‘I do think – in a very real, common sense way – that if you want to be famous, you can be. It’s not a great talent; if you put yourself forward, it will happen to you.’
FREEMAN SPEAKING TO NICK AVELING IN TIME OUT LONDON, 2013
In January 2014 Steven Moffat announced that a fourth series of Sherlock had been commissioned and scripts were planned. Plot lines have already been developed for both series four and series five but it all depends on the schedules, not just of Freeman and Cumberbatch but also of writers Moffat and Gatiss. It’s a hard show to get together because of the growing successes of the careers of each person involved, including the creators.
Series three was hugely successful and was met with great acclaim from fans and journalists. ‘The Empty Hearse’ was first shown on BBC1 on 1 January 2014 with ‘The Sign Of Three’ to follow on 5 January and ‘His Last Vow’ on 12 January. Sherlock is one of the most watched BBC dramas in a decade, if not the most watched, and certainly one of the most revered TV series of modern times.
Cumberbatch reportedly received a letter from the Sherlock Holmes Society about how they think he should play Holmes. People have ideas about how iconic roles should be played, especially characters such as Sherlock Holmes, but both Cumberbatch and Freeman had their own thoughts and were not going to be swayed by the opinions of the fans. They had absolute faith in writers Gatiss and Moffat.
As has often been the case with shows that have cult appeal and that are genre based, they attract people who are perceived as outsiders, even though there are millions of them. Genre fans are attracted to stories such as Sherlock and The Hobbit because they represent escapism from the modern world – it is total fantasy. Fans dress as Benedict Cumberbatch, such is the level of success of the show. Shows like Sherlock touch many people in different ways and Freeman and his co-stars find it very gratifying.
Curiously, three series of Sherlock only equal nine episodes, which is not very many, especially when you consider that US TV shows can run anything between half a dozen episodes per season to as many as twenty-four. It just goes to show the enormous cultural impact Sherlock has made on the global viewing public. As with all good TV series, Sherlock has become its own thing. It has taken on a life of its own. Of course, such success makes it harder for the writers to live up to the heightening expectations that build with each pending series.
As the success of the series has risen over the years, the logistics of filming on the streets in public has become increasingly difficult. When they film in North Gower Street in central London, where Holmes’s flat is located, it’s akin to filming in the theatre. As soon as the fans spot them, they start clapping and cheering. It gets distracting for all concerned. Fans – mostly female – stand behind the barriers and cheer at Cumberbatch and Freeman. During breaks in filming, they ask the two stars for autographs. Such is Freeman’s appeal that he’d get just as many fans hounding him as Cumberbatch. Tabloids shot photos of fans behind barricades as they filmed the latest series. They even took photographs of the two lead actors sipping coffees and eating paninis during a break from filming.
Sherlock is a series that does not patronise its viewers. It tricks them, surprises them and makes them think.
‘Actors bang on about this a lot, but it’s true: sometimes there is proof that audiences aren’t stupid, however much they’re treated as such [laughs],’ Freeman said to ShortList.com. ‘Sometimes there are occasions where you go, “I get that, I totally get that.” There are bits of Sherlock I have to catch up with. I have to work hard. “Hang on, what’s this? How does this fucking work?”’
Two years had passed since Holmes faked his own death at the end of series two. It had fans gasping for more and the wait felt like an eternity. There was a period of mourning and then Watson tried to pick up the pieces and move on to create a fairly steady life until Holmes comes back into the picture and his world is shaken up again.
‘His best friend has died horribly in front of him,’ Freeman told the BBC of Watson, ‘which took a long time to get over, but the way that his life has moved on is that he has fallen in love with Mary. He is leading a functional, normal-ish life really which doesn’t have the highs and lows of his life with Holmes but is certainly a bit more steady. But there is a sadness with John which will always be with him when you lose someone that you love – he is slightly dulled by life.’
When Holmes comes back Watson is so overwhelmed, so taken aback by surprise and shock that he faints. As the story progresses the duo become sharper with each other; there is more bite to their reactions with one another. Watson also punches Holmes, which shows just how angry he was.
After the huge success of the first two series, Freeman was not complacent about the third one. The important thing for him was making sure that he did his job as best he could. There are many twists and turns in the series’s narrative but Freeman was not always in possession of the full facts. He was given the plot devices more or less as the filming began so he saw everything as it happened. He was able to create his own theories on such things as Holmes’s death. It also made things easier during interviews so that he wouldn’t accidentally let slip important events.
‘Other than that, apart from the fact that we’ve all got potentially big mouths and you can say too much and then feel like an idiot, you actually don’t want to ruin people’s surprises,’ he told Den of Geek’s Louisa Mellor, ‘because however much people say, “Oh go on, tell us,” they wouldn’t thank you for it once the show goes out, they’d think, “Oh, I didn’t really want to know that.” As a punter, I love not knowing stuff, I always get annoyed if I’m watching a film or something with somebody else who’s going, “He’s going to,” or, you know. I’d rather feel stupid and find out than know an hour in advance.’
Freeman has seen his character go through some changes in the three series. He misses being in Afghanistan and being with his comrades, an aspect of his life which was explored in the first series. The closest thing he gets to a thrill is being Holmes’s sidekick, but Watson has developed so much since the partnership first began.
‘With this new series, he’s also fallen in love,’ he told Mark Gatiss in a Radio Times interview. ‘He thought his best friend was dead. There’s definitely a sort of light that goes out when you lose somebody you love, but now his life has moved on. He’s in a real grown-up relationship, which he needed to be. So I think that we join John in a way a bit sadder because he lost a friend, a very good friend, but in a way more content, actually.’
