‘Some people like me, and you either have a thing that people want to follow or you don’t.’
FREEMAN SPEAKING TO ALICE WIGNALL IN THE GUARDIAN, 2009
With the success of The Office, people saw Freeman as a comedy actor. This was a notion he chose to squash as he began to shift his career towards more dramatic roles on TV.
From 18 April to 11 May 2002 Freeman returned to the theatre to star in Kosher Harry at London’s Royal Court. Directed by comedienne and actress Kathy Burke, written by Nick Grosso and co-starring Mark Benton, Claudie Blakley and June Watson, the play focuses on the racism that occurs in London life and how it has continued with each passing generation. It is set in a kosher café in St John’s Wood, where Russian waitresses are called ‘Gladiola’ because their names are considered unpronounceable by the locals, all the Jews are in show business, black people eat only banana fritters and the Spanish have a weak moral backbone. The play centres on the characters that frequent the café.
Philip Fisher wrote in the British Theatre Guide, ‘As might be expected from a play written by Nick Grosso and directed by Kathy Burke, there is a real hard edge to the comedy. Not one of the four characters is what he or she seems to be and the central figure, a young man played nonchalantly by the excellent Martin Freeman, might even be a servant of Beelzebub. The play is made up of a number of short scenes containing perfect-sounding dialogue that often has limited meaning. These scenes are split by one-second explosions rather like instant power cuts.’
The Independent’s Rhoda Koenig slammed the play, however: ‘Kosher Harry makes a point of locating its restaurant in St John’s Wood, a prosperous Jewish neighbourhood in London. There is only one such establishment there, and I wouldn’t like anyone to think there’s a connection, for its service and hygiene are far superior and its customers funnier than those shown here. Is Kosher Harry the worst play of 2002? I’d like to think so, but there’s only so much optimism I can summon up.’
Maddy Costa wrote in her three out of five-star review in The Guardian, ‘In Kathy Burke’s nifty production in the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs, the play is intermittently hilarious, unnerving and trapped in Pinter’s shadow. The performances are excellent: Claudie Blakley struts winningly as the waitress, June Watson finds a singularity in the caricatured old woman, and Mark Benton is a wonderfully crude cabbie. Martin Freeman is particularly good as the man, his face moulding itself constantly to mirror the thoughts of his companions. Like Burke, the cast revel in the grotesque cockney banter; they bring a farcical tone to the evening, but never the intensity that the play needs to really resonate.’
Dominic Cavendish penned a review in the Daily Telegraph, saying, ‘Kathy Burke – who has been turning from acting to directing of late – elicits buoyant, attention-seeking performances from her cast but can’t disguise the play’s sagging credibility. A tottering catastrophe of smudged lipstick and pigtails, Claudie Blakley’s waitress is almost a duplicate version of Burke at her trashiest hilarious best, even doing those signature curtseying movements. And Mark Benton is a thoroughly convincing fat-gut, no-brained cabbie. As the young stranger, Martin Freeman, the terminally bored hero of the BBC sitcom The Office – fidgets at [his] table, eyebrows working overtime to convey polite interest in the natter. You can tell, though, that he’d rather be anywhere else. And who can blame him?’
Freeman later starred as DC Stone in three episodes of the British legal drama Helen West in 2002. Based on three books by acclaimed crime author Frances Fyfield, Helen West stars Amanda Burton as a crown prosecutor with a deep passion for the legal system and who is particularly interested in women’s issues.
ITV piloted Helen West as a one-off episode in 1999 starring Juliet Stevensen but the actress didn’t want to commit herself to an ongoing series and declined to return. ITV subsequently hired Silent Witness actress Amanda Burton for the drama, which cost a staggering £3 million to make. The channel was looking for a crime series to replace Kavanagh QC, which starred the late Inspector Morse actor John Thaw. Alan Wright, the chief executive of the series’s producers, Arrowhead, spoke to BBC News Online about Helen West: ‘It’s a character we hope will find favour with the audience. As with all these things, its future will be determined by ratings… But it has been consciously designed as a returning series.’
Freeman first appeared in the episode ‘Deep Sleep’, which aired on 6 May 2002. He then appeared in ‘Shadow Play’, which was broadcast on 13 May, and ‘A Clear Conscience’, which aired on 20 May.
He also played the character of Matt in an episode in series two of Linda Green entitled ‘Easy Come, Easy Go’, which aired on 10 December 2002. Linda Green ran for two series between 2001 and 2002 and was originally broadcast on BBC1. The series focuses on its namesake (played by Lisa Tarbuck), a thirty-something woman whose day job is that of a car sales woman who works as a club singer at night. The series follows the issues of love, relationships and friends and features appearances from Christopher Eccleston, David Morrissey, Simon Pegg, Pam Ferris, Anne Reid, Jamie Theakston, Peter Kay and Meera Syal in addition to Martin Freeman. Ratings slipped, however, and a third series was not commissioned.
The series received very mixed reviews. Gareth McLean of The Guardian was unenthused: ‘I really wanted to like Linda Green… And yet, it was ill-conceived, dramatically unsatisfying and a huge disappointment… When your standards are high, your reputation formidable and your output 10 times better than anything your peers are producing, it is much easier to disappoint your audience.’
Robert Hanks of The Independent wrote, ‘The combination of Abbott’s needling, believable dialogue and Tarbuck’s sharply timed delivery is appealing… but, despite the hype, Linda Green isn’t breaking any new ground… Her sassy, witty person isn’t a million miles from the character Lesley Sharp played in Abbott’s Clocking Off.’
The Daily Mirror’s Tony Purnell said, ‘Linda Green should be the perfect combination for a comedy drama but it turns out to be a very uneasy mix… It was much cruder and far less funny than Cold Feet or Coupling.’
Paul Connolly wrote in The Times, ‘Very quickly, the serrated script, perspicacious observations and well-drawn cast of characters draw you in.’
Following his appearance in Linda Green, Freeman was cast as Terry Ross in the TV film The Debt, about a former robber who agrees, albeit reluctantly, to do one more robbery to protect his family. Freeman’s character is the less-than-useful son-in-law of retired safe-breaker Geoff Dresner, played by seasoned TV actor Warren Clarke. Released on 21 August 2003, The Debt also stars Hugo Speer and Freeman’s partner Amanda Abbington. Much of the film’s story is told in flashbacks and offers a somewhat muddled chronology of events.
‘The Debt is a story about a criminal, a detective and a lawyer and how their lives collide with each other,’ explained writer Richard McBrien to BBC News. ‘The idea is that all three men owe debts to their children in some way which affects the way they do their job.
‘I can sympathise with all three characters,’ continues McBrien. ‘I wanted to show that in their own world, criminals, detectives and lawyers are all good people, not real villains. The there [sic] men are trying to lead a good life but become compromised by events.’
