Good Omens 2: Michael Sheen’s Epic World Cup Speech to Wales Team

In a little more than a week, New York Comic Con )NYCC) will be the place to be to learn a lot more about BBC Studios & Amazon Prime’s Michael Sheen & David Tennant-starring sequel series/season to Neil Gaiman and the late Sir Terry Pratchett‘s Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. But what we’ve learned about Sheen over the past two weeks is that if he ever considers retiring from acting, he has a very promising future as a life coach & motivational speaker. Earlier this month, Sheen appeared on the British game show A League of Their Own, where he was asked what he would say to inspire the Wales men’s national soccer team ahead of their run in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. What followed was nothing short of epic, made more so by the fact that it looked like it was on the fly and from the heart. Well, it didn’t take long for word to get to Wales team manager Rob Page, who invited Sheen to speak to the team directly.

“Close your eyes and feel the breath on the back of your necks. Because that’s every man, woman, and child in this old land standing there with you at your backs. That’s the people of Wales, your people,” Sheen says to the team in an inspirational speech for the ages. “Feel their breath quickening with yours. Hear their blood drumming in your ears, pounding through your heart, bursting through your chest. That’s the blood of Wales, your blood, red as the ancient book of dreams. Red as the rising flag of Merthyr. Red as the great wall of Gwalia. Because that’s what you carry with you, boys.” Here’s a look at Sheen’s initial “pitch” as a motivational speaker for the Wales football team, followed by the amazingly impassioned speech he was able to deliver to the team On Monday:

When the story continues in Good Omens 2, Aziraphale (Sheen) and Crowley (Tennant) are getting back into their easy-living lives among the mortals populating London’s Soho. But when an unexpected messenger presents them with a surprising mystery, the game’s afoot once more for our duo. “Oh, it’s wonderful. It’s so much fun,” Gaiman responded when asked how the sequel season was shaping up during an interview with Rolling Stone. “Partly because I learned so much. The first time you do something, you just learn how to do it, and then you can start to play. So when I wrote and made ‘Good Omens,’ I was learning, how do you do a ‘Good Omens’? I think there’s this thing in my head, but how does it work? I feel like ‘Good Omens’ season one was ‘Chopsticks.’ This is much more me getting to the whole orchestra.”

Tennant and Sheen are joined by Jon Hamm, Miranda Richardson, Maggie Service, Nina Sosanya, Doon Mackichan, Gloria Obianyo, Liz Carr, Quelin Sepulveda, Shelley Conn, Derek Jacobi, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Niamh Walsh, Dame Siân Phillips, Tim Downie, Pete Firman, Andi Osho, and Alex Norton. Benedict Cumberbatch and Frances McDormand will not be returning as Satan and God, respectively. Gaiman will executive produce and serve as co-showrunner with director Douglas Mackinnon. Rob Wilkins, John Finnemore, and BBC Studios Productions’ Head of Comedy Josh Cole also executive produce, with Finnemore co-writing alongside Gaiman. Amazon Studios, BBC Studios Productions, The Blank Corporation, and Narrativia are set to produce.