Michael Sheen “couldn’t explain” the concept of death to his daughter.
Michael Sheen ‘couldn’t explain’ the concept of death to his daughter
The 56-year-old actor – who has Lily, 26, with fellow Hollywood star Kate Beckinsale as well as Lyra, five, and three-year-old Mabli with his partner Anna Lundberg – lost his father Meyrick when he died in May at the age of 85, and admitted that when it came to his younger children, there was “no way” he was going to able to communciate the reality of the situation to themm.
He told The Times: “Lyra thinks that when people die, they become gravestones. There was no way I was going to be able to explain that my dad is now ashes in an urn, but I can take them to that mural, and they can engage with him through that. And so can my mother, who met him when she was 14 and lost him when she was 83.”
The Good Omens star began his career in theatre in the early 1990s before he started appearing on screen, and recalled that his father – who was at one time a Jack Nicholson impersonator – had started to remember that time during his final days.
He said: “He always talked about a Steven Berkoff play, Harry’s Christmas, that I did in the summer holidays when at drama school.
“Dad took a bit of time off from work to watch me doing it and called my mum and said, ‘Irene, you have got to go and see this!”
Michael then revealed that his father’s last words came as a result of his own “passion” for his hometown in Wales,because it was the “most important thing” to him, even at the end.
He added: “But the last thing he said to me was about Port Talbot“.
“By the end, he was confusing and conflating things, but the spirit was clear. I was telling him about the possibility of a project in town and he wasn’t able to say very much, but the last thing he said to me wasn’t about acting. He was so passionate about his community, where he grew up and lived all his life, so communicating that to me was the most important thing to him at the end. It was very telling. He just said, ‘Get it done, Michael. Get it done.’”
