By the end of our call, Michael Sheen is animatedly sharing stories of his family’s (potential) UFO sightings in south Wales.
He was 12 or 13 when he was walking home from school in Port Talbot. Coming around the side of a nearby mountain was what Sheen describes as “a formation of lights.” They went out toward the sea, hovered there, and vanished. “I was looking at this and I thought, ‘I need to go in and tell the rest of my family,'” the star recalls. “But then I thought that if I go in, I might miss it. So I just stood and watched. I couldn’t believe what I’d seen,” he continues, “I can’t explain it, and I’m not saying that they were UFOs, but I don’t know what the hell they were.”
Sheen, a prolific actor whose credits include Twilight, Masters of Sex and Good Omens, has hopped on Zoom to discuss his latest Welsh project, Out There, a sci-fi caper from debut filmmaker Simon Ryninks that tackles two seemingly disparate themes: grief and aliens. Backdropped by the nostalgia-packed optimism of 1999, it earns its world premiere in competition at Edinburgh Film Festival on Friday, with a star-studded ensemble that includes Aneurin Barnard (Dunkirk), Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones) and newcomer Nerys Amber Stocks.