Watson’s love interest in the series, Mary Morstan, is none other than Freeman’s real-life partner, Amanda Abbington. She is a hugely significant part of Watson’s existence and becomes Mrs Watson.
The first time the conversation came up between Freeman and the writers about who would play Watson’s wife was during series two.
‘I said, “Well, to be honest, I think Amanda would be pretty good,” and he goes, “That’s exactly what we were thinking,’” Freeman said to Vulture’s Denise Martin. ‘They knew she was able to be funny and engaging and just right. I mean, the last thing you want is to feel like you’re being John and Yoko, but Amanda can do this all day long in her sleep. Of course, I love her, but I know also she’s really fucking good. I wouldn’t say she should play everything in the world, but as far as this casting, it’s pretty good.’
Freeman and Abbington went to Mark Gatiss’s house with Steven Moffat to watch The Hound of the Baskervilles and after the film finished Gatiss suggested they go in the kitchen to chat about the next series and the introduction of a new female character. To follow the trajectory of the original stories they needed a love interest for Watson.
She said to The Independent’s James Rampton in 2013, ‘I thought they were going to ask me, “Do you have any ideas for this part? Which actress do you think works well with Martin? What about Penélope Cruz or Gwyneth Paltrow [two of Freeman’s previous co-stars]?” In fact, what they said to me was, “We’d like you to play Mary.” I probably got quite emotional at that point.’
Abbington even tried to talk them out of giving her the role but they were adamant that she should be cast in the series. Gatiss and Moffat thought it would be easy for the couple to act together. Her role is pivotal to Watson’s therapy after Holmes’s shocking comeback in ‘The Empty Hearse’. She found Freeman easy to work with and, after all, he is her favourite actor and not just her partner. The two characters go on a journey together in the stories and Abbington felt blessed to be given the opportunity to be cast opposite Freeman. She told The Independent: ‘He’s so easy to work with and so creative. He brings something different to every single take. He is so on top of his lines that he can dig down and find a different angle every time. That really keeps you on your toes. Both characters go on a wonderful journey, and to do that with Martin was such fun.’
Freeman has described her as ‘unpretentious, unfussy, clear in her decision-making and not a drama queen’ in an interview with the Sunday Times’s Benji Wilson.
What Abbington found challenging was being the third wheel between Freeman and Cumberbatch. She felt the pressure of the role because she had quite a few scenes with the two of them and found the famous scene where Holmes reveals himself to Watson after everyone assumed he was dead to be a real challenge.
‘Ben and Martin have real chemistry,’ she admitted to The Independent’s James Rampton, ‘and I had to hold my own in the scenes with them. It was daunting – not necessarily to come between them, but to arrive as another dynamic.’
On working with her partner, Abbington enthused to The Hollywood Reporter’s Philiana Ng, ‘I think he’s one of our finest actors and I think he’s just a joy to work with, as is Ben[edict Cumberbatch]. Their chemistry is fantastic, so coming into that was slightly daunting because they work each off each other so beautifully. I’ve worked with Martin on other projects. They were all very small parts, but this was the first part of any substance and depth.’
However, when it became public knowledge that Abbington would be cast alongside Freeman in the show, she received death threats on Twitter. As quoted in an article in the Express by Tom Morgan, Freeman responded by saying, ‘To me, they’re not fans of the show – they’re fans of a show going off their heads.’
He continued, ‘Obviously I love Amanda and I want everyone to react positively to her. She plays a fantastic character and brings a hell of a lot to the third series.’
What’s interesting about Watson is seeing what he has learned from Holmes and he applies the knowledge and skills to solving clues himself with Holmes’s approval.
‘I think, as you saw snippets of when Sherlock and I are together, you saw very very small snippets of when Sherlock would occasionally say, “Well go on then, let’s see what you’ve learned,”’ Freeman told Den of Geek’s Louisa Mellor. ‘I think John, by his own admission… probably compared to another normal person in a room might look quite impressive because of his time with Sherlock and just because of his forensic skill, but knowing how small his knowledge is compared to Sherlock’s, I think he would feel quite insecure about that.’
Series three also saw a new villain with the Scandinavian actor Lars Mikkelsen who plays Charles Augustus Magnussen, Holmes and Watson’s latest nemesis in the vein of Moriarty.
The series has made both lead stars household names and has proved that Britain is capable of making good telly at a time when there is so much interest in American series such as Breaking Bad, The Wire, House of Cards and Game of Thrones. It is a testament to the writers’ talents that they created such an engrossing, engaging and well-written series as Sherlock even with a BBC budget. Ultimately, regardless of financial restraints, it’s all down to the writing. Big-budget TV shows can be disastrous if the writing is bad (the Spielberg-produced Terra Nova being a case in point) but shows such as Sherlock, which have relatively small budgets by today’s standards, turn out wonderfully because the writing is superlative.
San Francisco Chronicle’s David Wiegand said, ‘The performances are even better than in previous years, with brand-new but fully credible sides of Holmes’s and Watson’s characters. And the writing, by Moffat and Gatiss, is in a league by itself. Other shows may plateau or tread thematic water once they’re successful, but so far, Sherlock has been, and remains, a great show that only gets even better.’
The Washington Post’s Hank Stuever wrote, ‘Sherlock moves swiftly and intelligently but also a little too coldly, like a long commercial for better WiFi… Cumberbatch’s take on Holmes’s narcissism can come off as skeevishly robotic. If not for Freeman’s deeper, more human work as Watson, the style would soon go sterile.’
Writing in Variety, Brian Lowery said, ‘It all works thanks heavily to the chemistry between Cumberbatch and Freeman, which alternates between wide-eyed wonder and exasperation to the point of the good doctor calling his pal a “dickhead” and a “cock”.’