Freeman continued his ventures into more dramatic roles when he played D.S. Stringer in the 2003 TV film Margery And Gladys, which was broadcast on 21 September of that year. It also stars Penelope Keith, June Brown and Roger Lloyd-Pack. The story concerns the recently widowed Margery Heywood (Keith) and her cleaning lady Gladys Gladwell (Brown), who interrupt a man breaking into Margery’s home in Kent. She attacks the man with a heavy glass vase, which knocks him unconscious. She suspects he is dead, panics and departs the house with Gladys but leaves behind her handbag. The two women decide to drive to Margery’s son, Graham, who lives in Milton Keynes, hoping for money and shelter. The trip turns into a comedy of errors as they are forced to break into a chemist to get some insulin for Gladys’s diabetes. The story follows them as they try to evade police attention and CCTV cameras while Margery discovers a twenty-year affair between her late husband and Gladys, which her son was aware of. The film ends on a night out in Blackpool, where the two women board a boat to the Caribbean. It was directed by Geoffrey Sax, who later made his cinematic debut with the 2005 horror flick White Noise. It is fun, harmless TV-film fodder aimed at older audiences.
The Guardian’s Nancy Banks-Smith observed, ‘They [Margery and Gladys] are pursued by police and press: the deafening Martin Freeman (‘OK! Listen up! Big breakthrough!’), a characterisation, I feel, based on the glorious DCI Grim in The Thin Blue Line; the laconic Lloyd-Pack; and the salivating “Scoop” Morley.’
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Robin Oliver wrote of the film, ‘Some nice cameos here – Peter Vaughan as Gladys’s husband, Troy, and Roger Lloyd-Pack (The Vicar Of Dibley) as Detective Inspector Woolley. Margery & Gladys doesn’t hold a candle to The Norman Conquests, but it provides pleasing Saturday night fare.’
Despite his switch to more serious roles in that year, Freeman still found time for comedy. On 14 March 2003 Comic Relief 2003: The Big Hair Do was screened. It featured the finest of British comedy talent, including Lenny Henry, Jonathan Ross, Harry Enfield and Rowan Atkinson. Martin Freeman starred as Johnny Rotten in a Blankety Blank sketch.
Freeman was continuing to balance his acting talents with both comedy and dramatic parts. However, many of his film roles were little more than cameos. He starred as John in Richard Curtis’s successful 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually: a film set in London at Christmas time that follows ten separate stories, each showing the many different aspects of love. As the film progresses, the stories become interlinked. The film is played out in a weekly countdown five weeks before Christmas and concludes with an epilogue one month later. Released on 21 November 2003, Love Actually was an enormous financial success worldwide and received positive reviews from critics. The ensemble cast includes such revered British actors as Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy and Rowan Atkinson.
Freeman plays John, a professional body double. He meets his partner Judy (Joanna Page), also a body double, on the set of a hardcore porn film. They appear to be very natural in front of the camera performing penetrative sex but off-screen they are very coy around each other. They endeavour to pursue a relationship together and attend the Christmas pageant at the local school with John’s brother. The ten stories interweave and draw a final conclusion.
On appearing nude, Freeman told the Washington Post’s Alona Wartofsky, ‘It’s hard to be naked in front of 150 people. It’s not in any way pleasant. As a man it gives you a kind of window of what quite a lot of jobs are like for quite a lot of women.’
Love Actually was nominated for Best Cast at the Phoenix Film Critics Society awards as well as Best Acting Ensemble at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards. The team bagged the award for Best Ensemble Cast at the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards.
Peter Bradshaw was unenthusiastic about the film, giving it two out of five stars in his review in The Guardian but he praised the cast: ‘Hugh Grant is always good value, and Martin Freeman and Joanna Page do very well as a couple who fall in love while working as stand-ins for what is apparently an expensively produced hardcore porn film.’
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Sukhdev Sandhu said, ‘It’s the newer faces, many imported from television, that offer the greatest pleasures. Gregor Fisher as the doting manager of Bill Nighy, a foul-mouthed has-been rocker who is trying to revive his career. Martin Freeman, from The Office, as a mild-mannered porn actor who falls for his equally sweet co-star; Andrew Lincoln, from This Life and Teachers, gives a performance that at times recalls John Cusack.’
Freeman also portrayed Lord Shaftesbury in the acclaimed BBC2 TV mini-series Charles II: The Power and The Passion, which was filmed in Prague in the Czech Republic and broadcast in November 2003.
‘It wasn’t just about the wigs and the tights, as if that legitimises you as an actor,’ Freeman said to The Guardian’s Stephanie Merritt. ‘I try very hard not to be flattered or bamboozled by money into doing anything, I turned stuff down when I was signing on if I didn’t think it was something I’d be proud of. But if it’s a good script and a good story, then by Christ, bring on the wigs!’
The film stars Rufus Sewell, Martin Turner and Ian McDiarmid and was written by award-winner Adrian Hodges. The creative team aimed to make the story, which tells of Charles II’s tenure on the throne, his decade long exile from England during the reign of Oliver Cromwell and his triumphant return to England, as historically accurate as possible.
Writer Adrian Hodges told BBC News, ‘I found a character in Charles himself who struck me as immensely modern, someone who could speak to us now about the ageless issues of personal and public morality, love, sex, hate, fear, anger and death.’
A heavily edited version was aired in the US under the title The Last King: The Power And The Passion Of King Charles II. Both versions were produced by the BBC in association with the American A&E Network.
‘I think the key to him is that he was constantly shifting and his sole belief was to keep the crown as it was the one thing he promised to his father,’ Rufus Sewell explained to BBC News of King Charles II. ‘So he was capable of being compassionate but also cold and calculating.’
Freeman’s role in the film appeared to go unnoticed but it received some positive reviews when it was released on DVD. The Guardian’s Rupert Smith wrote of the original broadcast, ‘This really was history as drama, with all that implies; it was also one of the very few dramas this year that I wanted to watch without being paid to do so. If Charles II can be topped, I’ll eat my full-bottomed wig.’
DVD Verdict’s Amanda DeWees wrote of the US edit, ‘Structured in two parts, the film is dogged by an episodic structure, which may have been worsened by edits: The British version of the film clocks in at about four hours, which means that almost an hour of footage was cut from this release. These cuts would go some way toward explaining why the first half of the film sometimes seems like a choppy succession of similar scenes: politicians in shouting matches, lovers in wrestling matches, and various characters bursting into rooms to throw hissy fits. The second half of the film recovers to some extent from the episodic beginning and gains some unity of story through the unfolding of the Popish Plot. Likewise, this part seems to find the heart of the story and the characters, where the first half was more concerned with their political lives.’
Freeman took on varying roles to challenge himself as an actor and, in part, to challenge the public’s perception, however misguided, of him as some sort of everyday chap. He is proud to appear in art-house films and less commercial features because they reflect his personal tastes.
‘I’m not purely benign, yeah,’ Freeman admitted to Esquire’s Michael Holden in 2012. ‘I mean – I know I’m not, no one fucking is, but people want to just say… you know, I can name other actors who – I won’t – but you could think of a thousand other actors who people wouldn’t feel, “Oh, would you say hello to my mum?” because people would be a bit scared to do that. But with me I’ve played the parts where people think, “He’s just a good bloke”.’
Freeman had been acting for well over a decade but there were only a couple of things he was best known for at this particular juncture.
