Good Omens: Michael Sheen Says Aziraphale Is “in Love’ With Crowley

Amazon’s Good Omens officially debuted over the weekend, providing fans with a long-awaited live-action adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s iconic novel. With a whole new audience falling in love with the story, it looks like one of the most speculated-about questions – the nature of the relationship between Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and Crowley (David Tennant) – has been brought to the forefront. As Sheen recently explained in an interview with The Telegraph, he interpreted the pair’s unlikely dynamic in a loving context, at least from his character’s point of view.

Mild spoilers for Amazon’s Good Omens below! Only look if you want to know!

“I wanted to play Aziraphale being sort of in love with Crowley.” Sheen revealed. “They’re both very bonded and connected anyway, because of the two of them having this relationship through history – but also because angels are beings of love, so it’s inevitable that he would love Crowley. It helped that loving David is very easy to do.”

Sheen was then asked if he is referring to romantic, platonic, or erotic love, to which he responded in a very particular way.

“Oh, those are human, mortal labels!” Sheen added. “But that was what I thought would be interesting to play with. There’s a lot of fan fiction where Aziraphale and Crowley get a bit hot and heavy towards each other, so it’ll be interesting to see how an audience reacts to what we’ve done in bringing that to the screen.”

Those who have already watched Good Omens probably caught on to Sheen’s interpretation of that dynamic. The show’s third episode, in particular, opens with a nearly half-hour-long sequence of Aziraphale and Crowley’s various meetings throughout history, which some have quickly dubbed “a love story”.

In a sense, Aziraphale and Crowley shippers have been around almost since the book first debuted in 1990, with quite an array of fanfiction and fanart bringing the pair to life before the live-action adaptation even got off the ground. The emotional resonance that the pair’s dynamic has had on fans doesn’t seem to be lost on Gaiman, who also created and wrote the Amazon series. When recently asked on Twitter (via The Mary Sue) if Aziraphale and Crowley were gay, he specified that “they’re an angel and a demon, not male humans”, but that they “absolutely” love each other.

So, there you have it. Aziraphale and Crowley might not subscribe to average gender norms and labels, but the cast and crew of the series certainly acknowledge their unique bond.

All six episodes of Good Omens are now streaming on Amazon Prime.