Zeta-Jones came through.

Then there was the youth theatre company that I came through and people like Russell T. Davis came through and all amazing people. And then there was the youth theater company that i came through and people like russell t davis came through and all amazing people um and then there was the youth orchestra as well and it was all supported really by a man called godfrey evans who was the county advisor in dance and drama he built up this thing all through the education system so it was funded by that and and it was an amazing kind of uh environment for young people you know coming from tough backgrounds in a lot of the you know the areas around here and we're getting this, you know, coming from tough backgrounds in a lot of the, you know, the areas around here and we're getting this incredible, you know, I didn't realize really until I got to drama school in London,

how lucky I'd been that I had already had this amazing training where I had come from, you know? And so it was extraordinary that, to have all that come together. And that's really what has given me the path through life that I've had. I've come more and more over the years to appreciate how much I owe to the people who made all that happen, you know, not only my family, but also the people who put their time and energy and real commitment into building that youth arts scene up, which of course has all been cut back now. And it's a lot

harder to have that, you you know my path to do what I've done has sort of disappeared in many ways and that's a big reason why I'm back here for a start and that I put as much as I possibly can into trying to create those pathways for young people and to make sure that there's access for opportunity for people that you shouldn't be punished because you come from an area that doesn't have as much money as other areas you know it's just not fair is it where do you live is this your real home yeah this is where I live is it Los Angeles no I lived in Los Angeles for many years because when me and my daughter's mother broke up my daughter was three and they lived in Los Angeles they wanted to live there and stayed there so for me

to be with my daughter meant being in L.A. So I lived there. And I wasn't the biggest fan of it out there, to be honest. And, you know, it was lovely to visit and I enjoyed going there. And it always felt like being on holiday. But to actually live there was tough. And it wasn't just necessarily about Los Angeles. It was about not being here. I found that really difficult.

You know, a lot of British people, I'm sure you've come across people just yourself, who love it out there i mean people who just can't wait to get away from britain and just live over there my sister right my sister lives there she's like she's an actress and she lives there and she i can't imagine her ever coming back now that's it yeah and i i find it really hard to get my head around that i mean you know fair play to anyone who feels like that but for me I'm like I can't I find it really hard to be away from here you know from from this country and and and these and this people and it's you know it's it's my tribe that's where I come from and I don't like being away from it so um so it was it was difficult but obviously I wanted to be with my daughter and and that was it so are you are you setting up and please forgive me if I should know this but are you setting up a kind of a scheme within like Wales for performing arts or are you just

trying to be there on the ground to try and build something up or is it not? Well it's a lot of things I've sort of work in a lot of different areas now really I made a choice a few years ago which essentially led to me coming back and living here, where I decided that I was going to sort of shift the priority in my life, really. And so the acting side of things would now just fund everything else. So the priority for me would be working on. I mean, I don't really know what to call it. I just say non-acting stuff. I don't really know what to call it because all the names that

people come up with make my bum go in and out a little bit I get a bit embarrassed by that oh come on give us a few when people talk about activism or community development or or charity work which is the worst thing I can't stand that but um it's it's like it's it's like I say I got to a point in my life where I realized I have a real window of opportunity in that at the moment, I can pretty much work whenever I want and I get paid well for the work I do. And I can choose where and when and you know, I've got about as much control over my career as it's possible for me to have. And I'm not going to have that forever. You know, I'm going to I've got that now and I'm not going to have it forever. And so I have, bunch of resources. I have financial resources. I have, you know, platform media, platform resources. I can bring people be open to the possibility of working together in a different way. So there's all those resources.

And the one thing that I didn't have a huge amount of was time. And, you know, before, because the acting side of my life. And so I decided that I wanted to now give that extra bit the time as well and put all the resources that I had to use and because I'd had a growing awareness of how much I owed to other people and the work that other people had done and a big watershed moment for me was in 2011 where I did a project called The Passion here in Port Talbot which was for National Theatre Wales and it was something I worked on for a few years and developed with the community and it was essentially a one-off performance, just one single performance that lasted nonstop for 72 hours and took place all over the town

and had 2,000 local people involved in it, working on it. And that was a real changing point in my life through working with the town in that way and getting to know all the different organisations and support groups and things and really seeing what was going on in our community that I'd never been aware of growing up. You know, until someone very close to you dies, you don't even think about the concept of grief counseling or, you know, unless you're a carer, unless your mother, you know, your single

