Actor Declares Career 'Not-for-Profit'

Michael Sheen has sold houses to fund charities and become 'a social enterprise'
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 7, 2021 4:27 PM CST
Michael Sheen to Use Earnings to Help Others
Michael Sheen, shown in 2019, is embarking on a cycle of earning money and giving it away.   (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invasion/AP)

After seeing the good works of organizations imperiled by a lack of funding, Michael Sheen has changed the goals of his life and career. He's sold his two houses, donated the money to charity, and announced that he's now a "not-for-profit actor." Sheen, 52, still plans to earn money, the Guardian reports, but he'll use it to fund worthy projects. "There was something quite liberating about going, all right, I'll put large amounts of money into this or that, because I'll be able to earn it back again," Sheen said, adding, "I've essentially turned myself into a social enterprise."

"I don't want to just be someone who enjoys the fruits of what other people have done and then pull the drawbridge up," the Good Omens star said in an interview with The Big Issue. A couple of events helped bring him to this point, Sheen said. He sold his US and UK houses to save the 2019 Homeless World Cup in Cardiff, which he'd organized, when the funding vanished at the last minute, per the Hollywood Reporter. He decided he couldn't let the soccer tournament collapse. "It was scary and incredibly stressful," Sheen said. "And I’ll be paying for it for a long time."

Another turning point came when he spent time in Port Talbot, South Wales, for a project. "I got to know people and organizations within my hometown that I didn’t know existed," he said. "Little groups who were trying to help young carers, who had just enough funding to make a tiny difference to a kid's life by putting on one night a week where they could get out and go bowling or watch a film and just be a kid." When he returned months later, the organizations were gone after running out of money. Sheen said he realized the difference a modest amount of funding could make in a child's life. (More charitable giving stories.)

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