‘So what people mean when they say I’m likable is this and The Office, or Love Actually,’ he said to the BBC’s Alana Lee. ‘Again, you can’t answer it without sounding defensive or chippy, but I’ve virtually not had any time out in a decade. My first forays into telly were as sort of drug-taking rent boys who didn’t know whether to fuck you or kill you. They were all these kind of people and it was, like, “Oh, he’s got an edge, this guy Martin.” Now the cycle turns, and it’s, “Oh, he’s so lovely.”’
Despite Freeman’s wish not to be typecast as Tim Canterbury from The Office, he does accept that he’s been fairly lucky in moving away from the character through more recent roles. ‘I think people now know that I’m not just Tim from The Office. The only place that image persists is with a few lazy journalists. You’ll sometimes see a picture of me in something like Charles II with the caption “Tim from The Office in a funny wig”. I’d like you to apologise for that on behalf of the NUJ,’ he told The Independent’s James Rampton in 2007.
Freeman was glad to have moved on to other projects. There was so much that he wanted to do as an actor and he refused to be limited to The Office and comedy in general.
He told BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Richard Bacon in an interview in 2014, ‘I’m very proud of The Office. If it’s on, I still watch it and will laugh. But one of the best things Ricky and Steve did was ending it and making it finite and making it something people look back [on] and go, “I wish there was more of that,” as opposed to doing loads and people saying, “I wish there was less of this.”’
He added, ‘I’m glad not to be doing The Office anymore, not for any career reason or any selfish reason but as a punter, just as a viewer. I’m glad we’re not ruining it.’
Next up on the small screen, he was cast as Mike in the two-series sitcom Hardware, which aired between 2003 and 2004 and ran for a full twelve episodes.
‘There are people who wonder why I did it, and it’s hard not to sound chippy, but it made me laugh,’ Freeman explained to The Guardian’s Stephanie Merritt in 2004. ‘People might think that there’s something boring about it because it’s a much more traditional ITV studio sitcom, but for me it was pure affection for the show – I can say I know why I did it and that’s what matters. There’s this misunderstanding, too – because it didn’t get as much attention – but far more people watch Hardware than ever saw The Office, just by dint of it being on ITV.’
The series also starred Peter Serafinowicz, Ken Morley, Ryan Cartwright, Susan Earl and Ella Kenion. It was written and created by Simon Nye, the man behind the hugely popular sitcom Men Behaving Badly. The programme is set in Harnway’s Hardware Store in London, where Mike works with Steve (Ryan Cartwright) and Kenny (Peter Serafinowicz) for shop owner Rex. Next door but one there is a café called Nice Day Café, where Mike’s girlfriend Anne (Susan Earl) works with Julie (Ella Kenion). The series basically revolves around the staff of the hardware store as they make fun of the DIY fanatics that frequent the premises. The role bagged Freeman the Best Male Comedy Performance award at the 2004 European Rose d’Or awards.
‘You think, how do I get out of this? and the answer is I can’t,’ he said to Alice Wignall of The Guardian when talking about choosing projects. ‘Even if I think I don’t want to do comedy for ages, if I read a script and it’s really good, I want to do it.’
However, Freeman quit the series to pursue serious acting roles, wanting to turn his back on comedy. Hardware was a critical failure but it pulled in around four million viewers. If his heart’s not really in it, Freeman finds it difficult to enjoy the work. He was concerned by the notion that he may be seen as a sitcom actor when his talents extend far beyond half-an-hour weekly episodes of British TV.
‘He wants to turn his back on comedy to avoid typecasting,’ a source told the Sun at the time of the series, in 2004. ‘ITV comedy chiefs are now looking to cast another actor or comedian in his role [in Hardware].’
Freeman later spoke to ShortList about Hardware: ‘… y’know I stopped doing it after two series – I didn’t want to do it anymore. You’re either hardwired to think in that Fawlty Towers way or you’re not… and I think you can think, “Oh let’s keep going until we get into syndication and make pots of money or whatever” – and of course I like money – but I prefer leaving something behind that people go, “That was the right length.”’
2003 brought some notable roles for Freeman and with it came a certain degree of fame and public acknowledgement. Freeman has often struggled with fame as a concept. He doesn’t especially enjoy the trappings that it brings, preferring instead to focus his energy elsewhere. He criticised reality television and said in 2003 that we have reached the zenith of people becoming famous without talent.
‘You know, apparently when Noël Coward met The Beatles he was very nice to them and said to other people, “They’re completely talentless,”’ Freeman explained to the Observer’s Andrew Anthony in 2014. ‘He was older than I am now but still, you’ve got to be careful about what you write off because you can be so solid in your knowledge. You don’t want to be the person who said the Beatles are talentless.’
He reiterated his opinions on modern-day society’s obsession with celebrity culture and how it is out of control to The Independent’s James Rampton in 2007: ‘These days it’s not enough to be acknowledged as a surgeon – you have to be acknowledged as the cover-star of Grazia magazine. After all, that’s much more valuable to society than saving a child’s life, isn’t it?’
Freeman isn’t interested in the celebrity life at all. He certainly doesn’t want to make a career out of it and tends to wonder, with any celebrity event he goes to – which are few and far between and generally part of the promotional work for something he is acting in – why people make a fuss about him. Usually, he sees celebrity events as a waste of time. He’d rather be at home with his family.
‘I thought actors were dodgy until I hung out with stand-up comedians,’ he admitted to Andrew Duncan of Reader’s Digest. ‘They’re pathologically egotistical and make us seem like selfless wallflowers by comparison. I don’t want to be around people who can’t shut up. I guess they’re insecure, but isn’t everyone – unless you’re mental or boring?’
Though it was only a cameo, Freeman was cast as Declan in the zombie film Shaun of the Dead, released on 9 April 2004. The film is the first in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy by actors Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright and inspired by George A. Romero’s revered Dead trilogy. Shaun of the Dead sees Pegg play Shaun, a man who attempts to deal with the issues of his life – namely his girlfriend and his mother and stepfather – while battling an apocalyptic uprising of zombies. The film is filled with pop-culture references, most notably to movies, TV shows and video games. The film is, in many ways, similar to the TV series Spaced, which Pegg, Frost and Wright co-created. Shaun of the Dead was, in actual fact, inspired by the Spaced episode ‘Art’, which sees Pegg’s character Tim hallucinate that he is fighting a zombie invasion under the influence of amphetamines and the PlayStation video game Resident Evil 2. Shaun of the Dead features several actors from Spaced, Black Books and The Office, including Dylan Moran (Black Books), Tamsin Greig (Black Books), Julia Deakin (Spaced) and Reece Shearsmith (Spaced).
Filmed over nine weeks in May and July of 2003, the comedy film received rave reviews from critics and picked up some famous fans along the way, such as Quentin Tarantino, Stephen King and George A. Romero. It was a box-office success and became an instant cult classic.
Empire’s horror-film expert and author Kim Newman said of the film, ‘A surprisingly good TV transfer for the Spaced crew. It may not exactly be Ealing, but it’s funny for long stretches. Even when in danger of self-destructing, it cadges laughs with smart lines, silly observations or blokish inside jokes about zombie movies, video games and pub nibbles.’
