Michael Sheen talks about his first meeting with Neil Gaiman
I’ve made a script from David Tennant’s podcast
David: Tell me about Neil Gaiman then.
Michael: This is what brought us together. The new love story for the 21 c. When I went to drama school there was a guy called Harry Turner in my year. Within a first few weeks we’re doing something, I mean a drink or whatever, and he said to me “do you read comic books?” And I said “no”. I mean this was 1988-89.. so it was.. now I know that it was a period of time when big change, transformation going on through comic books. Rather then it being sort of just super heroes, Batman and Superman. There was this whole new era of generation of writers like Grant Morrison. And starting to address different kind of subjects through the comic book medium so it wasn’t superheroes, it was all kind of stuff going on. Really fascinating stuff, and I was totally unaware of this.
And so this guy Harry said to me “do you read them”? And I said “no”. And he went like: ok, here’s the Watchmen by Alan Moore, here’s Swamp Thing, here’s Hell Blazer, and here’s Sandman. And Sandman was Neil Gaiman’s kind of big series, sort of point his name on the map.
And I read all those, and I was just blown away by all of them. But particularly the Sandman stories cause he was sort drawing on mythology, fairy tales, folklore, and philosophy, and Shakespeare and all kinds of stuff were being kind of mixed up in the story. And I absolutely loved that. So I became a big fan of Neil, started reading everything by him, and then fairly shortly after that within six month or a year Good Omens the book came out which Neil wrote with Terry Pratchett. And so I got the book, cause I was obviously a big fan of Neil by this point, so I read it, loved it, then started reading Terry Pratchett’s stuff as well cause I didn’t know his stuff before then. And then spent years and years and years just, you know, being a huge fan of both of them. And then eventually, you know, I’ve done films like Underworld films, and doing Twilight films... and I think it was one of the Twilight films. There was a lot of veeery snooty interviews that happened, where people who considered themselves well above talking about things like Twilight: we’re having to interview, you know, me, and weirdly coming out it from the attitude of “clearly this is below you as well”. Weirdly thinking I’m gonna go: yeah, fine, Twilight... And I just used to go: you know what? Some one the greatest writing of the last 50 to 100 years is happened in science fiction, or fantasy. I mean like Philip K. Dick is one of my favorite writers of all time. In fact the production of Hamlet I did was mainly influenced by Philip K. Dick. And you know Ursula le Guin, Asimov... All this amazing people, and I talked about Neil as well, went off a bit of a rant... the interview came out, bubble. About six month later maybe: knock on the door, open the door - delivery of a big box. Interesting... Open the box - a card on the top of the box, I opened the card, it says
And inside the box like first editions of Neil’s stuff, and all kinds of interesting things by Neil. And he just sent this stuff to me.
David: You’ve never met him.
Michael: Never met him. He’d read the interview, or someone’d let him know about this interview where I sang his praises, stood up for him and the people who are working within sort of genre... And he just got in touch.
We met up for the first time, I was in Los Angeles when he came to LA, and he said “I take you for a meal”. I was like “alright”. He said, “you wanna go somewhere posh or somewhere interesting”, and I said, “lets go somewhere interesting” he said “right I’m gonna take you to this restaurant which is called the Hump, and it’s at Santa Monica airport”. And its a sushi restaurant. I was like alright, ok. I had a mini at that time,we drive off to the Santa Monica airport and this restaurant was right on the tarmac. There was nobody else there, we got there quite early, and you watching the planes landing on Santa Monica airport. It was like extraordinary! And the chef comes out, Neil says “just bring whatever you want, chef’s choice”. I have never eaten sushi before, and we set this incredible meal when they keep bringing these, you know, dishes, and they say “this is blah blah blah, just use a little bit of soy sauce, whatever”, you know, “this is eel”... and this was one dish they brought to us they didn’t say what it was. It was like mystery dish. And yet it delicious. Few more people started coming at the restaurant at that time, I said “Neil, I can’t eat anymore, I have to stop now, this is great but” he went “ok we’ll ask for the bill in a minute”, and then the door opens, and some very official people come in. And it was the FEDs. And the FEDs and we knew cause there were jackets on that said part of the federal bureau or whatever, and about six of them coming. One goes behind the counter, two go into the kitchen, one goes to the back. With like guns on and stuff, and me and Neil were like “what on Earth is going on??” And then eventually one guy said: ladies and gentlemen if you haven’t ordered already, please leave; if you’re still eating your meal, please finish up, pay your bill, leave. And we were like “oh my god we’re poisoned?? is this some terrible thing in them?” So we sort of finished, paid our bill, and then all the kitchen staff walked abroad it, and the head chef was there, the guy who was bringing us dishes. He’s in tears, and he says to Neil “ I’m so sorry”, apologizes to Neil, and we leave. And we have no idea what happened.
David: But you’re assuming it’s a mystery dish.
Michael: Well, we’re assuming... it cant be poisonous, that terrible terrible thing! So the next day was the Oscars which is why Neil was in town, cause Coraline had been nominated for Oscar. Best documentary that year was one by The Cove... which was by a team of people who had come across dolphins being killed, I think. And turns out what was happening in this restaurant was they were having illegal endangered species flown in to the airport, and then being brought round the back of the restaurant into the kitchen. We had eaten whale. Endangered species whale. That was the mystery dish they didn’t say what it was. And the team behind The Cove were behind this thing, and they took them down that night we were there.
David: That’s extraordinary
Michael: for month me and Neil were like “have you heard anything - no I’ve not”, and then we heard it was something to do with a coven, eventually, we found out that they were all arrested, the restaurant was shut down, and... we had eaten whale that night.
David: That was your first meeting with Neil Gaiman.
Michael: That was my first meeting. And also in a drive home that night from that restaurant he said (and we were in my mini) “have you found the secret compartment” i said “what are you talking about?” Such a Neil Gaiman thing to say! Secret compartment. “Yeah, each of man has got a secret compartments” I said “I had no idea it’s secret”, and he pressed a little button, and a thing opened up. And it was a secret compartment in my own car that Neil Gaiman showed me.
David: Was there anything inside it?
Michael: Yeah, there was a little man and he jumped out and went hello! Erm, no, there was nothing in there. There was afterwards cause I started putting...
David: Sure, That’s a very Neil Gaiman story. All of that is such a Neil Gaiman story
Michael: That’s how it began, yeah.
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