parent mother is suffering from depression and has a physical disability of some kind, and you're looking after at the age 12, you don't think of what it is to be a carer, or, you know, all of these things. And it completely opened my eyes, working with these organizations and seeing what they were doing and trying to involve them in the performance in some way. And so since then, I stayed connected to a lot of the work that they were doing. And it just made me have a growing awareness of not only what was going on in that community, but essentially what was going on in every community all around the country, you know, and the work that people were doing and how hard it was for them and how hard it was being made

for them by all the cuts that were going on. So I sort of started to have a developing awareness of all that stuff. And I wanted to do what I could. I felt like, well, I've got resources. Here I am in this incredibly fortunate position. And I come from this community that I now had my eyes open to see what's going on there. I've got something to offer here, something. I mean, not much, but I'll give what I have got to offer. And so I decided that that's what I was going to do. So I was going to change my priority. And whilst I have the opportunity to do all this to do it because like I say that window is not going to be there for you know the rest of my life eventually the work won't be quite the same and all the rest of it and so I'm back here so yeah so I work so it's a very long-winded way of answering

your question which is I do so I work on a lot of different areas um thing I set up a thing I founded a thing called the end high cost credit alliance a few years ago which because i realized how much communities like near me were being exploited by just high cost credit company for people who don't have access to credit in the same way as you know a lot of us do uh you have these companies these payday lenders and doorstop lenders and rent to own businesses that just just really exploit people who don't have much money basically um and so i set up a thing to try and get people to work together to bring an end to that and to stop that and working on things around trying to get local journalism because we don't have a local paper here in neath but albert so there is no access to accurate information about

what's going on there's no representation people. There's no holding people to account in power. We get reported on by people in Bristol, or if we're lucky, Swansea. And that's true of, you know, of a lot of places. And I think there's a real connection between that and people feeling engaged in the political process as well and feeling like they're, you know, represented and their voice matters in some way. So, you know, I'm working on that as well and a lot of different things. You sound incredibly busy and time probably still is quite of the essence. And, you know, I mean, but I do love that you did this BBC,

it's not a drama, it's like a sat, what would you call it? It's definitely not a drama. It's a comedy. It's mecking around. It's kind of some, and I'm so sorry to do this because I hate people when they do it about my music, but for anybody who hasn't listened to it,

and I hope this is a huge compliment to you, it's somewhere between Curb and The Trip for me and like two incredible bits of TV but the chemistry with you and David Tennant is brilliant and it's great, but I want to know, I mean, I presume you're not as grumpy as that. I can see you're not. Oh, I can be.

I can be, Jessie. You're not grumpy at all. Not at the moment because it's in the evening. You should see me at nine o'clock in the morning. Why? Oh, I'm not a good morning person. Are you a night person? I'm very much a night person, yes.

Yes, and I can get grumpy do you find you go to bed later since you've been in lockdown that you just kind of stay up late and watch rubbish telly and or you probably well with the baby the baby you see dictates a lot of stuff so it's that's kind of different yeah tiny dictators aren't they yeah are you you hands-on I yes absolutely yeah I love i love it it's it's wonderful i love i love being a dad again the cleverest thing i ever did was getting my husband to be able to do a bottle in the night was a game changer and uh yeah i mean basically he parents them more than me but well that's the thing with in lockdown you know originally so before lockdown

happened i was filming in new york i was i do a TV series over there um which is handy because I can sort of come in and out of it a bit and and it's a good job which one's that it's called prodigal son oh I know that one but I'm desperate for the good fight to come back all right yes well I was doing the good fight is it coming back uh it's yes it's it's back on now at the moment, in America. So it should be on over here soon. Thank God. Are you still in it? No, no, I just did one season of it. I was over in New York doing, because my daughter lives there now, so I was there sort of spending time with her,

and I thought, well, whilst I'm here, I might as well try and get some work. So I ended up doing The Good Fight for a season, and I wasn't planning on doing anything else, but then this other thing came up, Prodigal Son, and I thought, well, this is quite handy, because I don't have to be in it all the time I can come in and out so I can come back home here and I can you know still see my daughter when I come and I can earn a bit of money and it's great so I just finished filming the first series of that and we came back to Wales and then within two weeks it was locked down or something you know

