Michael Sheen: ‘Going on holiday doesn’t matter to me as much as paying off 900 people’s debts’

South Wales has a million more reasons to be thankful for Michael Sheen’s willingness to put his money where his heart and his politics are. Because the superstar actor and proud son of Port Talbot is not just
taking on payday lenders, loan sharks and the entire rigged banking industry in a new documentary that continues his campaigning work on the high cost of credit. He’s also using his own money to cancel people’s debts in his local community.

Michael Sheen’s Secret One Million Pound Giveaway begins with the actor entering a Post Office. “I’d like to make a withdrawal please. One hundred thousand pounds. And a book of stamps.”

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It’s an audacious and expensive stunt to draw attention to rampant inequalities in the consumer debt market; Sheen used that £100,000 of his own money to buy £1m of debt owed by people in South Wales. And then simply wrote the debts off overnight. A life-changing gesture of solidarity that helped 900 residents. 

“It was a big hit, when it came to it,” says Sheen, when he calls Big Issue. 

“And 900 people having some debts written off is a big deal for them – and certainly was a big deal for me. But it is a drop in the ocean. We want to put the focus on change that could help millions. I was working towards positive change for as many as possible.”

This is not the first time Michael Sheen has spent his own money for the public good. In a previous Big Issue interview, Sheen dubbed himself a “not-for-profit actor”. Since 2019, when he sold houses in LA and the UK to make sure the Homeless World Cup in Cardiff went ahead after a funding issue, Sheen has been using the money he earns acting in shows – from A Very Royal Scandal (in which he played Prince Andrew) to Staged to Good Omens – in this way. 

“I’ve put my own money into all sorts of things,” he says. “I’m currently funding the Welsh National Theatre as well. I have found that it carries a lot more weight, you get more done, and a lot more cooperation and collaboration if it is clear you have real skin in the game.

“I learnt from doing the Homeless World Cup – because that wiped me out. I had literally nothing. Less than nothing, I went into massive debt which, in some ways, I’m still paying off now. But it taught me that’s OK. Because I can earn money and it mitigates a lot of the risk. I don’t need to do James Bond or Doctor Who to keep doing this – my career is doing well enough at the moment.

“But I have to be careful. I’m aware I have a window that will eventually close and I won’t always be able to earn enough money. But while I can? Even if it’s not always as effective as I’d like it to be, I’m going to do it.”

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Sheen was expecting this documentary to be a few weeks of work. Instead, it took two years – during which he set up a secret financial services company and applied for licences to be allowed to trade in the secondary debt market for what he dubs his “debt heist”.

It’s all part of a campaign to expose the unfairness of the credit system, push for political change in the regulation of borrowing, and draw attention to solutions that could offer relief for so many lower-income people from the ongoing cost of the cost of living crisis. 

Sheen is in no doubt that there is a credit crisis in this country. By October 2024, more than 2.2 million low-income families had high-cost loans. 

In the documentary, he meets Kerry, manager of the local boxing club, gym and community centre – who is working full time yet forced to rely on food banks at the end of the month and has racked up £12,000 in credit card debt. 

Last year, 20% of lower-income households borrowed money or used a credit card to pay for rent, energy or council tax. This at a time when the Big Four banks were making pre-tax profit of £44.3bn, much of it because of high interest rates that see an average 35.3% APR on credit cards.

“A lot of things changed over the two years we have been working on this documentary,” says Sheen. 

“When we started, the urgency was because we were heading into a cost of living crisis. Everyone was talking about their energy bills going up. People were already finding things difficult, and we wanted to stop people getting into a spiral of debt where you can’t get out of it.

“But over the two years, things got worse. My local community in Port Talbot was hit really hard with the blast furnace being closed down. We were filming on the day the last shipment came in for the steelworks. It was a hugely emotional day and a big turning point. Men were sitting in the cafe openly weeping. 

“It really brought it all home. It feels like a completely different place now. The knock-on effects are going to be huge and are going to go on for years.”

Big Issue founder Lord John Bird has often spoken of how “it is very expensive to be poor”. The high cost of credit for low-income families is another example of a system skewed against those with the least. 

Michael Sheen has been on this quest for many years. In 2018, he launched the End High Cost Credit Alliance – initially taking on Wonga and BrightHouse. But he knows that vanquishing “the bad guys” is great for getting headlines, yet only opens up another underground, unregulated market for loan sharks to fill. 

“A lot of things surprised me making this documentary – to hear about the rise of loan sharks again, and people being taken up the mountain and threatened with violence – it seemed extraordinary that we were heading back into that stuff,” he says. 

“The landscape has changed. Wonga has gone. So people think it must be better. But one of the things I want to make clear is that just stopping the bad guys is not enough if you don’t support better alternatives. Because people will still need access to credit.

“People are very happy to get on board with taking down the bad guys. That’s an easy win. People are much more reluctant to get on board with the harder slog, which is building better alternatives for people.”

The government changed during the making of this film. Rachel Reeves became the new chancellor. Like her Tory predecessor, she refused to talk with Sheen when he tried to bring up the high cost of credit. 

However, he did get an audience with Gordon Brown – who makes some big promises. And he was impressed, he says, by the new intake of Labour MPs, one of whom, Lloyd Hatton, leads the All Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Banking.  

“A lot of them have just got their feet under the desk, if they even have a desk,” Sheen says. “It was all new and exhilarating for them. But I got a real sense of why some of them came into politics. These were people who wanted to make positive change – so I was pleased to see how motivated they were. We have to capitalise on that.”

So who are the good, or better guys that Michael Sheen is championing?

“It’s credit unions, it’s the CDFI [Community Development Finance Institutions] and the responsible lenders. But I also learned about the Fair Banking Act and met people trying to get politicians on board with it. Because there is a place for government and a place for the banking system in changing this – and the Fair Banking Act could be the mechanism to make that happen. We need to put pressure on the government to look at it seriously.

“It became clear that the resistance to engage was coming from the government and the banking industry. So I needed to come at it from a different angle. That’s where I’m hoping
Gordon Brown will come up trumps. But it’s going to be a long process.”

In the meantime, Sheen is going to continue to use his earnings from acting to fight the good fight.

“I put as much of the money that I earn as I possibly can into the things that matter to me,” he says.

“It just so happens that going on holiday doesn’t matter to me as much as paying off 900 people’s debts. That can change. I reserve the right to also use my money to buy stuff for my kids. Or for me, if I need a new coat.” 

Michael Sheen’s Secret One Million Pound Giveaway is on Channel 4 on 10 March.

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