One thing Freeman is aware of is the online community that is dedicated to depicting sexual and intimate scenes between Holmes and Watson. Ian McKellen, his Hobbit co-star, even sent him some pictures via email with a message ‘Have you seen this dear?’
‘I’ve always seen it as a point of principle not to be offended if people imply you’re gay – so no, I’ve never given a shit,’ Freeman admitted to Time Out London’s Nick Aveling on the subject. ‘If I was offended, I’d kind of think, well what does that make me? I wouldn’t want a fifteen-year-old kid thinking I’m ashamed of it. I’m not. If anything, it’s kind of funny to see pictures of me and Ben doing whatever we’re doing to each other – even if they’re far from the truth. The only time I’m sort of bothered is when people get proprietary about it or think there should be a certain kind of reaction, like it needs to be in the National Gallery.’
Freeman continued to be very protective of his privacy. On a recent trip to Japan Benedict Cumberbatch had been greeted by cheering fans as though he was the reborn messiah, but that is not something Freeman has experienced. Of course, Martin is famous but he is not one of the industry’s most recognisable figures. He does not go out of his way to stay anonymous but remains reluctant to give too much away in interviews.
‘Whenever I’ve been anywhere else, I’ve not been chased by people – it depends where I am and how visible I am,’ Freeman told GQ’s Oliver Franklin. ‘You can still be reasonably invisible. Not that I want to be – despite what people may think I’ve not gone through life trying to be anonymous. At the same time I want to have my private life and you can’t have that if people are screaming and shouting at you while you’re in a restaurant. I don’t mind standing out in some ways.’
LEGO The Hobbit: The Video Game was released on 8 April, which relives the adventures of the first two Hobbit films LEGO style. It features the voices of the original cast members.
‘You know I just like it if it’s good,’ he explained to Steven Balbirnie of The University Observer. ‘If it’s something that someone’s made up yesterday and the first thing is a screenplay and I love it then I’m in. If it’s an adaptation of something that I like then I’m also in. It’s always just about what that screenplay is like, because you could’ve had a terrible adaptation of any of those things, I mean you could’ve had a terrible adaptation of any of those beloved books and I wouldn’t have wanted to do it.’
One script that had an instant ‘yes factor’ for Freeman was Fargo.
Martin appeared for the first time in a major American TV series as Lester Nygaard in the dark-comedy crime drama series Fargo in April 2014. Written by Noah Hawley and filmed in Calgary, Fargo is inspired by the much respected 1996 film of the same name by the Coen Brothers, who are also executive producers of the series. The premiere was seen on US TV by 4.5 million viewers.
Set in January 2006, the story concerns the mysterious loner Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) who passes through Bemidji in Minnesota and meets oddball insurance salesman Lester Nygaard (Freeman) in a hospital waiting room. Malvo encourages Nygaard with violence and malice, which sets off a chain of unlikely murders. On the case is rookie Deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman) and Duluth police officer Gus Grimly.
Freeman didn’t even audition for the part – it was a straight offer. Hawley had seen something else Freeman had been in and was impressed that the actor was not all sweetness and light.
He admitted to the Daily Telegraph, ‘I didn’t audition for Fargo. It was a straight offer. They didn’t even ask to hear the accent.’ And then added, ‘It could have all gone very, very bad. Yeah, I was surprised that they didn’t want to hear that. ’Cause I could have had a cloth ear.’
Any reservations he had about the TV adaption of the original movie went out of the window after reading the first script and the subsequent nine. Each script became more enthralling and surprising. Freeman found the characters, the setting, the overall story arc and subplots all very alluring. Fans of the original movie may have been dubious too, as it has a rather high cult status among movie buffs, but the film offered a different approach. They are two entirely different entities.
There is an anger in Freeman, something dwelling inside him that is waiting to burst into films. This anger is present in many of the great British actors, including Oliver Reed and Anthony Hopkins.
‘Some of it is a sort of lighthearted anger that I know will pass,’ admitted Freeman to Josh Rottenberg of Entertainment Weekly, ‘but some of it is pretty deep-seated and a fundamental part of me that I think people often don’t understand.’
His partner, his children and Martin’s love of soul music and clothes give him periods of unmitigated glee but, ‘it will probably never last that long without me puncturing it,’ he continued to tell Rottenberg. ‘It’s a pain in the ass in some ways, and in other ways it’s a blessing. For all of my faults as a person that it brings out, it’s helped put food on the table.’
What impressed Freeman about the script was how impeccably written it was and how finely laced the story is with dark comedy, emotion and suspense. His decision to accept the role was based on the first episode, especially his character’s first encounter with Billy Bob Thornton’s mysterious loner, Lorne Malvo.
Speaking about Lester Nygaard, Freeman told Anne Bayley of TwoCentsTV.com, ‘I just got the feeling that this was going to be a role where you could give rein to a lot of stuff, to play a lot of stuff. And even within that first episode the range that he goes between is really interesting and so I knew that was only going to grow and expand in the next nine episodes, and so it proved to be. In all the ten episodes I get to play as Lester pretty much the whole gamut of human existence and human feeling, you know, he does the whole lot. And that’s exactly what you want to do as an actor.’
In terms of story development, Freeman knew very little about his character. There was much speculation about what Nygaard’s ultimate demise would be but everything was shrouded in secrecy. He had great trust in Hawley though, which is why he signed for the part. He only suggested a rough character outline, which wasn’t specific or detailed. It was just a general idea of where the writer wanted to go with the character. Hawley knew a great deal more than he was telling Freeman and he was careful with what was leaked out. Martin, therefore, did not have any particular clues as to what was coming in each episode. The cast were drip-fed the scripts when Hawley was ready to show them. As with many first-class writers, he did not want his actors to see the scripts until he, as the writer and creator, was a hundred-per-cent happy with them. Each script was, therefore, a surprise for Freeman and his fellow cast members. It also meant that nothing could be accidentally leaked to the public and thus potentially ruin the show’s climax. Martin didn’t know until past the halfway stage of filming the series what this would entail.