so I had never I wasn't going to be working over this period of time anyway it was just going to be us here in the house with the baby you know just to focus on being a family and being close to my mum and dad as well and so you know I haven't had my work disrupted in that way and I didn't get anything you know that I was going to do cancelled in fact I ended up doing an extra series that's what's bizarre is that I actually ended up working more than I was going to during lockdown was it quite finickety with how to do it because I were you acting in front of each other or was everything kind of almost like a monologue with how you performed it oh no it was all was it through zoom it was like this we did it like this oh okay yeah so

so yeah so the thing that happened was that david and i had worked on good omens together um a couple years ago now and we had such a lovely time doing that together really got on well and seemed to have good chemistry on screen and so i think we both were sort of hoping that something would come up for us to do together again um but it's quite rare that we, I mean, we'd never, we'd been in a film together before, but we hadn't acted together. And of course, we realized that actually, we were getting offered the same parts all the time. It was, you know, if he did it, that means that I, you know, I didn't get it and vice versa. So there was usually one David or Michael size hole in the project. And so one of us would fill it.

And so we were never really in anything together. So then when we did Good Omens, we just loved doing it. So then David got in touch with me and said, look, I've been sent this idea and they asked me to ask you if you'd want to do it as well. And so we just... So it actually is exactly what the show is. Yes, exactly. So that's how that's the story of the show as well.

And so, except in the show, I'm much less into the idea is. Yes, exactly. So that's how that's the story of the show as well. And so, except in the show, I'm much less into the idea of doing it, whereas in real life, I love the idea of doing it. And so we did the first episode just, you know, for nothing and just as an experiment to see what it would be like, not knowing whether it would work at all. Did you write it?

Oh, no, no, no. No, I didn't write it. The first episode was written by two writers, Simon Evans, who directed it all and ended up writing the rest of it and he and he co-wrote the first in it as well yes and he plays himself in it as well yeah and so he wrote it yeah and so we did that first episode and then we watched it and we're like oh this is this is quite good and we enjoyed doing it we had a good time doing it because i was a bit wary because of you know we've got a full-time job looking after the baby here at the moment yeah um so the

idea of doing a you know a job from my kitchen was a bit a bit worrying but actually it worked out fine and anna my partner is in it as well playing herself and david's wife georgia is in it herself as well and and so it was lovely and you can hear lyra our baby in the background in a lot of scenes as well i think there's something really interesting about it being a documentation of this time. And I think all the cutaways of whether it's the Tesco aisles being empty. I don't know. It feels so far away that time when actually it was only a few months ago. But kind of I just I really I thought it was brilliant.

Do you think you'll ever do it again or do you think it's it would never work again? Well, who knows? I mean, in a way, the reason why it happened and the reason why it could work was because we were in lockdown and we were doing it over a laptop, you know. So obviously, once we're not in lockdown conditions, that won't apply anymore.

But having said that, because we've set up the format and we've got people used to the idea of me and David acting over a laptop, of course, David and yeah over a laptop of course David and I are very rarely in the same place so you know he might be away he's filming a thing called uh around the world in 80 days or he was just before lockdown you presumably go back to and he'll be all over the world I'm here or in America or whatever so there's no reason why we can't continue the that sort of idea that we're talking to each other because we're friends over a laptop.

So it's possible that we could do more if the idea behind it, the sort of through line is there, then maybe. I loved it. When you were in LA, did you miss Welsh food? Did I miss Welsh food? Yes. Now what's that stew called? Is it cowl? Cowl. I love cowl. Yes.

Now, so having spoken earlier about you know growing up at home and the food there doesn't mean to say that there weren't meals that i loved that my mum made so uh cowl family my grandmother used to make cowl and my mother makes it in the tradition of my grandmother i love that that is amazing my mother makes a fantastic uh boiled ham uh peas potatoes and parsley sauce that is a big that was a big Saturday meal for us I loved that that would be you know that might be the meal that I would want if I was ever you know having a last meal or something well we're about to ask you that so that's all right okay well that would be a contender yeah and um what else specific Welsh

things what's the one that you talk about in stage? You talk about it, the fruitcake. Oh, Barabrith. Barabrith, Jessie. Welsh fruitcake, yeah. You've had that, darling. Didn't Luke Evans bring it to us, his mum's one? Yeah, his mum made one for us, like a Barabrith.

Not exactly, it was more like a cake. What about Welsh cakes? Have you had Welsh cakes? Yeah. I don't know if I have. Well, they're sort of, how would you describe them? They're like... Like Eccles cakes, no?

