This sort of introspection has come naturally to Sheen over the past decade.

Despite enjoying great success living and working in the US, Sheen decided to move back home after having “a sort of awakening … about the political context of Wales” and a responsibility to support and advocate for his local community.

Over the past five years or so, he’s split his time between acting and charity work or, as he says, “what people would call activism”.

“At the time, it weirdly got turned into me wanting to come home and fight Nazis and stop Brexit. But really I’d just got to a point in my life where I had resources, and I wanted to make use of that.”

Sheen is a patron and fundraising partner for many charitable organisations. In 2019 he even re-mortgaged his house to help bring the Homeless World Cup to Wales – a debt he says he’s still paying off, but happy to have.

Though he now views acting opportunities as the “engine” to drive these other activities, Sheen is particularly excited about the chance to perform in an ambitious staging of Amadeus at such an iconic venue.

Ebony Bott, who programmed the work for the Opera House, tells the Herald that audiences should expect a real “spectacle”.

Unlike when Sheen first performed the show, for instance, this production will feature live music with 18 members of The Metropolitan Orchestra and six opera singers on stage among the 11 ensemble members. The costumes will also be directed by iconic Sydney fashion house Romance Was Born, which Bott says really “pulls the work into this century”.

“There was something about this idea that seemed to harness everything about what the Opera House is. It’s about celebrating everything from the last 50 years, while looking forward to the next 50.”

Appropriately, Sheen will also share the stage with some of the city’s most exciting young talents. Mozart will be played by Kurdistan-born Sydney actor Rahel Romahn, who won the prestigious Heath Ledger Scholarship earlier this year. And fellow local actor Lily Balatincz will play Mozart’s wife, Constance.

Sheen is excited about the opportunity to play a new part, as disorienting as it can be.

“I’ve found the process of getting older – not just as an actor, but as a person – pretty extraordinary,” he says. ”My grandmother once said to me, ‘I still feel like I’m 15 in my head’. And I remember thinking that was an odd thing to say. But now I completely understand. Everything else outside of you seems to change. But inside, you feel pretty much the same.

“I remember being taken by surprise when suddenly I wasn’t the youngest person in a company anymore, or when suddenly I was playing fathers instead of sons. I don’t play the boxer anymore; I play the trainer.

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“It is definitely a challenge not to suddenly start shouting in the middle of the street about the shock of getting older. And the frustration of not being as you once were.”

There’s a certain beauty, however, in understanding that your time is finite, Sheen says.

“When I was younger, I used to think, ‘My life is really going to start a bit further down the road’. And then at a certain point, you go, ‘Oh, no! This is my life. It’s happening’. And then you start to think, ‘Oh my god! Most of it has happened’ and you start panicking about all that.

“I think the main lesson is to try and make the most of it right now and enjoy as much as you can from what you’ve got.“