The secret to succeeding on The Celebrity Traitors is being able to hide your real emotions at the roundtable – and yet, contestant Michael Sheen reckons it’s his acting ability that set him back in the competition.
The thespian, who has received Olivier and Bafta nominations for varied theatre and TV work, is competing on the show’s 2026 series alongside the likes of comedian Miranda Hart, presenter Amol Rajan, singer James Blunt and model Jerry Hall.
Starting this week, the series will see host Claudia Winkleman pick her Traitors out of the 21 celebrities, after which the remaining Faithfuls need to uncover them before they’re “murdered” by the selected players.
Speaking about the show ahead of its launch on Thursday, Sheen said that he felt he had a “disadvantage” in the competition by being an actor.
When asked how he thought his public persona would affect how others perceived him in the game, Sheen said: “Well, I do think it's a disadvantage to be an actor because people immediately go, ’Oh well, he pretends for a living.’ I don't think that is the case, because the whole point of acting is that you have to trick yourself into believing that what you're doing is true.
“If you are consciously aware that you're pretending or you're saying things that aren't true, then it's bad acting. It's just bad.”
He added that other players will be “already suspicious” of the fact he’s an actor and outside of that, he’s not sure what people think of him.
Sheen is best known for portraying Sir Tony Blair in The Queen, The Deal and The Special Relationship, as well as his roles in Frost/Nixon, The Twilight Saga and Good Omens.
Sheen isn’t the only actor in the game, with The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey, Industry’s Myha’la, ex Coronation Street actor Julie Hesmondhalgh, EastEnders’ Ross Kemp, My Mad Fat Diary’s Sharon Rooney and Heartstopper’s Sebastian Croft also taking part.
Richard E Grant is also competing and has commented on the bias other players may have against him as an actor. “I think it'll make people more suspicious because they assume that you're a natural-born liar,” he said. “‘Oh, you're an actor, so I can’t believe anything that you say!’”
There are also a number of comedians taking part this year, with James Acaster, Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Beckett, Joe Lycett, Miranda Hart and Joanne McNally competing. McNally recently revealed that the comics won’t be sticking together in the game and are “more than willing to throw each other under the bus”.
“We haven’t been in cahoots at all,” she said, adding: “They are professional entertainers, and they will absolutely kill each other off for the craic.”
Meanwhile, Ranganathan admitted on his podcast this week that he was the “wrong flavour for a certain type of people” while in the Celebrity Traitors castle. “You’ve got 21 people in the castle and I think you get on with certain people more than others – not that you don’t like them,” he said on his Wolf & Owl podcast with Tom Davis.
“And I’m not just saying this about Traitors; I am the wrong flavour for a certain type of people. I think to myself, I love you and the idea that they wouldn’t like you feels really weird to me. But the truth is that there are some people whose personality just rubs people up the wrong way. So sometimes you have to accept that, however you are, it’s not for someone else.”
The Celebrity Traitors begins on Thursday at 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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