Yes, I suppose, like round. They're round. Yes, I suppose. And then you have the raisins on them, you know, pastry, and then with sugar on it. Now, Welsh cakes, if you go to anyone's house, or you know when you get, if you get invited to something in a school or, you know, an official visit, maybe with UNICEF or something like that

to a school or something official, there will always be Welsh cakes if you go to one in Wales. So my life is mainly made up of going into rooms and talking to people and being given Welsh cakes. That's essentially 80% of my existence. How's that going for you? Well, I've had to spend a lot of time in lockdown trying to exercise. Have you really been doing a lot? i have exercised so much in lockdown i mean every day like for at least an hour every day all right maybe that's not that much no but still that's a lot doing what i've got like um an exercise machine that i can use and i've got weights and stuff that i can use and all that and i put on weight the last few years definitely and i keep sort of going right i've got to get back in shape got to get get back in shape. And I'm always sort of, I've been very lucky.

I've been working a lot. And there's just never the time to kind of, you know, get into the routine with the gym and all that kind of stuff. So I've definitely got out of shape. So I thought, right, I am going to use, I'm going to be positive during this lockdown period. And I am going to get in shape. And I have been working hard.

I've been cooking all the meals here in lockdown. I do everything, you know, in terms of the food stuff. And I've changed my diet and I've had a really healthy diet. And the most frustrating thing is I've got to weigh myself and I'm like one kilo lighter or something than I was. I don't get it. But do your clothes feel better? He's wearing joggers and a T-shirt.

You don't know if he's wearing joggers. He could be wearing very smart trousers. You don't bloody know. No, I he could be wearing he's in his pajama I have nothing on below the waist well anything for comfort yeah it's very hot as I said um no I tell but I I feel better though definitely I definitely yes I definitely feel better and you, you know, having a, I mean, our baby was nine months old yesterday. Oh, I'm also tough. Yeah, thank you. And, you know, you have to be fit because, you know, it's hard work. And just physically it's hard work, you know.

And so I knew I had to get in better shape anyway. So that's good. So I do feel physically fitter and stronger. And I'm sure everything else will take care of itself eventually. So what have you been cooking during lockdown? What have I been cooking? Well, having spent so much time in America, you just sort of have takeaways and eat out and all that kind of stuff there so much.

And so it's been a long time since I've cooked, really. And even when I did used to cook, I didn't cook much and i didn't have much of a range so i this has been a revelation to me in lockdown i really have started you know getting more and more confident and i might not have the greatest range of stuff but i make i make a lovely um uh salad every night and it's i've been using turkey trimmings and couscous and salad. I use little pomegranates in the couscous as well. I cook up some mushrooms with a bit of garlic and some pine nuts. Oh, man, why didn't anyone tell me about pine nuts earlier? Pine nuts are great.

Game changer. It's the greatest thing ever. I want to know, when you are in New York or London or any of your kind of working cities where are like the spots that you can't live without to do with food or to eat yes oh my goodness so I mean here's the problem there's nothing I like better than a diner an old-fashioned it's like when I was growing up in like better than a diner, an old-fashioned diner. It's like when I was growing up in Wales. We have a tradition in South Wales, particularly, of there's a big Italian community, a lot of Italian cafes, ice cream parlours, that kind of stuff,

South Wales-Italian connection. And there were some amazing cafes that you could go to. I mean, not posh, fancy cafes. This is before the latte thing happened and all that. This is just old-fashioned, you know, big steel coffee-making urn thing in the background there. And, you know, just really great cafes.

And so I grew up loving going to those. And my favourite meal growing up was egg and chips in one of those cafes. That was just my favourite. A greasy spoon, yeah, because their chips are always the best. The best, the best. So in America, I love diners. I love the, you know, and not posh fancy ones,

like real, you know, salt of the earth diners. But of course the food is not necessarily the healthiest there. I love a corned beef hash in a diner. Oh, yeah. So there is a great diner around the corner from where I stay in New York. And there's also a very famous one called Jerry's in Los Angeles, near where I live. So I go there a lot. And there was another one called Izzy's in Santa Monica that I used to spend a lot of time in when I lived down that way.

