British actor Michael Sheen says the key to playing real-life controversial Leeds United manager Brian Clough in The Damned United -- was a TV interview.
Clough's tumultuous reign of the soccer club in 1974 lasted a mere 44 days.
It was Clough's first day in his new job and he stopped by the local TV station for a chat and during his introduction they showed footage of him being injured as a player in 1962, which essentially ended his career on the pitch.
"And the camera is on Clough watching this footage, and he doesn't know the camera's on him, so you see Clough watching the footage of the worst moment of his entire life," Sheen, 40, told Sun Media during round table interviews at the Toronto International Film Festival last month.
"And there's just this look of vulnerability and pain on his face and naked(ness) and then he realizes the camera's on him and suddenly changes into the Clough we know. The arrogant, brash Clough, and you kind of go, 'Ahhhhhhh, that's who Clough is.' Somewhere between those two things, that's the palette that I'm going to be using."
Sheen, who has made nailing real-life portrayals his speciality in such films as The Queen (Tony Blair) and Frost/Nixon (David Frost), says taking on Clough, the most famous soccer manager in England, was the kind of risk he likes to take.
"It went way beyond soccer. He was one of the most famous people in the country," Sheen said.
"But as with all the parts that I've played that Peter (Morgan) has written, real-people there, it's always with a certain amount of trepidation that I get started on it. But that's the part of the fun of it, the challenge, the risk of it, to know that you're going to play someone that people have very strong opinions about, have a lot of affection for, and are very familiar with."
Sheen said he and the film-makers likened Clough's relationship with Leeds, whose "dirty" playing he had openly criticized when he managed rivals Derby Country previously, like a bad marriage.
"Clough knows that this woman is bad for him and he shouldn't go down that road. It's going to lead to destruction, but he just can't help himself, and eventually the fever breaks and then he goes back to his wife and asks for forgiveness," said Sheen with a smile.
After leaving Leeds, Clough -- a prolific scorer when he played with both Middlesbrough and Sunderland -- would go on to win two back-to-back European titles as manager for Nottingham Forest. However, his vengeful ways would catch up with him.
"As time went on, he became a much, much severe alcoholic, and really fell apart.
"Even though he had future achievements, there was always something self-destructive in Clough. And I think there is when anyone is fuelled by so much anger and resentment and hurt, initially. And I think that was why the injury was a central thing.
"It must be very difficult for someone who considered himself to be the greatest goal-scorer that England had ever produced to then have to watch other people.
"He can't actually go out on the pitch and do it. Whereas in training, apparently he would always stand around by the goal mouth, and then whenever the ball came he was the one who put it in the back of the net.
"He missed scoring goals so much. And there's something really sweet about that, something tragic about that.
"It's like an alcoholic working in a bar, watching everyone else do the thing you really want to do."
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