Freeman would read the script for, say, episode three and go, ‘Wow, I didn’t think that would happen,’ and then read another episode script and think, ‘Christ, I can’t believe what’s happened to…’ The whole series was a surprise, which, in some respects, was easier for the actor because he didn’t have to over-think or prepare too much and he could just be ready to move in whichever direction was necessary as the character moves on with each episode. It was all down to Hawley’s command of the story as the writer and creator. By the end of the final episode Freeman was as surprised as anyone to see how Nygaard was capable of doing things that he had not been able to do at the start of the series.
However, Martin was initially dubious about taking on the role since he wondered – as he did with Sherlock – if there really needed to be a TV update of the original film. But then, of course, after reading the brilliant script, all initial reservations were debunked. He was quite vocal in correspondence with Noah Hawley that he did not want to be part of a Fargo tribute band. Hawley put his mind at rest and said that such a notion would not be the case. ‘The fact that it uses a very famous and brilliant film as a jumping-off point was not really an attraction; you could have an appalling version of Fargo,’ Freeman explained to Vulture’s Denise Martin. ‘But this is a really, really good version! I can only go on the script that I’m sent, and this one was interesting, it was engaging, and it was surprising. I got to cover ground that I haven’t covered before. I showed it to my missus and she’s like, “You have to fuckin’ do this.” So I did.’
Freeman admired the work of the Coen Brothers from afar but said he had never been fanatical about them. He saw how the episode scripts tried to bring a sensibility to the films which was reminiscent of the Coen Brothers’ best work. The brothers were only tangentially involved in the series but Freeman liked the fact that, in a sort of removed way, he was working with them. The series wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t been involved. Martin was not interested in a literal remake – he liked that it echoes some of the traits of the original film but also brings a new sensibility to the story. The TV series stands on its own weight and does not rely on rehashing the original film. It inhabits the same world as the film but not the same characters, though it has the same darkly comic tone that the Coen Brothers excel at.
‘Noah Hawley, who wrote all ten episodes, was definitely trying to tap into that,’ Freeman told The Observer’s Andrew Anthony, ‘and I think he did that successfully enough for them to give him their blessing. I don’t know the Coen brothers but people I know who do say that’s not easily won. But I had no interest in being in just a TV version of the film. As Billy Bob Thornton said, “If it was called Detroit, you’d still have to want to do it.”’
Billy Bob Thornton has often come across as an enigmatic man, slightly odd and mercurial, but Freeman enjoyed working with him. He found Thornton to be a very easy and interesting actor to work with. They hit it off immediately, mostly talking about their shared love of music. Their first scene together was the emergency-room scene, which is the first time they meet on screen too. For Martin to work with such a distinguished and terrific actor was for him an absolute joy.
Some fans may recall that Billy Bob Thornton had a small role in Love Actually all those years ago.
‘We’d never met on Love Actually but we got on instantly like a house on fire. As soon as we had our first line run it was apparent it was going to be a breeze,’ Freeman enthused to BBC News website’s Neil Smith. ‘It’s nice as well when you’re working with an actor who you like watching. I was enjoying his performance as Martin, even as I was horrified by it as Lester.’
About their relationship on screen, Billy Bob Thornton explained to Nerd Repository’s Brent Hankins, ‘We didn’t really have to work on it. It just naturally happened. And Martin himself seems to be a very confident person, so I think he probably maybe had to downgrade his confidence a little bit. And me, by nature, I’m a very nervous, worrisome person, so I had to drop that a little. So, I think both of us had to definitely shed some of our real life stuff in order to play the characters.’
Both Freeman and Thornton share a similar belief that they are actors rather than movie stars. It is fascinating to watch the drama unfold between Nygaard and Malvo. As soon as they meet in the local hospital Malvo becomes a constant presence in Nygaard’s life. Freeman did not get enough on-screen time with Thornton as he would have liked, as the characters’ relationship develops sporadically throughout the series.
‘All ten episodes are amazing,’ Freeman expressed to London Calling.com’s Anthony Pearce. ‘It’s one of the best-written projects I’ve ever done. I wasn’t interested in simply rehashing old territory. With Fargo, I feel we’re covering ground that hadn’t been covered in the film and stands on its own.’
Freeman did not, much to his disappointment, get to work with fellow co-star Colin Hanks, son of Tom. ‘I really like him as a man, I’m very fond of him,’ Martin admitted to Nerd Repository’s Kyle Wilson. ‘And I’ve gotten to know him a little bit and he’s a straight up lovely bloke. Yeah, I just really like him. And I did immediately. I think he’s ever so good in the programme as well. I like his work a lot.’
One thing that Freeman did master, though it’s somewhat odd, is his Minnesota accent. The actor has an acute musical ear and was able to pick up on the local dialect. He soon mastered the accent and stayed in voice all day on set.
‘I’m having Skype lessons and, well, pride comes before a fall but I think I’m doing okay,’ he said to Time Out London’s Nick Aveling. ‘It’s daunting. I don’t want to rip off Bill Macy’s accent, or rip off an accent that’s already passed into comedy, so I’ve been on YouTube to see how real Minnesotans sound. Trouble is, some accents lend themselves to comedy. They just fucking do.’
Freeman takes on the role William H. Macy played in the original film. Ellen E. Jones of The Independent wrote of Freeman’s performance, ‘A Hampshire native, Freeman can’t quite pull off the “Aw, jeez” Upper Midwest accent, which was such a joy in the original movie, and his befuddled nice-guy mannerisms are the same ones John Watson has in Sherlock and Tim had in The Office. He is so innately likable, in other words, he can’t convey the snivelling self-interest which made William H. Macy’s character compelling in the original. Or so it initially seemed.’