2004 also saw Freeman cast as Fleck in the TV film Pride, written by Simon Nye and released on 27 December. The film is about two lion cubs as they grow up and face adult life. Computer-generated imagery was used with digital effects by the esteemed Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. It was shot in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park and, aside from Freeman, it features the voices of Kate Winslet (Suki), Sean Bean (Dark), Helen Mirren (Macheeba), Jim Broadbent (Eddie), Robbie Coltrane (James), Rupert Graves (Linus), John Hurt (Harry) and Kwame Kwei-Armah (Lush). It was produced by the BBC and broadcast on the A&E station in the US.
Freeman was next seen as Kevin in the film Call Register. In the film, Kevin wants to get in touch with a girl he met recently named Amanda (Neve McIntosh), so he borrows his best mate Julian’s (James Lance) phone. When he dials Amanda’s number, the phone recognises the number and identifies her by name, which means Julian knows Amanda. Kevin arranges a date with her and learns that she’d once dated Julian and had slept with him, which understandably makes Kevin feel uncomfortable. The film then follows a series of phone calls between the three characters.
Yahoo’s Contributing Network writer Philo Gabriel praised the film, saying, ‘In any case, it’s a winner. If you appreciate this style of humour at all, it’s worth checking out.’
Freeman continued to explore more diverse parts. He played Vila in the 2005 short comedy film Blake’s Junction 7, which follows the cult 1980s science-fiction gang Blake’s 7 as they make a lively late-night stop at Newport Pagnell Services on the M1 motorway.
The actor explained to Empire, ‘It’s not that I don’t love comedy and don’t want to do comedy, but my background isn’t in comedy. If I do comedy for too long, and nothing else, then it’ll just look like I’m trying to validate myself by playing a child killer, or whatever. Whereas, actually, that’s always been quite natural to me, to play straight things.’
Freeman received another big break with his portrayal of hapless protagonist Arthur Dent in the 2005 film The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, released on 28 April of that year. This was his first major Hollywood role. Many actors had been attached to the portrayal of Arthur Dent over the years but it was Freeman who the creative team had in mind. He didn’t fight for the role, because that’s not his style.
‘At first I didn’t think I’d get the part but when I thought about it, I reckoned maybe I was right,’ Freeman told the Daily Mail’s Chris Sullivan in 2008. ‘Arthur had to be believed and I suppose I have that rooted quality, someone you can side with, which isn’t a bad thing.’
After the script arrived, Freeman met with the director and producer and did a reading for them. They had told him which scenes to prepare and the reading went well and, from there, he worked with director Garth Jennings on developing the role.
‘People feel a sense of ownership with this story – particularly this person – because he’s the last [surviving] human,’ Freeman told AP Radio. ‘I’m aware of some people thinking I was a really great choice [to play him] and some people thinking I was a terrible choice.’
He reiterated this to Movie Web’s Julian Roman: ‘I knew some people would think I was a great idea and some would think I was a terrible idea. And I know that’s still the case. All I can do is just do what I can do and not be hampered by knowing that some people won’t like it. But some people won’t like everything I do.’
Freeman wasn’t a fan of the series of books, as such, though his family had the novels at home and while he’d read them he was not fanatically enthusiastic. He thought The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a good story and one that was perfect for the big screen. It wasn’t the role he had been waiting decades to play and nor was it something that he was especially destined to act, but he was more than capable of pulling it off. Dent is the main character and the one the audience root for because he is the last man on Earth, so Freeman’s character is the film’s most important role.
When he read the books for research and preparation, Freeman appreciated Adams’s irreverent, dry and sarcastic sense of humour and the fact that Adams never censored himself. The late British author had his ideas and was willing to go where the story took him, even if it meant the other side of the universe. There’s some silly schoolboy humour amongst Adams’s work, which became a trademark of his, but the perceived frivolousness did not mask the story’s inherent intelligence.
Freeman approached the role the only way he knew how, which was not to mimic Simon Jones, who had played Dent in the original 1981 TV series, but rather to look at the script in an objective way and to play the part in the best way he could, using the details of the script.
‘…I just played it as real and as funnily as possible, all the while knowing that you’re in a comedy,’ Martin explained to LatinoReview. ‘You’ve got to kind of know what you’re in. So it’s slightly heightened with humour. The humour is definitely there, but I thought that the stakes had to be genuine because he’s a man whose day starts badly, and within ten minutes of the film, his planet’s gone. So all of his reference points, every single thing that he’s ever known or thought he knew or will ever know has gone.’
The filming process was laborious because it was necessary for Freeman to wear a thick dressing gown throughout the summer, as seen in the film. The days were long and hot. On top of that, Martin was envious of Mos Def’s and Zooey Deschanel’s attire, feeling unglamorous in comparison. The young actor got along really well with Mos Def – they spoke about music the whole time. Freeman also found him very easy to work with and considered Mos to be an all-round ‘top bloke’.
Working on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a different experience for Freeman because it was a much bigger-scale production than anything he had worked on previously. He had a sense that there was a lot of money floating around because of the film sets, and there was a much bigger crew than he was used to and more people around on set. He enjoyed getting lifts in nice cars to and from the location each day and there was more choice on the menu when it was time to eat. Coming from a background in British TV and theatre, this was the sort of service he was unused to. The one thing that he found was a bit of a drag was the boredom that sinks in in-between shoots because organising sets takes longer for films than for TV.
Much of the film’s cast is American, though the books are British and it was filmed in London with a British crew, yet Freeman felt like the only Brit on set at times.
‘I think people’s fear – well certainly British people’s fear – is that it would be completely Hollywoodized or morphed into this thing where the stuff we initially cared about is no longer there,’ he explained to Movie Web’s Julian Roman. ‘I believe and hope people don’t feel that’s happened. Occasionally I would feel like the only Limey in town. I felt it was in good hands. No one was on board to scuttle it. They all wanted to serve the film and make something good happen. We were all on the same side.’
To his ongoing frustration, Freeman is seen as the everyday British man. Dent is not written as a hero or a screen icon in the vein of James Bond. He’s the last surviving human and just an average, flawed bloke. He has a job he isn’t enamoured by and has little luck with women. These are things many men can relate too. Freeman just wanted to be real and funny, that’s all. A great deal was riding on him as the main character and linchpin of the story.
‘I could pretend to be posh, but I didn’t think there was any point really,’ Freeman confessed to Empire. ‘I think, maybe, having the last surviving person from Earth be very upper middle class and probably went to Cambridge wasn’t as accessible as having someone who doesn’t look or sound like they did that stuff. So Sam [Rockwell] probably means it as a compliment because I guess he thinks we hit it more on the head by going for that.’
Freeman did not see any connection between Tim Canterbury and Arthur Dent, though he was asked about it multiple times in interviews. There is a real sense of wonder with Dent at what he is seeing in the universe, which Freeman wonderfully enacts with his facial characteristics and mannerisms. The scene where Slartibartfast takes Dent around the planet factory is especially effective in this regard.
When Martin was asked by the BBC’s Alana Lee if he saw any similarities between Arthur Dent and Tim Canterbury, he responded, ‘I think because I’m doing it people see that. I think if Hugh Bonneville was playing it they wouldn’t say, “He was a bit like Tim from The Office.” But I am using the same vocal cords and the same ears for both parts so I’m not going to be cast as many 70-year-old black women.’
