Growing up, football was all Michael Sheen cared about. He went to Anfield as a young lad, idolising the likes of Tony Adams and Kevin Keegan. He was actually offered a place on the Arsenal Youth Team, but his dad steered him from it, for the better, as he is now one Britain's finest and most astute performers. In The Damned United, however, Sheen gets to retrace some of his footballing steps playing Brian Clough, football manager that served an ill-fated 44 days in charge of Leeds Utd, a man so arrogant that he'd make Jose Mourinho look humble. Brian Clough would have been 75 today, and Tom Hooper's film is apparently a lot more sympathetic to the geezer than David Pearce's source material; Peter Morgan's screenplay is said to gloss over some events and ignore others completely, leading the film to be dubbed "faction", but I myself am greatly anticipating said film, a chronicle of a truly enigmatic man, and the very original Special one.
I don't know anything about football, so I'm not overly excited about this, but michael sheen is awesomeness defined, so I may give it a go when it's out on dvd. I desperately want to see duplicity. It looks really really good. and julia's been awol for so long, it'll be great to see her back.
ReplyDeleteThe book of this is awesome and it's got Michael "geeky gorgeousness redefined" Sheen in it so I'm excited! I'll be doing a double bill on Friday with Two Lovers, for a superficial swooning day before I go home.
ReplyDeleteEmmabung did you just quote Football Focus for this entry? :p
ReplyDeleteHaha yeah I did!
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