Actor Michael Sheen has generously acquired debts amounting to £1 million ($1.3 million) from his neighbors and subsequently erased them, utilizing only £100,000 ($129,000) of his personal funds. Renowned for his stellar performances in films such as "The Queen," "Frost/Nixon," "Masters of Sex," and "Good Omens," Sheen embarked on this altruistic "debt heist" two years ago, driven by a dual mission: to assist 900 individuals in his hometown of South Wales and to shed light on the treacherous landscape of the debt industry, which imposes exorbitant interest rates on short-term loans.
The intimate details of his endeavor will unfold in a documentary titled "Michael Sheen's One Million Pound Giveaway," premiering on British TV station Channel 4 later on Monday. In this compelling narrative, Sheen delves into the intricate financial web of the debt industry, revealing how he leveraged this complex system to purchase debts worth ten times the amount of his initial investment.
"Debts are bundled together and purchased by debt-buying companies, which then resell them at discounted prices to other debt-buying entities, causing the value of these debts to dwindle significantly," he elucidated in an interview on BBC TV's "The One Show" last week. "By establishing a company and investing £100,000 of my own money, I was able to acquire £1 million worth of debt, as its value had diminished considerably."
Sheen admits to being unaware of the identities of those whose debts he has cleared, knowing only that they reside in the vicinity of Port Talbot, a region deeply scarred by the decline of its once-thriving steel industry. "The suffering of these individuals is all too real," he shares in a poignant scene from the documentary, where he sits in a local cafe in Port Talbot, recounting how waitresses recounted stories of steelworkers breaking down in tears over the loss of their livelihoods.
A long-time advocate for stricter regulation of the UK's credit system, Sheen founded the pressure group, the End High Cost Credit Alliance, in 2017. As part of his broader campaign surrounding the documentary, he is actively lobbying the British government to enact the Fair Banking Act, which aims to enhance fair lending practices from financial institutions to low-income individuals, thereby reducing their reliance on predatory payday lenders and loan sharks.