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy also stars Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Mos Def as Ford Prefect, Zooey Deschanel as Tricia McMillan/Trillian, Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast, Warwick Davis as Marvin the Paranoid Android (voiced by Alan Rickman), Anna Chancellor as Questular Rontok, John Malkovich as Humma Kavula and Kelly Macdonald as Jin Jenz Reporter.
Other cast members also included Jason Schwartzman (uncredited) as Gag Halfrunt, Edgar Wright (uncredited) as Deep Thought Tech and Simon Jones (cameo) as Magrathea Video Recording with the voices of Stephen Fry as Narrator/The Guide, Helen Mirren as Deep Thought, Richard Griffiths as Jeltz, Thomas Lennon as Eddie the Computer, Bill Bailey as The Whale, Mak Wilson as Vogon Interpreter and Garth Jennings (uncredited) as Frankie Mouse.
Producer and long-term Douglas Adams collaborator Robbie Stamp told Rob Blackwelder of SPLICEDwire about Freeman’s casting in the movie: ‘He’s perfect, isn’t he? When I saw his audition tape, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. That was it. And I’ll tell you what it was: It was the way he said [the famous line], “This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” It had this freshly minted quality, as opposed to it feeling like a ka-ching Douglas line.’
He continued, ‘He’s been fabulous, and that’s been a very big issue. In the end, it is this story about this ordinary guy who gets thrown out in the universe and discovers that things are as absurd out in the galaxy as they are on Earth. He’s a character to whom things happen all the time, and that’s quite hard without turning him into a light-saber-wielding hero. And I absolutely think we’ve done it. He is a man in his slippers and his dressing gown, and he’s looking for a cup of tea, and he’s pretty befuddled about what he’s seeing out there. Douglas was working hard on the whole through-story for the film, working on Arthur’s relationship with Trillian [a romantic departure from ‘Hitchhiker’s’ previous incarnations], which I know is something that has some of the fanboys slightly exorcised.’
Sadly, author Douglas, who co-wrote the screenplay, died before production commenced in 2001. He had been trying to get a big-screen adaptation of his creation for decades but to no avail. Adams even moved to the States to get closer to Hollywood executives. It had been stuck in what is referred to as ‘development hell’ for the best part of twenty-six years. It was certainly his tenacity that finally got the film the green light. It’s such a shame he never saw the outcome. The film is dedicated to him.
There was pressure for the creative team to make the production as faithful to the book as possible but Freeman did not let the overzealousness of the fans cause him any stress or sleepless nights. Martin knew that the film wasn’t specifically made to honour the hardcore fans because the book is more of a cult classic with little mainstream attraction so, in essence, the end product had to appeal to mass audiences while also pleasing the fans. There had to be some concessions made though.
‘I don’t particularly go on the Internet, and I don’t particularly go to Forbidden Planet and check out the vibe of the sci-fi world, because that’s not the life that I live,’ he told LatinoReview. ‘But I was aware that there was something there that they’d obviously want it to be done well. I knew that was something that fans obviously cared about and cared about passionately, but we can only do what we can do, the best and the most honest interpretation of the story that we can do.’
He told AP Radio, ‘We would’ve failed, I think, if we only made a film that was dependent on having read the book or listened to the radio series. That would’ve been a failure on our part because our job is to make one and three-quarter hours of entertainment… for people who know nothing about it.’
On release, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was a reasonable box-office success but garnered mixed reviews from critics. It had a strong start in the US with a $21.2 million opening debut but tailed off in latter weeks. It peaked at Number One at the US box office, ahead of the Ice Cube action thriller XXX: State of the Union.
Asked by Cindy Pearlman of the Chicago Sun-Times if it is important for an actor to have a hit movie in the States, Freeman responded, ‘There are two schools of thought. Some think if you haven’t made it in America, then you’re a bum. Some think, “What do they know over there?” I just care that I’ve made a good film because in a few days, I’ll either be a prick or a hero to fans of the work. I’ll either be a star or it will be “Martin who?” But in the end ultimately you have to sleep with yourself and be proud on your deathbed.’
Some commented that the film tries too hard to be too British, which alienated audiences around the world, notably in the US.
‘There’s a long standing tradition that America takes something, doesn’t quite understand it and changes it into something they do understand,’ Freeman explained to Movie Web’s Julian Roman. ‘I’m happy to report that from my experience here, that doesn’t apply. I would defy anyone to see it and think that not everyone has been cast right.’
During the making of the film, M.J. Simpson, the author of the Douglas Adams biography Hitchhiker and former Deputy Editor of SFX magazine, gave the film a scathing online review, to which Freeman responded in an interview with the BBC’s Alana Lee, ‘You know, fair play to M.J Simpson. I couldn’t say he doesn’t have a right to the opinion, of course he does. And I’ve met him. He’s a nice guy. But, ultimately, he’s also a grown man who wears a Darth Vader tie. Norman Mailer he ain’t.’
Freeman didn’t pay too much attention to the fan scrutiny but he was more than well aware that many fans are often disappointed by big-screen adaptations. He knew the creative team had come up with a script that was faithful to the book but he also acknowledged that the finished film wasn’t going to please every single fan.
Some fans were dubious about the film version, thinking that Adams’s humour would not translate too well and that the story is best left to literature; other fans were excited about the big-screen adventure. The overall opinion after the film’s release was a split down the middle. In hindsight, perhaps the consensus was not so positive but the film has slowly become accepted by a larger audience of Adams fans.
‘For some people this is going to be like sacrilege if it’s perceived to have got it wrong,’ said Freeman to the Washington Post’s Alona Wartofsky. ‘But I couldn’t go to work with that feeling, and I couldn’t really go and do my job if I was paying too much mind to that. I just… tried to play him in the best way I could.’
Freeman and the rest of the cast and crew received very positive feedback from Adams’s family – his widow and son. They hadn’t made a perfect film by any means, as the critical response can attest, but they were respectful to the script Adams had left. Freeman even caught up with Adams’s family at the film’s premiere and they were delighted with the outcome.
So what did the critics think of the finished product?
Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw said, ‘Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office) is inspired casting as Dent, and delivers exactly the right note of futile English sarcasm in the face of complete and utter planetary destruction. His best friend, the oddly named Ford Prefect, tips him off about what is about to happen; together they escape and hitch-hike across the Milky Way, armed with their invaluable book, the Hitchhiker’s Guide, voiced with lucid serenity by Stephen Fry.’
Darren Waters wrote on BBC Movies, ‘Despite outstanding production design and some fantastic visual effects, overall the film is a bit of a mess. A charming mess, maybe, but a mess all the same. Did the script veer too far away from the source material or tie itself in knots trying to keep faith with it? Bizarrely, I think the answer is both.’
Peter Travers was more enthusiastic in his three out of five-star Rolling Stone review: ‘The mission impossible, which first-time director Garth Jennings has bravely accepted, is to hold true to the droll, aggressive, very British verbal humour of the creator Douglas Adams (he died in 2001) in a movie that spills over with visual gags, puppet monsters and a digital John Malkovich … the script by Karey Kirkpatrick and Adams himself delivers the goods in inspired lunacy.’
