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Michael Sheen doesn't like horror movies, but he has an exception for vampires - here's why

Michael Sheen can’t stand horror films, but he loves vampires.

Michael Sheen in Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2
Image credit: Summit Entertainment

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Michael Sheen does not like horror movies. This might puzzle you, especially if you’re familiar with some of the award-winning actor’s projects. Some of our readers might know Sheen as the vampire Aro from the Twilight franchise or Lucien from the Underworld movies. Why is Sheen hesitant to do horror, but comfortable with Twilight?

One word – vampires.

During a spotlight panel at MCM London Comic Con 2022, Sheen spoke about why vampires are the exception for him when it comes to horror.

“There’s sort of a tradition of vampires,” Sheen explained. “I’ve said I don’t like horror films, partly because they have such power over me. I’m sort of sensitive to that material, and that’s partly why I don’t watch them. But I’ve always been fascinated by vampires, and what they represent, what they symbolize to us, and how they’ve changed over each generation, how each generation finds their own version of vampires.”

Sheen isn’t wrong. You can watch Bela Lugosi’s 1931 Dracula film, the 2022 comic book film Morbius, and the Twilight film series. Each film will give you an entirely different idea of what vampires are. Like Sheen said, they keep on evolving. Of course, it helped that Twilight was a blockbuster franchise that his daughter happened to be a fan of.

“Doing Twilight was part of that. I saw how that had affected my daughter. I could see that it was a very powerful thing,” Sheen said.

Indeed, it was. After all, is anything more powerful than vampires (or Stephenie Meyer)?


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