MICHAEL SHEEN - SHEEN ENVIOUS OF MIRREN'S SUCCESS

SHEEN ENVIOUS OF MIRREN'S SUCCESS

British actor MICHAEL SHEEN found it "difficult" to see his THE QUEEN co-star HELEN MIRREN land an Oscar for her performance - because he received very little credit for his own role in the film.
The Wales-born star played former British prime minister Tony Blair in the hit 2006 film, which garnered a Best Actress Academy Award for Mirren in the title role.
The movie was Oscar-nominated in the Best Film category and director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Peter Morgan also received nods.
The film garnered a wealth of other gongs for Mirren, Frears and Morgan, while Sheen took home a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award and a Toronto Film Critics Association Award both for Best Supporting Actor.
And Sheen is still sore that his performance did not receive the same level of attention as Mirren's.
He says, "I would be lying if I said that it wasn't in some ways difficult, because inevitably you act with someone in a film and you're both playing the leads and there was huge discrepancy between the reaction to Helen and the reaction to me. (But) that was already inbuilt in the film. It's not called Blair. She's such a gracious woman and it's such a brilliant performance - that made it a lot easier to deal with."