And they're diners I love as well because they're not just about eating there. Coffee is my favorite thing in the world. So you can have just endless coffee in these places. But I would go down there, especially in the early days when I went to la and i didn't have much to do i used to just go down there to the diner have coffee uh corned beef hash and then i would stay there all day and i would just read i would read stephen king novels in izzy's diner i mean endless amounts of coffee i would end the day a mess because i'd be terrified after reading step King's book and I'd be, I'd have drunk so much coffee, I was just jacked

up on caffeine. So I was a right mess then, but I do love a diner. But I was thinking about this earlier. I've been very lucky in that I've been for some extraordinary meals. I was trying to think of like the best meals I've ever had to be able to tell you about. And there's a

place called, I was trying to think of the name of it. You've probably heard of it because I think it's supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the world. It's Blue Hill Farm, Blue Hill Farm at Stone Barns. Is it in San Francisco? No, this is sort of... No, it's outside of New York, isn't it? That's it, yeah.

And it's... My friend went. It's a restaurant but on a farm and you have a tasting menu when you go in there. And I, I mean, I've never, I've never tasted anything like it in my life. They,

at one point brought a tomato, just a tomato. And I, and I tasted it and it was the greatest thing I've ever tasted. I mean, the food is so fresh and amazing. It was incredible. But having said all that, it's still, for me,

if we get back to the last, you know, your last dinner, you can't beat egg and chips. You just can't. Can't beat it. And do you have condiments with that? I mean, I like a bit of salt. My dad, growing up watching my dad, my dad would pour the salt on. And the amount of time my dad would pour the salt on and the

amount of time he would spend pouring the salt was longer than the amount of time he would spend eating the meal. I mean, that's how much salt my dad was having. And I sort of, I've got a bit of that as well. And so I do like a bit of salt. So egg, chips, bit of salt, ideally, maybe a bit of toast on the side to mop the egg yolk up. And maybe a bit of tomato sauce. Not too much tomato sauce, but a little bit of tomato sauce on the chips. So is that your main or is that your starter before you have your parsley and peas? Oh my God, I don't think I could manage all that. Jesse, he'd be sick.

Okay, so starter, main and pudding with a drink of choice. All right, a starter. Place that tomato from Blue Hill. Yes. That or the other starter that I've had in the past that I really liked. There's a crispy, what is it? A crispy squid starter

with a bit of like sweet chilli sauce on it. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. I do love a bit of that. But also, I tell you what else you can't beat as a starter is crispy whitebait. If you give me crispy white white bait if that's on the menu i'm having it every time yeah i love white every time oh with a good tartar great oh i do love that and if i'm in a sort of a french restaurant i do like a bit of escargot partly i do like it because it's i love

garlic and so it's so garlicky, having snails. And I like the fiddliness of it. You get that little tiny fork thing that you get it out with. And I like seeing how other people react, like you just did, when I have snails. It's a faff. And I'm a greedy cow, so it just takes too long. I got prawns yesterday and I did them on the barbecue.

And my children are like gannets for prawns, which blows my mind because I can't even get them to eat lasagna. So I'm like, you fucking, you're watching me take the shells off, suck the head and you're like, give it to me. My son who can't, my 15 month old son is like. But yeah, for me, it's too much of a faff. So the idea of the escargot. There's a difference. Yeah, there's a difference of a faff, so the idea of the escargot does slow me down.

There's a difference between faff and sort of ritual. Now, I don't like faff. So prawns, I don't like shelling prawns in order to eat them. I can't stand that. But give me little oysters, doing all the stuff with the oysters and putting the different bits on. Oh, I'd like that. I like that more than the taste of the oyster, yeah.

Well, and the snails, having the little fork in the snail, I like that. Yeah. I like that more than the taste of the oyster, yeah. Well, and the snails, having the little fork in the snail. I like all that kind of thing. Jessie's just not sophisticated. Oh, fuck off, Mum. You're the one that would absolutely never have a snail or an oyster. You say it tastes like snot.

I'm not sophisticated. I never said I was sophisticated. So what's your pudding? What's your pudding? Oh, pudding. I mean, I am a pudding person I'll have anything I don't really distinguish between you know between high art and low art when it comes to puddings I'll have anything I mean when I was when I was a teenager and I was a very active teenager

you know I was playing a lot of football a lot of sport even when I was acting I'd jump around a lot I mean I just had a very high metabolic rate or whatever you call it. I could eat anything. I used to demolish a bag of 12 jam donuts from Tesco's in one sitting. I mean, I would just go through the lot. I'm so impressed. And it would have no effect on me. I mean, well, it would have an effect on me. I'd be running around like a mad ass, you know, on a sugar high. But I didn't put weight on. So, of course, that's the problem. As soon as you get to the point in your life where you can't get away with that anymore, my eating habits didn't change for a while. So I suddenly realised, oh, I've got to exercise more

