Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway | movie | 2025 | Official Featurette - video Dailymotion

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In an audacious campaign to demand better borrowing, Michael Sheen buys £1m of debt from hundreds of people in Wales, a | dG1fUkxDVW5ZcUZodDQ

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00:00Credit is not a bad thing. Everyone needs help at certain points.

00:05And if you're just sort of punished for it, or you have to pay more because you actually have less,

00:11there's just a basic unfairness there, and that needs to be put right.

00:15Using £100,000 of my own money, I've managed to buy £1 million of debt

00:21belonging to nearly 900 people in South Wales.

00:25Here's to it.

00:41I'm not good at keeping secrets at all, so to keep it for two years is quite hard.

00:45Everyone was talking about the cost of living crisis and the fuel heating bills going up and that kind of stuff.

00:51So we knew it was going to be a tough time for a lot of people.

00:54It became more and more urgent, really, what we were covering and what we were trying to tackle.

01:01The thing that we were worried about was that people need credit, people need access to this,

01:07this kind of credit and this kind of help at certain times.

01:10And if you're in a low-income household and you feel like your options are very limited

01:17and then those options get taken away because they're deemed to be the bad guys

01:20and you're kind of left not knowing what to do,

01:23then the danger is that you start going to even more extreme circumstances

01:28and that's what we were starting to see happen with loan sharks appearing more again.

01:31There was a young lad about 19, 20.

01:34He borrowed £500 and he ended up paying back £5,500.

01:40Wow.

01:41I was quite shocked by some of the things they would do to get their money back, you know,

01:44whether that be threats, you know, an arm broken, smashing windows, taking cars or, you know,

01:50some of the stories we told of people being taken up into woods and told to dig their own grave.

01:59There's a lot of myths about, oh, well, if you're in debt,

02:02it's because you're paying for things you don't need and, you know,

02:05and it's people, it's their own problem, it's their own fault.

02:08Well, we talked to people in this film where you get to know, you know,

02:12the sort of person who might be in this situation.

02:14Of course, it's anybody, really, and increasingly more and more so

02:17because of, you know, what everyone's going through.

02:20These are people who are working really hard and are really resilient

02:24and are just finding it really difficult once they do, you know,

02:28dip under to come out the other side again.

02:36I think there needs to be transparency from the banks about who they're lending to

02:40and, more importantly, who they're not lending to.

02:42And I think there really does need to be a real motivation for the banks

02:48to be able to support the more, what we would call,

02:52fair and responsible credit providers, the alternatives,

02:55so the credit unions and the CDFIs and the ones who are out there,

02:58what I call the good guys.

02:59So anything that makes the banks help the better options for people

03:05would be brilliant, and that's what it seems like the Fair Banking Act could do.

03:09So, but it does need to come from government

03:12because the banks aren't going to do it unless they're made to

03:16because, you know, they're looking out for their shareholders and all the rest of it.

03:24You have a legal obligation as soon as you buy someone's debt

03:27to let them know immediately that, you know, who owns it.

03:29If you're watching this, then that means you've just received a letter

03:33saying that personal debt belonging to you is now owed to a different company.

03:38Well, that company is mine.

03:41I'm writing all that debt off.

03:44And so when we sent out those letters,

03:46we tried to make sure that there was a way for them to then get in touch with us

03:50and to let them know that the debt had been written off.

03:53But, you know, obviously in hindsight, you kind of realise that, of course,

03:56I wouldn't do that because I'd be scared that it was a scam.

03:59And so it was quite difficult to get in contact with people,

04:04but ultimately that wasn't the point.

04:06I'm hoping that the work that we're doing through the documentary,

04:09by people watching it,

04:10that it creates a sort of momentum to get change to happen

04:15that will help many, many more people.

04:17So helping the 900 was hopefully a way to help those 900 people,

04:23but also to get to creating change that will help millions.

Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway | movie | 2025 | Official Featurette

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