Brow Beat

Michael Sheen Is Not Quitting Acting to Fight Fascism, Despite Reports to the Contrary

The Passengers star followed up with a statement: “I DID NOT declare that I’m ‘quitting acting and leaving Hollywood’ to go into politics.”

Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

You may have seen some headlines over the weekend that declared that actor Michael Sheen would be quitting the business, pretty unambiguous headlines like, “Michael Sheen to swap acting for activism against ‘populist right’ ” and “Michael Sheen Considers Leaving Hollywood to Become a Full-Time Political Activist.” However, fans excited about Sheen’s performance as a robot bartender in Passengers can expect plenty more head and torso where that came from, because the rumors, according to Sheen, are false.

Where did such an unlikely suggestion come from in the first place? The main offender seems to be a report in the Times of London that takes quotes from another interview with Sheen wildly out of context:

Michael Sheen has declared that he will leave Hollywood to commit himself to political activism and to opposing demagogues and fascists.

The actor, currently appearing in the Hollywood science-fiction film Passengers, says he will move back to Port Talbot in Wales to begin grassroots organising.

He is uncertain whether his relationship with Sarah Silverman, the actress and comedian based in Los Angeles, will survive the move.

The actual interview is nothing so dramatic: Sheen explains that he’s worried about the state of politics in the West, that he might like to get involved in some grass-roots campaigning, and that he would consider stopping work as an actor to do so but purely as a hypothetical. He also mentions that he doesn’t have another job lined up. And things snowballed from there, with other outlets picking up the out-of-context remarks, forcing Sheen to clarify that, no, he isn’t dropping his career and family to singlehandedly save the world from fascism.

In case there were any more doubts, Sheen released a longer statement on Saturday, this one not open to misinterpretation, strongly refuting the claim: “I DID NOT declare that I’m ‘quitting acting and leaving Hollywood’ to go into politics.” And though he went on to stress the importance of resisting the rise of fascism in the West, for now at least, that doesn’t mean he has plans to leave Hollywood.

He’s still pretty worried about the collapse of civilization, though.