SINS of the father
meets in a twisted new thriller starring MICHAEL SHEEN
AFTER RECENT APPEARANCES in Quiz and Staged, Michael Sheen is back this week in his most chilling role yet – as a serial killer in new US drama
Prodigal Son.
The actor plays Dr
Martin
Whitly, AKA
The Surgeon, a brilliant
Manhattan doctor incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital after committing 23 gruesome murders several years ago.
Meanwhile, his wife, Jessica (Scandal’s Bellamy Young), and two children, now adults, continue to deal with the psychological fallout from his crimes. In this week’s opener, his criminalprofiler son Malcolm (The Walking Dead’s Tom Payne) is recruited by a New York detective (Lou Diamond Phillips) to help solve ongoing murder cases in the city, using the insight from his father’s actions.
However, as Malcolm visits his father to take advice on the cases, he is haunted by nightmares and lives in fear that he will also succumb to the same sociopathic impulses.
Here, Sheen, 51, reveals more about his challenging role…
WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT Prodigal Son? It is kind of a modern Gothic drama. There’s repressed, under-the-surface horror and an almost operatic feel. It is really dark. There is a procedural aspect to it, and also this domestic drama threaded through the series. It asks, what if Hannibal Lecter was Clarice Starling’s dad?
WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP LIKE BETWEEN WHITLY AND MALCOLM? Whitly has done some of the most awful things and yet seems to be a loving father. There’s an interesting dynamic between father and son; if the character’s done the things he’s done, is he capable of feeling love?
HOW DID YOU APPROACH THE ROLE? People always say it must be fun to play a big villain but this is about something that’s real; these things happen. This is a horrible, destructive, painful, grief-filled landscape. There is nothing fun about it. But I liked the challenge of playing someone who seems very likeable and charming. He uses that disguise like animals do – bright colours to lure prey.
WHAT
RESEARCH
DID YOU DO? I watched a couple of documentaries, including on Harold Shipman. It looked at how a doctor, someone trusted, could be doing terrible things.
HOW DID YOU SWITCH OFF AFTER PLAYING SUCH AN EVIL CHARACTER? If the subject matter has an innate risk to it, it doesn’t matter how you approach it. It will affect you. You have to embrace that, but I don’t do this stuff lightly.