and I kept doing that. But left to my own devices, I'll go back to that. I've been trying to have sort of low-fat yoghurt with grapes, blueberries, flaked almonds and pomegranate seeds and that kind of thing and well it's nice but it doesn't do it doesn't do it but can i tell you michael don't do low fat it's all a myth oh really the full flat yes it's far more satisfying it's got less sugar in it it will fill you up for longer promise me stop with the low fat get the full fat greek yogurt it will fill you up and

it will be so much better for you what about a full tub of haagen-dazs instead yeah now i mean do that because it's delicious yeah well that's the problem you've got to buy ben and jerry's though because they've become great activists all right yeah yeah well for the black lives matter movement yeah they got they got arrested didn't they? Yeah, they got arrested. Funnily enough, when I was in my local supermarket here in Wales, this was ages ago, and it wasn't long after I'd sort of moved back here. And we were going down there and we bought, we were buying a tub of ice cream, you know, just like a Haagen-Dazs type thing, a small thing.

Of course. And I was standing there about to get in and a woman came down the aisle. Well, I didn't know, I'd never met her before in my life. And she goes, oh, trust you to be in the ice cream department. I was like, what a cheek. I know, what a cheek. And I laughed, you know. And afterwards, I was like, hang on.

What do you mean, trust you to be in the ice cream department? Did she know something about you, Michael? People do this. This is what people are like around here. They'll just say stuff like this. She was the one serving you the 12 donuts when you were younger maybe see it's all come back around probably remembered never go back to where you grew up michael do you have good table manners well i'd like to think i do now but you know when i when i first went to

london and this isn't really going to make much sense, I suppose, in the light of what I'd said about what food was like when I was growing up. But when I first got to London and went to drama school, people pointed out to me that when I was eating my food, we had like a little canteen at drama school. When I was eating my food, now I'm going to, people aren't going to be able to see what I'm doing, obviously, but you'll be able to see. I used to put my arm around my plate, apparently, as if I was guarding it.

Like protecting it. Yeah, as if someone was going to come and steal it. And I used to eat my food with my arm around my plate, sort of head down, like a sort of hunted animal, apparently. And when this was pointed out to me, I couldn't understand it. And then I remembered, it was because my dad used to come and steal my chips. Jessie, your children will be doing the same thing.

Oh, God, they will. I finish their meals. Now that you're weaning your child, are you kind of doing the finishing off? I mean, you're in pure... Are you past purees yet? No, no, no. We're only entering the world of purees at the moment.

So my other daughter, so Lily, my daughter, who's now 21, she used to say, and still does say, that her impersonation of me eating food is me going, get your own! Get your own!

Which I think is also a consequence of my dad stealing my chips when I was a kid as well. It's like, no, get your own! Like, she says, you won't share, Dad. You won't share.

I said, I'll share. So you're the kind of person when you get a curry, you get your own korma or vindaloo and you don't share it with anybody else. No, I've got much better at that. But on some basic level, I do feel like if everyone is ordering food, you order what you want.

You take responsibility for your own choices when you're ordering food. You don't, I mean, we're not living in a commune are we but what if you want the whole menu i know i've i've come to now enjoy the experience of you know sharing and have a bit of this and a bit of that i i am better at that now but for a long time and i can still revert back drop of a hat i can be back into arm around my plate get your own um what was in your lunchbox if you had lunchbox or did you have school dinners what no i had school dinners in there what were they good okay what do you remember from school dinners school dinners oh goodness me like custard that

was more like blancmange cake and custard yes cake and custard chocolate sponge and thick i mean not just thick custard but like i say i mean it was like full-on blancmange um i remember that quite vividly i remember well of course cowl they would give us cowl at school now and again that was my favorite thing i loved that that was great that's what that and my grandmother's cowl was uh was what got me into all that well i went through comprehensive school oh my god this is amazing thinking about this now i went through comprehensive school having the same thing for lunch every day because my mum and dad you know would give me whatever it was you know two pounds 50 or something for lunch every day and i would get a cone of chips from the indoor market at the shopping center and a

raspberry slush puppy that was the blue one That was my lunch every day for five years. For five years. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, it's a wonder I'm alive. But it is, though, isn't it? I should have got scurvy or something. Because it's not like I was getting high cuisine at home.