Hilariously, the DVD release features scenes that were filmed but were never actually meant for the movie.
‘We did, yeah,’ admitted Freeman to Empire magazine when asked about the scenes that were not included. ‘It was a nod towards the people who thought it was going to be ruined because it was American. So we just shot some ridiculously Hollywood-y, horrible, over-the-top, clichéd, action-movie style portrayals … but Garth’s idea was “Let’s just have some fun and pretend that these were the ones we edited out.” That was good fun.’
A sequel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, was originally planned but Martin Freeman confirmed to MTV Movie Blog in 2007 that a sequel was unlikely to happen, saying, ‘I found that out from the horse’s mouth, [director] Garth Jennings. I had dinner with him and he said [the first one] just didn’t do well enough.’
There was a little bit of room for improvisation but not a great deal and it was unnecessary, anyway, because it was Adams’s story, dialogue and humour that made the film what it was. The creative team were careful not to dilute the film with their own ideas. Freeman wasn’t interested in starring in films with special effects and action scenes, which is ironic considering the trilogy of films he would later be known for, so The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy did not change his career path but rather his bank balance. He got into acting to star in films like Twelve Angry Men – serious, realistic dramas.
Perhaps playing Arthur Dent did not do much to dissuade people from naturally assuming Freeman to be an everyday bloke. After all, Tim Canterbury and Arthur Dent are, in their own ways, normal guys. He was pigeonholed as an actor and it would be quite some time before that would change.
‘Compared to a lot of people, I’m a big-mouth show-off, d’you know what I mean?’ Martin admitted to the Globe And Mail’s Simon Houpt. ‘But in show-biz terms I don’t think I am, because I don’t go to every event and I don’t particularly want people to know everything about my life, and I don’t live my life through that medium. I could be on the telly all the time and I could be everywhere all the time and I certainly don’t want to be, because I do think only a… moron wants that, or someone with a bigger hole in their lives than I ever would want to have.’
With two major films under his belt in Love Actually and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, one might now think that Freeman was interested in achieving success on the other side of the Atlantic. Not so. He didn’t even have an American agent, preferring to stick with his London one.
‘I’m not interested in living that life,’ Freeman confessed to the London Evening Standard’s Bruce Dessau in 2005. ‘I’ve never wanted to go to lovely LA. I was a well-respected actor before The Office and there’s lots of other work I’ve been proud of that is less well known. I consider myself primarily a stage actor and if people were only giving me work now because of Tim I’d feel a bit of a fraud. It’s funny because until I became the nicest man in Britain I tended to be cast as villains, drug dealers, rent boys and bare-knuckle fighters.’
Further TV work continued as he was cast in the comedy TV film Not Tonight with John Sergeant, which was broadcast on 22 May 2005.
Freeman admitted to Bruce Dessau of the London Evening Standard in 2004 that he is tired of seeing comedians who think they are actors. ‘It’s hard enough for actors anyway,’ he said. ‘There’s a roller coaster of dreadful casting that no one has the guts to stop. There’s nothing more painful than seeing comics who can’t act – it makes me want to set fire to people’s fucking houses.’
Martin’s choice of roles tended to be very safe; almost middle-of-the-road. He admitted that sometimes it is better not to know why actors get cast in certain roles, as he explained to Tom Cardy of New Zealand’s Stuff: ‘I think, sometimes you gotta be careful what you wish for. Of course we all want to be told we’re brilliant for various ways, however we hope we’re brilliant. And then, if someone thinks we’re brilliant for a reason we find unflattering, then we’d rather not hear it. ’Cause of course there’s a difference, like with any actor, between the parts that I play, and… For a start, no one’s seen everything I’ve done, apart from me. And I’ve played a lot of parts over seventeen years.
‘There’s a difference between the parts that I play, and who I am, and who people think I am,’ he added. ‘There’s quite a big discrepancy sometimes, between those things.’
Freeman was then cast in the role of Ed Robinson in the six-episode 2005 series of The Robinsons, which began airing in May. The series was written and directed by Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni, with executive producers that included Jon Plowman and Michele Buck.
‘It didn’t feel like a return to telly to me because I’d always done lots of TV and I just follow whatever script is good at the time,’ he told Dark Horizon’s Paul Fischer. ‘An awful lot of film scripts are dreadful while a lot of telly scripts are really good. So I just want to be involved in things that I like. I’m as proud of The Robinsons as anything else I’ve done. I mean I love it. But again, whether anyone else loves it, I hope they do.’
The Robinsons is a British comedy about lead character Ed Robinson’s (Freeman) relationship with his family, including his parents (played by Anna Massey and Richard Johnson), who are constantly nagging at each other, his successful older brother George (Hugh Bonneville) and his sister Vicky (Abigail Cruttenden), who has to have everything perfect. Ed is a divorced reinsurance actuary but gets fired and moves in with his aunt. He begins to rethink his life and looks to find a career that he has a passion for and a steady girlfriend.
Kathryn Flett wrote in The Observer, ‘Freeman gets the star billing and the cute voice-overs but despite being enormously likeable – to the point where, if our paths ever cross, I will have to restrain myself from pinching his cheeks, ruffling his hair and pulling the sort of face I normally reserve for winsome toddlers – Freeman is almost outshone by an awesomely fine supporting cast.’
But back to Hitchikers, the bigger the film, the more expansive the marketing campaign. As it was Freeman’s first Hollywood movie, he had a great deal of promotional work to fulfil in the wake of the film’s release.
Martin has always found the whirlwind press junkets a laborious but obligatory task; a necessary evil of the job, ‘answering the same questions over and over again. With some exceptions, and with the best will in the world, you do get tired. Obviously you just have to pinch yourself,’ he told reporters, including Dark Horizon’s Paul Fischer, at a junket for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, ‘you have to make it interesting for yourself, hopefully make it interesting for the press, but also to a certain extent, that’s only part of the job.’
Freeman continued to dip his toes into the odd left-field venture. He played ‘The Man’ in Round About Five, a long-forgotten short film that was released on 22 August 2005. Freeman’s character is desperate to get across London to meet his girlfriend (Lena Headey) off the Eurostar and pursues an attractive bicycle courier (Jodhi May) to take him on the back of her bike, which ultimately creates a romantic predicament for him.
The actor had been in many TV and film productions but he struggled to find the time to explore his thespian talents in the theatre, so it was a delight when he was offered a chance to star in a London theatre production. Freeman committed to a three-and-a-half-week run of Blue Eyes and Heels (written by Toby Whithouse) at Soho Theatre in October 2005.
‘Career-wise,’ Freeman admitted to the London Evening Standard’s Bruce Dessau at the time, ‘this is not what I should be doing, but I really like the play and there aren’t many things that I really like. I wanted to avoid anything that was too commercial. It’s not that I want to be poor, it’s just that I don’t want money to be the main thing.’
