British actor Michael Sheen is set to make his third appearance as Tony Blair, in a Peter Morgan film about the Clintons and the Blairs.
Sheen (who’s currently doing a rather good Brian Clough in The Damned United) first appeared as Blair in The Deal in 2003, a TV film about the supposed ‘power-sharing’ arrangement between Blair and Gordon Brown and then in The Queen, the film about the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death.
Both were written by Morgan, who’s directing this one. Morgan also wrote Frost/Nixon in which Sheen does an eerie David Frost.
Obviously the focus will be on Bill and Hillary, to be played by Denis Quaid and Julianne Moore. Monica Lewinski appears on news film only apparently.
But old Tone is still box office isn’t he? He may prove, in the end, to have been veneer all the way through but he packs ‘em in.
And he’s lucky to find a sympathetic impersonator in the estimable Sheen.