That is amazing. What's your karaoke song? Do you like karaoke? I do. I love karaoke. Me too. Jessie hates it. But do you think that's because you're an actor and so you love, I mean, you're the best at characters, from

Chris Tarrant to, you know, Tony Blair. I mean, you are. Is it the thrill of being able to acquire that person? Well, I do like that challenge. Yes, I do quite like singing songs, trying to sing like them. Can you sing? Have you got a good voice? I can sing a bit. It's all right. It's not great.

So who's your alter ego when you're in karaoke? Well, one of the musicals that I would love to do is The Rocky Horror Show. Oh, yes. So one of the songs I love to do at karaoke is Sweet Transvestite. I love that song. I thought it was going to be The Time War. No, no, that's just a sing-along dance-along. Yeah, I was just going to do it

for you. Yeah, I'm not interested in that. Can you usually find this on the karaoke system? You'd be surprised, yes. You find it in pretty much most places. Where I used to live in Los Angeles, when I first lived in Los Angeles, down in Santa Monica, at the very end of my street, there was a karaoke

bar. So I used to go there a lot. Even when there was no one there, I would just go in and just have the whole place to myself. But I will still knock out a sweet transvestite if you get my drift, if I'm in a karaoke bar. That didn't come out the way I meant it. As much as it's a delight to hear your food stories, I feel like we both would love to leave this episode telling the listeners a little bit about UNICEF's biggest campaign for children. Yeah, yeah. So they've got this appeal going called the Save Generation COVID campaign,

which is to try and help the children in refugee camps around the world who are, you know, in such danger at the moment. This is the biggest global crisis for children since World War Two. And the danger is that, you know, new research has come out recently that says there is the possibility that an extra 6,000 children could die every day as coronavirus weakens, you know, national health systems and disrupts vital services. So this Save Generation COVID campaign, there is an appeal and a fund that UNICEF have set up in order to try and, you know, save a whole generation of children that are in danger, really. So, you know, these are children who have already been weakened by war and disease and hunger and poverty. And their survival depends on health care and life-saving food and just basic things like clean water and medical supplies.

So this appeal is the largest one ever for children in the 73-year history of UNICEF. So that says how urgent it is. And hopefully we can give people information to the uh to where they can go to to donate because it is just vital that these children absolutely you know after they've gone through so much already are not left to to bear the brunt of of the coronavirus and i think you know for all of us and look it's been hard for all of us but you know staying at home this idea that you know staying at home and that we've been denied something some children and families vulnerable children and families don't have the option to

stay at home and they're they're more exposed to this disease and more vulnerable and so yeah we would love you guys that listen all of you buggers that listen for free every week um we love you but if you could just give a little donation it would be so so um huge and make such an impact for this um campaign yeah i mean it's hard isn't it because you know we both know that people are just hanging on at the moment you know in this country people are just having a really tough time and so you know i say it with the proviso that if you can then please do give what you can but you know it's with the full awareness that you know, I say it with the proviso that if you can, then please do give what you can. But, you know, it's with the full awareness that, you know, people are just, you know, hanging on at the moment. So, you know, God bless you if you can.

Oh, Michael, it's been so lovely chatting to you. Thank you so much for doing this. Oh, it's a pleasure. It's just such a treat. You're amazing and you do so much incredible work. And we love you. The only thing that you didn't do was just do the beginning of Under Milkwood,

which I've never quite recovered from when you did that. To begin at the beginning. It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and Bible black. Oh, thank you. Made my day now. Michael Sheen, I mean... He did Milkwood first chance. What a guy.

Does so, so much. He's a real philanthropist, isn't he? Yeah, but... I mean, he says he cringes at saying he's an activist. I mean, he may as well basically run the country if we could have him god give me Michael Sheen but do you know what he's not angry is he he's just like enthusiastic and not say oh they should be doing this they should be doing that he just enthuses you that's what's so that was just really lovely and anybody who hasn't watched stage it's brilliant it's on bbc iplayer they're so captivating david tenant and michael sheen you could just

watch him in anything couldn't you for more information on safe generation covid visit unicef.org.uk and there will be an option to donate whatever you can would be amazing but we understand if you can't thank you so much for listening this was a goodie and we'll be back next week for more you can't get rid of us the music you've heard on table manners is by peter duffy and pete fraser table manners is produced by alice williams