The British actor did not go back and watch the original film because he did not want it to interfere with his own vision for Nygaard.
‘…as soon as you try and differ yourself from someone, you’re becoming too conscious of that performance anyway,’ Freeman told Anne Bayley of TwoCentsTV.com. ‘So, no, I didn’t feel pressure in that way… he’s a brilliant actor and the world doesn’t need another actor doing a Bill Macy impression and I don’t need to be doing that and he doesn’t need it and all of that. So, I purely treated it as my performance of a different character, albeit with some comparison. There are some parallels, but I was too busy concentrating on what I was doing with Lester really.’
Freeman was not immediately familiar with Mid-Western American culture so it was all a new experience for him. Middle America could have been Middle Earth for all he knew. He was trying to avoid a comic turn with his character and did not want to patronise Nygaard, which is what can happen when a character becomes endearing to the public.
‘Every time that somebody comes up to me like that, like, “Oh, little baby,”… I’m a grown man,’ Freeman said to Vulture’s Denise Martin. ‘But the truth of some of those Minnesota accents is that even some Minnesotans think that they’re kind of funny. So it’s a fine line of getting that and honouring those characters. Not being reverential to them or patronising them, but to also acknowledge that some of the things the characters say are funny in the way that some of the things that are classically English are kind of ridiculous.’
He would have preferred to have spent time in the Mid-West pre-filming just to hang out in bars and coffee shops and speak to people to get a general gist of their way of life. Unfortunately, time did not permit him the opportunity. What Freeman did not want to do with the character was turn him into a caricature or a comedy figure of fun. Nor did he want to mock the Mid-Western way of life.
‘I listened to a lot of Minnesotans, put it that way,’ he said to Nerd Repository’s Kyle Wilson. ‘That’s why I didn’t really go back and watch the initial film with Fargo, love it as I do, because I wanted to, for my research accent-wise, I wanted it to be actual Minnesotans and not actors playing Minnesotans. Any more than I would expect an actor who wants to play a Minnesotan to study me. They shouldn’t study me, they should study a Minnesotan.’
Freeman was hoping that playing such a role would dispel the notion that he is only able to play nice men. By accepting the part, he was challenging people’s perceptions of him as well as challenging himself and his own body of work.
‘I’m under no illusion about what I appear like,’ he told The Observer’s Andrew Anthony. ‘I just know there’s more to me than that as a person, and there’s certainly more to me than that as an actor. That’s where the frustration comes. My plan was always to be an actor. It wasn’t to be a nice guy. I became famous in Britain playing a nice decent guy and that casts a long shadow.’
Lester Nygaard does not start off as a bad guy; he’s a normal, very average middle-of-the-road man whose bad-guy persona develops as the story progresses, much like Breaking Bad’s Walter White.
‘When I read the script I thought, ooh, that’s quite Walter White-ish. But where Lester Nygaard starts off with you sympathising with him, and everything he does is understandable, Richard just starts off going: I am a cunt, and here’s why I’m a cunt…,’ Freeman said to the Daily Telegraph’s Craig McLean. ‘He’s revelling in it. Whereas Lester would never consider himself a tosser. Like most people don’t.’
The frustration and the pent-up anger that is in Lester Nygaard is inside everyone. Everyone has moments where they want to throw something out of the window or hit someone in a split second. But there is a barrier between thinking about something and actually carrying out the proposed act. For Nygaard, that barrier breaks down when he kills his own wife. His thoughts and actions become one. He regrets it but, throughout the series, he also feels liberated by it and cannot stop himself from doing awful things. Nygaard’s world is shaken after murdering his wife and he doesn’t know how to react because he has never acted on emotions before. He then spends his time thinking about how the outside world will react to her murder and so he thinks of how he can get away with it and convince people that he is sad that his wife was murdered, because, of course, the killer, in the eyes of the locals, remains at large. He tries to act upset because the locals think such a devastated husband could not have killed his wife. It takes him time to work on that persona of his, which is ultimately all fake. He becomes more of a man as the series progresses but only in the sense that he makes up his own mind and governs his own life based on his own thoughts and feelings rather than the feelings of others: people that bullied him into doing things and those who called him weak for not fending for himself. However, Nygaard soon learns that he cannot control his life anymore as his actions spiral out of control.
‘I think Lester is pretty universal. There are Lesters everywhere in every race and walk of life and country,’ Freeman explained to Nerd Repository’s Kyle Wilson. ‘There are people who are sort of downtrodden and people who are under-confident and all that, so that was more a case of tapping into that in myself really.’
People don’t think of Martin as the type who plays a murderer so the challenge made a refreshing change from his comedic and dramatic roles of the past. The change in Lester’s character was, in part, an attraction that Freeman found alluring.
‘I just loved it. I’ve said to my agents for ages in a kind of lighthearted way that I think I need to play a serial killer, a fucking rapist, drug dealer, whatever,’ he admitted to TVGuide’s Hanh Nguyen. ‘Partly because people don’t see me like that and partly because I want to flex those muscles again. Before The Office, I was a young actor in London who casting agents saw as kind of edgy. I would be going up for those parts that were a bit violent or a bit scuzzy.’
Freeman was once in the running to play the villain in Peter Jackson’s 2007 adaptation of the best-selling Alice Sebold novel, The Lovely Bones. His Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch has recently carved out a career as a successful villain, with roles as Kahn in Star Trek and Smaug in The Hobbit. Freeman has always wanted to play more roles and, though he is not a villain as such in Fargo, there is something worrying and sinister about his character: a hapless, sad, everyday middleclass American who gets trodden on by everyone in his life until he meets Billy Bob Thornton’s character.
