NO DEAL! STAR SHEEN REVEALS HE INITIALLY REFUSED BLAIR ROLE

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

- CASEY COOPER-FISKE

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.

The Port Talbot actor 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 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.