Los Angeles: Acclaimed Welsh actor Michael Sheen said the cinema of India, including movies by legenadary Indian filmmakers Satyajit Ray and Mira Nair, have had a big influence on him.

“I would love to come and do something in India. It will be amazing. The films from India, the cinema of India has had such a big influence on me, watching Satyajit Ray, Mira Nair films. It is such an incredible country and culture and so I hope that I can come soon,” Sheen told PTI in an interview here.

Sheen stars in the sci-fi romance movie “Passengers”, which has Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence and “Jurassic World” star Chris Pratt in the lead roles. “Passengers”, a Sony Pictures Entertainment film, will hit Indian theatres on January 6 in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. The movie is about two strangers Jim and Aurora, played by Pratt and Lawrence, who are on a 120-year journey to another planet on a technologically-advanced “cruise-liner” style space ship when their hibernation pods wake them 90 years too early. Jim and Aurora are forced to unravel the mystery behind the malfunction as the ship teeters on the brink of collapse, jeopardizing the lives of the several thousand passengers traveling from Earth on the spaceship to the distant planet for starting a new life. Sheen plays ‘Arthur’, an android bartender onboard the ship. Sheen said playing the role of a robotic bartender was “physically quite uncomfortable” as he had to be strapped into a machine and had a steel rod tied through his back to facilitate his robotic movements. The actor said he had a great time working with Lawrence and Pratt, adding that “it was just such a laugh working” with them on the sets. “They are great people, really funny and we all got along really well which is handy because it was just the three of us everyday for a long time,” he said. — PTI