‘Yes, if there is any plan ever it’s to play as much as possible,’ he said on the idea of playing darker roles to GQ’s Oliver Franklin. ‘Not to big myself up too much, I think I play a lot within a second, do you know what I mean? You’re not saying I am, but if I was someone who was playing one thing all the time, that would be something else. But I think I’m quite capable of bringing out colour and shade in any character.’
The freezing-cold temperatures of Calgary certainly helped Freeman develop his character. And, of course, he missed his family enormously. Calgary was the coldest place Martin had ever been to in his life, with temperatures dropping as low as twelve degrees below freezing. The UK may have a reputation for being cold and dreary but it is Hawaii compared to Calgary. Even on mild days it was considerably colder than London. It was a bit of a culture shock for Freeman. His surroundings helped him focus on the script and to learn more about his character, to develop Nygaard’s mannerisms, but all the hard work was really down to Noah Hawley, who had the character developed to a T.
‘It’s very apparent by the end of the first episode that this is not all that meets the eye,’ he said to Daniel Fienberg of Hitfix. ‘So I thought, “Well, geez, if that happens at the end of the first episode, what the hell is Episode Ten gonna be?” So that was the thing that gave me confidence that I would be fully engaged and fully interested in what I was doing. And I have been! Every script I’ve read has just been better and better and better. It’s been fantastic.’
He was shocked at the breakneck speed at which each episode episode was made – he was not used to that sort of fast-paced environment. It was a good experience for him and any ideas that he had, had to be brought to the forefront straight away, before the cameras were set up for the next shot.
Though everyone came from different backgrounds, he found them all to be professional and very easy to work with. The cast turned up on time, read their lines and got on with the job at hand without ego or fuss. There was much mutual respect and no frivolous off-screen performances or anything equally immature. It was all very professional. Everyone involved knew they were making something rather superlative.
There is a dark humour to Fargo and with a background in both comedy and drama, Freeman knew exactly how to approach his character. He knew there can be comedy in anything serious, so long as it is handled wisely.
‘The Sopranos sometimes really makes me laugh and that’s not a comedy,’ he said to Nerd Repository’s Kyle Wilson. ‘And sometimes I’m almost crying at the pathos of Laurel and Hardy, which is not a drama. So, I believe in both of those things being there and I don’t think it’s a big deal by both things being there. So, when Lester has moments of comedy as there are in the show, yes, I think, you know, without blowing my own trumpet, I think I can do it. And I think I’m not bad at it, so, yeah, all of that I think it doesn’t hurt. I think it all helps stir the pot somehow, yeah.’
The series won the cast and crew rave reviews.
‘Of course, Fargo also functions as a crime thriller but there was a narrative drive amid the madness,’ wrote the Daily Telegraph’s Ben Lawrence of the first episode. ‘The scene in which Nygaard battered his crowing wife to death with a hammer and was confronted by Thurman, who then gets it in the back from Malvo, was grimly compelling. But the mood was lightened by Freeman’s performance. His air of nervy bewilderment recalled his sitcom roles, as if Tim from The Office had stumbled into the house of Atreus.’
Entertainment Weekly’s Karen Valby wrote, ‘Poor, angry, pent-up Lester, henpecked by everyone – Freeman brings a taut energy to the character. (After committing an evil act in the pilot, Lester frantically calls Lorne’s motel room for guidance. “Yeah, it’s me, you got to help me, I’ve done something bad,” he squawks into the phone. “Leroy Motor Inn?” the front-desk receptionist says. Lester: “Oh, hi, room 23, please.”) Freeman’s Lester is the perfect bumbling counterpart to Thornton’s graceful Lorne, whose look and demeanour seem a direct descendant of Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh.’
Writing in USA Today, Robert Bianco said, ‘Oh, and in Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman, it has a pair of stars whose brilliantly written and played dynamic gives the warped relationship between Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in True Detective a run for its money.’
He continued to say, ‘And through it all, there’s the riveting performances of Thornton and Freeman. Wait for the way Thornton can shift from a sly smile to a venomous gaze, or the way Freeman mixes Lester’s frustration, fear and regret with flashes of relief.’
Freeman is not a careerist as such, though he now joins fellow Brits Andrew Lincoln and Jonny Lee Miller, who are currently starring in successful American TV shows and have become near-enough household names stateside. However, what has always turned Martin away from American TV is the lengthy multiple-season contracts that the actors have to sign. He does not seem to play the actor’s game and there is something very British about Martin Freeman. Fargo appealed to him because, like True Detective, it is an anthology series so Freeman only had to sign up for one season.
‘I’m an actor, I want to play good parts and it’s a good part,’ he said to Hitfix’s Daniel Fienberg. ‘There are a couple of fantastic scenes with Lorne Malvo, Billy Bob’s character, that really keep me in the story and the potential for where this character might go and what his story might be. I felt like I had very little choice [he laughs], given that it was also finite. It wasn’t going on for six years. It was ten episodes, several months. That was pretty cool for me.’
The difficult aspect of a TV series that writers face is the conclusion. There is nothing more devastating for a committed viewer and loyal fan to watch countless hours of a TV series only to witness an anticlimax, as evidence by True Blood, the HBO vampire series. Some series run out of steam so that you no longer care about the characters or the story, in which case a disappointing end does not feel like a cheat, but you only see it if you’ve stuck with it, and not chosen to watch something else.
