LOS ANGELES - "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" features the first appearance of the feared vampire clan the Volturi.

Michael Sheen, who plays head vamp Aro, says his vampire sounds a little bit like characters from the Beatles animated movie "Yellow Submarine."

"You remember the Blue Meanies?" Sheen asks.

Sheen wanted to come up with a voice that would reflect how Aro was almost 2,000 years old, and be true to Stephenie Meyer's books.

"It was from Stephenie, in the book she describes Aro having a voice like feathers. That made me sort of try to think about what would it sound like if a person had a voice like feathers," Sheen says.

That's when he realized he sounded like the animated character. He was OK with the voice decision when he remembered how much the Blue Meanies disturbed him when he was a child growing up in Wales.

Sheen doesn't have much experience playing ancient vampires. His acting jobs have been less mythical, from former Prime Minister Tony Blair in "The Queen" to David Frost in "Frost/Nixon."

He did play a werewolf in "Underworld: The Rise of the Lycans." For Sheen, the main difference between vampires and werewolves is that the wardrobe for vampires is far more stylish. While he was playing the less fashionable werewolf in "Underworld," Sheen got to observe the vampires of the film. That made him excited to bring his own fangs to the role of Aro.

Next year, Sheen gets to take another acting trip into the world of fantasy in "Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland," in which he will play the White Rabbit.

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