The play follows Duncan (Freeman), an ambitious young TV producer looking for his next hit to secure a career at an independent TV-production company. He plans to bring wrestling back to TV screens and meets Victor (John McNeill), an actor best known for his role as the Count of Monte Cristo. Past his best and looking to reclaim his prime, Victor is perfect fodder for Duncan’s plan to climb the media-industry ladder and secure a promotion. Along the way, Duncan meets a career-obsessive PA played by Sandra Eldridge. However, they clash, as Duncan believes in the trash he is peddling, while the PA believes in quality. Such are the times, where trash sells and quality sinks. Blues Eyes and Heels attempts to be a satire on modern times of trashy tabloid TV.
Theatre pundit Michael Billington was critical of the play in his two out of five-star review in The Guardian but he praised Freeman: ‘The real pleasure lies in watching Martin Freeman, late of The Office, who reminds us what a brilliant comic actor he is. His Duncan is a bundle of staccato gestures and panic-stricken smiles, confirming that TV companies thrive on a hierarchy of insecurity. And his vain attempt to leap athletically into the wrestling ring is worthy of Woody Allen.’
John Thaxter of the British Theatre Guide wrote, ‘Toby Whithouse’s superbly written three-hander reminded me strongly of Brian Friel’s Faith Healer, sustained dialogue replacing Friel’s extended solo pieces but with equal impact, both comic and sad. It could make a brilliant one-off play for television, except that in a multichannel world we no longer enjoy the luxury of one-off plays.’
Stage Noise’s Gabby Bermingham enthused, ‘The play provides valid and insightful commentary on what I assume is modern media morality. One feature I particularly loved was the development of Duncan’s character. On the one hand he is supercilious, insincere and heartless. Hand in hand with these undesirable qualities is the fact that he is also a true believer. He is the voice of popular culture, he believes his own spin, and the value of what he ‘creates’. I also could not let this go without noting that Whithouse chooses the female character to give voice to the arguments for taste, intelligence and ethics.’
Freeman also took part in a Marks & Spencer celebrity ad campaign, which was shot by renowned photographer David Bailey. At this point a Martin’s intolerance for things earned him the nickname ‘Uncle Joe’ among his friends. It is a reference to Stalin. Freeman was doing rather well for himself by this point and things would only get bigger and better.
Martin admitted to Empire in 2005, ‘I’m not exactly a well-seasoned, great screen actor, you know. I’m still learning the ropes, but as far as I see it my job doesn’t change that much. You certainly don’t act bigger. If anything, you act smaller because the screen is going to be so much bigger. It’s very easy to look like you’re overdoing it on a big screen, you know, because the raising of an eyebrow says so much more than it would do on a television screen.’
Freeman and his wife had their first child, Joe, in 2006. Despite Martin’s brief venture into Hollywood and his success in The Office, the actor was still searching for that all-elusive break. With a wife and a newborn baby, he needed a steady pay cheque and regular work to tend to his family on a financial level.
As previously mentioned, Freeman is a connoisseur of classic R&B and soul music and has an extensive record collection in his home. He hosted a semi-regular 2006 BBC Radio 2 show called The Great Unknown, which aired in six episodes over October and November and saw each instalment focus on a different recording artist. He began with the Staple Singers and moved on to Boz Scaggs, Ramsey Lewis, Traffic, Roberta Flack and The Band.
He’d been making mix tapes all his life – mostly on cassette – but had recently moved on to CDs. Making a mix tape was one of the first things he always did for a woman prior to meeting his lifelong partner. He would use it as a sort of a test to see how a woman would respond to the music and to judge whether they’d get on well with each other. He said he found that women can be more direct than men – they’ll simply say whether they like it or not but men can be snobbish about music.
‘If I’m making a tape for Amanda, my other half, she won’t be impressed if I’ve got an original pressing of a song, or some B-side that’s been out of print for years,’ he said to Tiny Mix Tapes in 2007. ‘When I pick songs for her, all I think about is, “She’d really like this and it’ll make her happy.”’
As soon as he’d met Abbington, he’d stopped making mix tapes for his friends because it is such a personal thing to do. He usually centred the songs around a theme, which made it even more personal. He always waited with apprehensive eagerness to see to how his partner/friend would respond to the songs.
His main passion is vinyl as he prefers the feel and look of a record over a CD. He appreciates the cover artwork, which he feels looks more impressive on the cover of a vinyl record. As with many music aficionados, Freeman doesn’t feel as though he owns a piece of music until he has the vinyl copy. There are CDs and iPods in his house but the process of putting the needle down on the record and sitting in a room surrounded by thousands of records is a ritual that he enjoys greatly.
‘And that’s especially true for me, because 70 per cent of the music I enjoy came out originally on analog,’ he explained to Tiny Mix Tapes. ‘If you get a good copy, that’s how it should be heard. Obviously, if you’re listening to a really scratchy record, then of course a CD will sound better. But it’ll never compare with a pressing on vinyl. As I’ve gotten older and have a bit more money, I can afford to be more anal about that kinda stuff. I know I’m entering into mental territory, but I like it. I like thinking, “Well, I’ve got that record already, but I only have the reissue, and it’s not great and I’d like to find the original.”’
Freeman prefers going into record shops to look for music rather than using online stores such as eBay. He was ecstatic to find a rare Syreeta 7-inch called ‘To Know You Is To Love You’, which was co-written and produced by Stevie Wonder, for £2.50 at a record shop in Yorkshire, where he was doing some theatre work.
One of his favourite stores is Retrobloke.com in Hendon, North London, where he has bought all sorts of soul and jazz records, including releases by Tina Turner, Don Ellis and Gladys Knight & The Pips.
Freeman even released a compilation in 2006 of his favourite obscure soul music called Martin Freeman Presents… Made to Measure. His photo is on the CD cover. He thought that people would recognise him off the telly, be intrigued enough to buy the CD and have their minds opened up to a whole new world of music that they may not have been familiar with. His aim was noble.
‘… it was an amazing honour,’ he expressed to the Metro’s Andrew Williams. ‘Soul music is the cornerstone of what I listen to. I just had to put twenty of my favourite motown songs together. I wanted a mixture of things people knew and also didn’t know.’
The collection consists of ‘I Want You Back’ (Jackson 5, The Corporation TM), ‘No Matter What Sign You Are (Berry Gordy Jr., Diana Ross & The Supremes, Henry Cosby), ‘You’ve Made Me So Very Happy’ (Berry Gordy Jr., Brenda Holloway), ‘The Night’ (Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons), ‘Ooo Baby Baby’ (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles), ‘The Bells’ (Marvin Gaye, The Originals), ‘Please Don’t Stay (Once You Go Away)’ (Art Stewart, Cal Harris, Ed Townsend, Marvin Gaye), ‘Ball Of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today)’ (Norman Whitfield, The Temptations), ‘I Feel Sanctified’ (Commodores, James Anthony Carmichael, Jeffrey Bowen), ‘Sugar’ (Stevie Wonder), ‘The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game’ (Smokey Robinson, The Marvelettes), ‘From Head To Toe’ (Chris Clark, Smokey Robinson), ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ (Hal Davis, Jackson 5, Gene Page), ‘Trouble Man’ (Marvin Gaye), ‘Still Water (Love)’ (Four Tops, Frank Wilson, Jimmy Roach, Jerry Long), ‘It’s A Shame’ (Stevie Wonder, The Spinners), ‘Bad Weather’ (Stevie Wonder, The Supremes), ‘Stop Her On Sight (S.O.S.)’ (Al Kent, Edwin Starr, Richard Morris), ‘The Tears Of A Clown’ (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Henry Cosby) and ‘To Know You Is To Love You’ (Stevie Wonder, Syreeta).