Fargo season one is just about the right amount of episodes, with some wonderful, albeit dark, characters and some intriguing plot twists that keep you hooked. But what of the ending? Naturally – as with any revered series (and even the ending of highly-lauded True Detective was met with negative criticism, as was Breaking Bad from some quarters of its fan base, though the writers of any series cannot please everyone) – Fargo did not impress everyone but it managed to both surprise and satisfy. Thankfully, fans did not feel cheated, as they did with Lost or Dexter – this latter brilliant serial-killer drama delivered possibly the most unsatisfactory and embarrassing finale in modern American television.
In Michael Hogan’s rave review of the episode titled ‘Morton’s Fork’ in the Daily Telegraph, he praised the final episode: ‘All the storylines were satisfactorily tied up, so even after ten weeks of death and darkness, we still got that rarest of things in modern drama: a happy ending. And a moral one.’
What makes Fargo such a compelling story is not only the outstanding writing but the two lead characters – Lester Nygaard and Lorne Malvo, both of whom are rather likeable despite the many misgivings we have about them and their repugnant acts of evil.
‘He never stops being human, you know?’ Freeman expressed to Hitfix’s Daniel Fienberg. ‘But in a funny way, neither does Billy Bob’s character. He is always human, too. That’s the beauty of good writing and good casting. Even someone as truly dark as Lorne Malvo is still very attractive and you want to spend time with him, because he’s a fun character.’
Fargo stands as one of the finest TV dramas of the decade, along with such masterful creations as Breaking Bad and Hannibal. Fargo was another impeccable piece of television writing that possibly exceeds Sherlock, with numerous twists and turns in the plot as the first series reaches a nail-biting conclusion.
Freeman began 2015 with the BBC broadcast of the highly-acclaimed TV film The Eichmann Show, as part of the BBC’s Holocaust memorial season. The film portrays the story of the blacklisted television director Leo Hurwitz (played by Aussie actor Anthony LaPaglia) and the 1961 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was apprehended in Argentina in 1960 and, as the chief architect of the Holocaust, went to trial in Israel the following year. The footage of the trial was shown on TV in thirty-seven countries. Freeman stars as producer Milton Fruchtman who spearheaded the project. The film delicately intercuts real-life archive footage with dramatized scenes. TV pundits praised the film with The Observer’s Euan Ferguson calling it a ‘phenomenal retelling’.
‘Because as the best television gets more and more what we would call filmic,’ Freeman said to Nerd Repository’s Kyle Wilson, ‘and a lot of the best writing I think has been pretty much acknowledged for ten years has been on television, I think there’s much less of a differentiation now than there was maybe twenty, thirty years ago. And so I don’t have a preference.’
Fargo challenged people’s perception of Freeman as an actor, showing film and TV followers that he is more than capable of playing edgy characters. It was a wise career move and one that will no doubt pay dividends, especially in the US where he remains best known for The Office, The Hobbit and Sherlock. In June 2014 Billy Bob Thornton picked up the Best Actor In A Mini-Series Or Movie award at the fourth annual Television Critics’ Association Awards, beating his co-star Martin Freeman. Allison Tolman, their co-star, scooped the Best Supporting Actress In A Mini-Series Or Movie award. Freeman’s other show, Sherlock, went home empty-handed despite several nominations.
The 2014 Emmy Awards nominations were announced in July, which featured some well-known British names, including Martin Freeman. Fargo picked up a staggering eighteen nods, including nominations for its two lead stars, while Freeman also bagged a second nomination in the Best Supporting Actor In A Mini-Series Or Movie category for ‘His Last Vow’.
The 2014 Emmy Awards took place in Los Angeles on Monday, 25 April. Freeman and his fellow Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch were not at the ceremony to collect their awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor In A Mini-Series. Steven Moffat also won Best Writing In A Mini-Series for the final episode of the third season of Sherlock. There were four awards for the universally acclaimed BBC series, including Best Cinematography, Music, Single-Camera Picture Editing and Sound Editing.
‘It’s great to see Sherlock being recognised so spectacularly at the Emmys,’ said Ben Stephenson, controller of BBC drama. ‘I’m delighted that the BBC is home to so much world class acting and writing talent.’
Freeman’s other TV series, Fargo, bagged the award for Best Mini-Series.
It was announced in mid-2014 that Freeman, Billy Bob Thornton, Colin Hanks and Allison Tolman would not be returning for the second series of Fargo due to air in late 2015 at the earliest. Noah Hawley was confirmed to continue as writer and executive producer but there’ll be a new storyline and time period spread over ten episodes. As with True Detective, Fargo will be an anthology series, which recalls the old pulp-story anthologies of the immediate post-World War II era. There’s no question that Freeman fans were disappointed by the news.
Some fans always feel cheated with anthology series because they get so close to the characters that, by the end of the season, they’re left wanting more, but the end is the end. Will viewers return for a second season? Will the scripts and actors be as good as season one? Vintage anthology series such as The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone have had a massive impact on science-fiction and fantasy and American Horror Story is a successful contemporary anthology series that has run for four seasons with the possibility of a fifth (at the time of writing) but, mostly, anthology series don’t have much of an impact, especially in an age of multiple channels, the Internet, downloading and streaming.
On the positive side, it meant that Freeman was free to move on to other roles. He is not an actor who likes to be tied down to projects for long periods of time, though Sherlock and The Hobbit are two obvious exceptions. He signed onto Fargo knowing there would be no more than the ten-episode first series.
Hawley dropped hints to The Hollywood Reporter about the possible concepts for season two: ‘I feel like I’m close to a new idea for another Fargo ten-hour idea that we’ll talk about in the coming weeks… What’s really interesting about this exercise of emulating a movie, as a storyteller, is having available to me a whole body of work. The Coen Brothers are so varied, from Raising Arizona to A Serious Man – there’s so much… What is the inspiration for this season? It’s always going to be rooted in true crime. There will always be a grisly murder, with good versus evil.’
