Good Omens 2: Michael Sheen On The 'Very Moving' Experience Of Playing Aziraphale Again [Exclusive Interview]
The second season of "Good Omens" will give us more of many people's favorite supernatural entities: Aziraphale (Michael Sheen), the angel with a penchant for fine wine and old books, and Crowley (David Tennant), the demon who can't help but have a conscience.
The supernatural entities' time on Earth, however, gets disrupted when an amnesiac angel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) shows up (naked, no less) on the doorstep of Aziraphale's bookshop. "I loved playing the scenes where Jon just sits there with that stupid grin on his face and just drives Aziraphale bonkers," Sheen told me in an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike about his experience shooting season 2.
Sheen and I talked about what it was like to don Aziraphale's robes once more, how the story in season 2 grabbed him, and his favorite details of the production's Soho set.
Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
'He walked onto the set in full Crowley garb and it was very emotional'
What it was like for you to don Aziraphale's robes again in the second round of episodes?
Well, it was wonderful. Yes, it was absolutely wonderful. I mean, during "Good Omens," the first season, was one of the most enjoyable professional experiences I've had — working with David [Tennant] and playing these characters and working with Neil [Gaiman] on something that I've been a fan of since the book came out. So it was just an absolutely joyful experience, that first [season].
So to be able to come back to the character and that world and to take the story forward into new places, it was just glorious. Yeah, I loved it. And it was very moving, the first time I put the costume back on. It was very moving to meet the character again, to feel him suddenly appear again. It was wonderful.
Then seeing David appear as well, because David was ill when we started filming on season 2. I think he had Covid and so he couldn't start. So I did the first week or something, or the first four or five days, without him, and then suddenly there he was. He walked onto the set in full Crowley garb and it was very emotional.
'This fly gets stuck into their ointment and everything changes again'
How did Neil describe what Aziraphale would be doing in season 2? How did he lay out the season at a high level for Aziraphale?
I can't remember now. I'm sorry. I can't remember that, how he described it, because having done it, I now have no memory whatsoever of how he described it to begin with. But I know what we wanted to explore and I always remember what he was aiming to get to by the end of the second series, because of ideas that he and Terry [Pratchett] had talked about with where the story might go. So I remember him talking about where we were aiming to get to, and obviously it begins with [Aziraphale and Crowley] no longer working for their respective companies. They're sort of out on their own. They're a team unto themselves now.
And then this fly gets stuck into their ointment and everything changes again. So I feel like, if my memory serves me correctly — which it invariably doesn't these days — I think it was about the idea of Gabriel coming into their lives again in a very unexpected way, and then that eventually building to the point that they get to at the end of this series, which I won't say because that would be to give things away.
'I mean, they are like a married couple'
Speaking of Gabriel, and you see this in the trailer and especially in the first episode, Crowley and Aziraphale are like an odd couple in certain ways and it's almost like they got a child. How is that dynamic with Jon Hamm [who plays Gabriel]?
Well, certainly for a character like Aziraphale, it's great comic material. For a character like Aziraphale, who frets and worries, stresses, and gets exasperated, to have a character who just is totally exasperating that he has to look after was just a very rich area to explore. But yeah, very much so.
I mean, they are like a married couple, even though they're a very odd couple, they do complement each other in all kinds of ways. And yes, they suddenly have this person who's dependent on them [...] but they're also aware, having had past experiences with him. So it was a brilliant idea to have Gabriel suddenly show up with apparently no memory of who he is and to have them have to look after him and deal with him. It's a brilliant device, I think, and it was great to play.
I loved playing the scenes where Jon just sits there with that stupid grin on his face and just drives Aziraphale bonkers. They were great scenes to play, and I really enjoyed them. And it was great to see Jon again. I mean, we had such a great time together on the first one, and I know Jon anyway, outside of "Good Omens," and it was just so great to get to spend more time together.
'Every single album in there had to be made up'
I know for the second season, the Soho lot, it was a whole street, right? Created in Scotland?
It was a whole block, or more than a block even, of Soho that was built in the studio. It was extraordinary. I mean, in this series, not only do we expand the world of Soho in story terms to where we meet all the people who run the different shops and cafes and stuff around there, and we get to know that community a lot more. But also it physically grew as well.
I mean, in the studio, in Bath Gates up in Scotland, there was just this huge Soho set with cars driving around in it and hundreds of people and all these shops and the detailed work in these shops. I mean, this is what I always get blown away by on productions, is the detail that goes into the design. I mean, Maggie's record shop, every single album in there had to be made up. It was just made-up albums, made-up names of bands. I would spend hours in between takes, just wandering around looking at the designs of these records and the ridiculous names of bands that they'd come up with. It was brilliant. And the pub and the magic shop — oh my God, the magic shop, I just wanted to live in. It was just brilliant. All that detail and all that design work was fantastic.
You've had a long and very impressive career, and among many other roles, you've played now an angel, a vampire, and a werewolf. Is there any other supernatural being you'd want to play next?
I played a lot of different things. I'm not sure. Have I played a ghost? I'm not sure if I've played a ghost. Maybe I have. Yeah. I'm up for any supernatural beings. I'm open to any and all.
All six episodes of "Good Omens 2" premiere on Prime Video on July 28, 2023.