Aside from Freeman’s forays into the musical world, on the acting front, 2006 was a busy year.
From 25–30 April Martin was one of the guest stars in The Exonerated, the hit drama about life on death row, which ran at West London’s Riverside Studios until 11 June 2006. Guest stars during its sixteen-week run included Stockard Channing, Kristin Davis, Danny Glover, Catherine Tate, Aidan Quinn, Richard Dreyfuss, Kate Mulgrew, Peri Gilpin, Martin Freeman, Mike McShane, Henry Goodman, Mackenzie Crook and Vanessa Redgrave.
The play was written in 2001 by creative husband-and-wife duo Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen. The ninety-minute play was based on interviews with forty former death-row prisoners and focused on those convicts who were wrongfully imprisoned for between two and twenty-two years. The off-Broadway run finished in October 2002 after 608 performances, with guest stars that also included Gabriel Byrne, Richard Dreyfuss, Mia Farrow, Jeff Goldblum, Alanis Morissette, Lynn Redgrave, Ally Sheedy, Brooke Shields, Kathleen Turner and Debra Winger. It was later adapted for TV and starred Hollywood actors Brian Dennehy, Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon and Aidan Quinn, who also appeared in the Edinburgh production.
2006 saw the release of two films starring Freeman: he played Matt in Confetti and Sandy in Breaking and Entering.
Confetti, released on 5 May, is a British romantic comedy filmed in a fly-on-the-wall-style-documentary fashion, similar to that of The Office. It is about a bridal-magazine competition for the most original wedding. Three couples are chosen to compete for the ultimate prize of a house. The script was completely improvised and the film stars Jessica Stevenson, Jimmy Carr, Mark Heap, Julia Davis, Robert Webb, and Olivia Colman. Improvising the comedy with the characters and furthering the story was a handful and difficult to juggle all at once. It took a great deal of effort for all concerned.
On the subject of improvisation, Freeman explained to Empire, ‘I’m very happy when there’s a rough script or a rough thing saying where a scene should go and you’ve got to find your own way there. But when we’ve not even decided on where a scene’s going to go, that’s quite scary. I think we all thought, “I’ll be able to do this,” but you kind of forget there’s a difference between being a bit rock ’n’ roll with the dialogue and absolutely making it all up.’
Improvisation has to be real, dramatic and funny, so it was a challenging endeavour for everyone. They all knew how the scene would start but not how it would end.
‘At times I felt that I wasn’t very good at it,’ he elaborated to Siobhan Synnot of Douban, ‘but it helped that the film was shot as a documentary, so it was okay for people to stumble over their words and talk over each other, because that’s what happens in real life.’ Not knowing what the other characters might say next kept him on his toes – but sometimes the gags brought shooting to a standstill as Martin and co-stars cracked up. ‘There’s one scene that didn’t make the film because I’m struggling to try on a pair of wedding shoes and Jason Watkins, who plays a very camp wedding planner, comes up behind me and says, “Here, let me give you the horn.” I had to turn away from the camera because I was laughing so much.’
Empire’s Angie Errigo wrote, ‘Most believable are couple number one, Matt and Sam (Martin Freeman and Jessica Stevenson). These two are sweeties who love musicals and want to play Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on their big day – if they can nudge mother-of-the-bride Steadman and Sam’s pushy cruise-entertainer sister out of the spotlight for once.’
Total Film magazine said, ‘Largely improvised, Confetti relies heavily on the considerable talents of its Brit TV stars, whose inventiveness make for a beguiling mixture of moving moments, sniggers and excruciating silences.’
Directed by the late Anthony Minghella and starring lead actors Jude Law, Juliette Binoche and Robin Wright Penn, Breaking and Entering is a romantic crime drama set in an inner-city neighbourhood of London about a successful landscape architect who comes into contact with a young thief and his mother, which causes him to re-evaluate his life. Released on 10 November, the film received negative reviews from critics and was not a box-office success.
The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw wrote of the production, ‘But the film is full of interesting characters, intelligently conceived scenes and funny lines – particularly from Martin Freeman as Law’s long-suffering partner in the architectural practice. Juliet Stevenson plays Law’s therapist, a role that recalls her famous therapy scene in Minghella’s 1991 film Truly, Madly, Deeply.’
Exclaim.ca’s Travis Mackenzie Hoover said, ‘True, Vera Farmiga and The Office’s Martin Freeman shine as a prostitute and Law’s second-in-command, respectively; they manage to evoke inner life and nuance beyond what their sketchy roles suggest. But in the end, the movie is cheesy liberal self-congratulation masquerading as social conscience, and it won’t satisfy anyone who’s looking for something substantial.’
As the months rolled by, Martin Freeman stacked up yet more credentials to his name but, in truth, these acting challenges were of little substance. He needed more meat-and-potatoes roles; parts that would define his career and shape his future thespian endeavours.
Long Hot Summer was shown in late 2006, and was about three friends who decide to share a house together in London over the summer, but tensions mount as truths are revealed and their friendship is put to the test. The film was written and directed by Matt Hilliard-Forde and also stars Michael Alexander, Lucy Briers, Jessica Brohn and Simon Cox.
Preceded by Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz is the second in the Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy. Inspired by such action films as Lethal Weapon, Point Break and Executive Decision, Hot Fuzz is a comedy police procedural. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost play two officers trying to solve a series of mysterious deaths in a small English village. It was filmed over an eleven-week period in early 2006. Freeman joins an ensemble cast of actors who make minor appearances: Bill Bailey, Steve Coogan and Bill Nighy crop up, as do villagers played by Kenneth Cranham, Maria Charles, Peter Wight, Julia Deakin, Patricia Franklin, Lorraine Hilton and Tim Barlow, and there are cameos by Stephen Merchant as Peter Ian Staker, Cate Blanchett as Janine, director Peter Jackson as Father Christmas and, finally, Garth Jennings as a drug dealer.
Hot Fuzz was a commercial and critical success after it opened on 14 February in cinemas in the UK and on 20 April in the US. Olly Richards of Empireonline.com wrote, ‘Fuzz never quite achieves the boundless creativity of Shaun, but Wright and Pegg throw every joke they have at the concept until they tickle the audience into giddy submission.’
Despite his growing reputation and a curious CV that was the envy of his peers, did his connection to The Office weigh on him like the proverbial albatross? After all, he was seemingly trying so hard to move away from its everlasting shadow.
‘No, I’m not sick of talking about The Office,’ Freeman said to TV Guide’s Ethan Alter. ‘I really do understand people’s fascination with it. To do one of the most-talked-about shows in the last few years this early on in my career… that opportunity doesn’t come along very often. It’s definitely a thing to beat.’
Freeman, however, was finally coming round to the idea that America would offer more opportunities and that he could balance projects on both sides of the Atlantic.