The second film of the Twilight series also introduces the Volturi, the most powerful/influential vampires in existence. Sheen plays one of the leaders of the Volturi, Aro.
Michael Sheen on How He Approached the Role:
"I start at exactly the same place, which is it’s always the story. My first contact with anything I’m going to do is the script, whether it’s a script I’ve been offered or I’ve been sent it or whatever. I sit down and I read it. That first reading of the script is very special to me because I know it’s my first point of contact with the story, the world of the piece. I don’t read things in bits or I don’t read it whilst I’m doing something else. I have to have full concentration. I read it because that’s, if I end up doing this film, that first reading, the impressions I get and the connections I make, how it sparks my imagination will fuel everything I do for the whole rest of it. All the way through all this as well, the publicity and everything, it’s always that first contact with it. So that’s a very special moment for me and that doesn’t matter whether it’s based on real events or not, whether it’s New Moon or anything. That’s the world, that’s the beginning point."
"And then it’s just about letting your imagination go. I look for clues. It’s like a whodunit, any script. The writer has certain intentions, whether they’re conscious or unconscious, and they come out. They’re expressed in the script. So for instance, when I was doing New Moon, it wasn’t just the script, it was the book as well. I used to have the book with me every day on the set all the time. I’d reread it and reread it and reread it. It’s not like I had to read the whole book because Aro’s bits are not as much. But, nevertheless, I try and immerse myself in the world of the piece, whatever the piece is. So if it’s Brian Clough’s life, then I immerse myself in Brian Clough’s life. If it’s New Moon, then I immerse myself in the world of Stephenie [Meyer's] world, but also the world of vampires, generally. With the Underworld films, watch everything that ever has been on werewolves, read everything, because you never know where the one little thing will come from that just sparks your imagination. It doesn’t happen all the time but the one thing that maybe people will say, 'I watched that film and that one bit, that moment where that happened, I’ll never forget that.' Or, 'That made me think of this.'"
"You never know where that thing’s going to come from. It can come from the most unlikely of places, and usually does come from the most unlikely of places. It’s what Lord of the Rings is all about. The most important person in the whole Lord of the Rings is the one that is overlooked in Tolkien’s world. It’s the little hobbit; it’s the little unlooked for thing. I’ve always found that that’s the same with what I do. I might be reading, or a chance remark that someone makes about Brian Clough who I’m talking to about it and just something about it sticks with me. [...]When I find my core stuff of research, at the time I don’t know why that’s important to me but I just know there’s something about it. Eventually I’ll be doing a scene and maybe the director will say, 'At this point, could you do something here? Could you say something...?' and suddenly something will occur to me from the research. Which means you have to do loads of it, even though you might end up using just a tiny amount of it. You never know where that stuff will come from. That’s the same for New Moon. Weirdly, I found myself on the set and I suddenly heard the voice of the Blue Meanie in Yellow Submarine. There’s a thing that Stephenie writes in the book that his voice was like feathers, and just suddenly I heard, 'The Blue Meaniiiiie.' This voice that really kind of disturbed me when I was a kid. It was very gentle and soft, but there was something very scary about it. So little things like that, you never know where it’s going to come from."
Michael Sheen on Italy and New Moon:
"I would love to share my favorite experiences about Italy. Unfortunately I can’t because I didn’t shoot any of it in Italy. That’s the problem with doing interiors is that interiors can be filmed anywhere. So the next time I’ll have it in my contract that I have to do at least one exterior in any film I do. So yeah, my favorite experience about Italy was getting a text from [director] Chris Weitz saying, 'It’s lovely here, isn’t it?'"
Michael Sheen on Working with a Mostly Young Cast:
"I think it’s a good job that I was playing a sort of millennia old vampire because that’s exactly how it felt to be on a set with people as beautiful as Robert and Kristen and Ashley [Greene] and all that lot. I felt like the old, decrepit uncle who’s just hanging around trying to get in with the cool kids. But that kind of helped with the character so it was fun."
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New Moon hits theaters on November 20, 2009.