Just as Matthew McConaughey can sit back and enjoy season two of True Detective as an ordinary viewer, Freeman will no doubt enjoy watching Fargo season two when it broadcasts on TV, and may even pick up the box set for his ever-growing collection of DVDs. Martin had moved on to the stage in his career where he could pick and choose, quite literally, which roles he wanted to play. The scripts were coming in left, right and centre and his US and UK agents were busy on the phone negotiating new contracts and roles. He also has the opportunity to pick roles that will pay much less than he is ordinarily used to without having to worry about not being able to support his family and paying the bills.
Freeman made a return to the London stage with a production of Richard III in the summer of 2014 at Trafalgar Studios. His Hobbit colleague Richard Armitage was at The Old Vic starring in The Crucible, the acclaimed Arthur Miller play.
‘… that’s a pretty iconic role and that’s one I’m very happy about,’ he said to ShortList.com about being cast as Richard III. ‘I wasn’t expecting that and I didn’t see it coming, so when that came, director Jamie Lloyd asked me to do that – I was very pleasantly surprised to be asked to do that, and one that I grabbed with both hands.
It was Freeman’s first theatre role since the Pulitzer Prize-winning Clybourne Park, directed by Dominic Cooke at the Royal Court four years earlier, but he was more than pleased to be back on stage starring opposite The Borgias actress Gina McKee. Additional casting includes Alasdair Buchan (Ensemble – an ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principle actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a production), Simon Coombs (Tyrrel), Philip Cumbus (Richmond), Madeleine Harland (Ensemble), Julie Jupp (Ensemble), Gerald Kyd (Catesby), Joshua Lacey (Rivers), Paul Leonard (Stanley), Gabrielle Lloyd (Duchess of York), Forbes Masson (Hastings), Paul McEwan (King Edward IV/Bishop of Ely), Mark Meadows (Clarence/Lord Mayor), Vinta Morgan (Edward of Lancaster/Ensemble), Lauren O’Neil (Lady Anne), Maggie Steed (Queen Margaret) and Jo Stone-Fewings (Buckingham).
Freeman feels very comfortable in theatre. However, the deformed Machiavellian regent was his first stab at a professional Shakespeare production, much to the surprise of some people given his background in theatre and TV.
‘There have been amateurish-in-drama-school ones,’ he informed the Daily Telegraph’s Craig McLean. ‘But yeah, I can’t believe it – I’ve been out of drama school nineteen years, and this is the first time I’ve done it professionally. I’m surprised.’
Martin has always had an interest in the Bard’s plays on a professional level, as he said back in 2005 when he spoke to The Globe And Mail’s Simon Houpt: ‘I’d love to play Macbeth. See, the thing is, what I think I can do and what the perception of what I can do – there’s quite a gulf between the two, because obviously people don’t know my work. But I do. Probably no one would think I’d make a good Macbeth, but I know I would.’
Richard III was directed by Jamie Lloyd. He had also directed James McAvoy in a production of Macbeth but, whereas Macbeth was set in a future dystopia, Richard III is ‘an imaginary dystopia from a few decades ago. Twentieth century,’ as Freeman described it to Craig McLean of The Telegraph.
‘When I first met Jamie he asked if I’d seen this documentary about this political event in our British history,’ he continued.
The official press release for Richard III described the play thus: ‘In the aftermath of civil war, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, makes a hateful resolution to claw his way to political power at any cost. A master of manipulation, subtle wit and beguiling charm, he orchestrates his unlawful ascent by spinning a ruthless web of deceit and betrayal. His staunch ambition soon begins to weigh heavy, as the new ruler finds himself utterly alone and steeped in dread, forced to answer for his bloody deeds and face the horrifying consequences.’
Lloyd’s Macbeth made tough viewing for members of the audience but Freeman shared a similar vision with Lloyd that they are totally against making people bored in the theatre, which makes Richard III rather more difficult as it is the second lengthiest work in the playwright’s hefty catalogue of plays. They made sure that the physical deformities – malformed arm, limp and hunchback – were all there, which has a major effect on his view of the world, and Freeman, as Richard III, begins the production by telling the audience he’s not a nice person and he’s going to plot and scheme because of the way he’s been treated due to his deformities. Characters’ actions have to be justifiable. There is a reason why bad people do bad things. Freeman even made remarks to the effect that the character of Richard III is much like Gollum from The Hobbit.
Freeman made damn sure that his version of Richard III was as far away as possible from his own likeable, everyday persona. Indeed, with Fargo and Richard III, it’s almost as if Martin is undergoing a professional career makeover.
‘When you get known for something, you get a few more of those roles and before you know it you’re in people’s consciousness as that thing,’ Freeman told Neil Smith of the BBC News website. ‘But I’m not just that optimistic, nice person or mild-mannered sweetheart next door. So it’s nice when people see something in me that isn’t Love Actually.’
However, it was reported during the play’s previews in the first week of July that over-eager younger fans of The Hobbit were ruining the play by clapping and cheering at inappropriate times.
Claire Dikecoglu, a well-known Arts blogger, said, ‘I was irritated when the audience interrupted the flow of the play to clap and cheer Martin’s first scene. I understand that Martin Freeman is popular, but I have no bigger pet peeve, than everything getting standing ovations these days.’
‘Martin Freeman’s face is on every bus in London,’ said actress Maureen Lipman, as referenced in The Independent. ‘The producers are aiming for people who spend most of their day with wire in their ears. It is not so much Richard III as Richard the rock concert.’
On Twitter, the director Jamie Lloyd said, ‘A few people clapped after the first scene during the first preview. It is not unusual for an audience to clap during scene changes…’ and, ‘It has never happened since and has been completely overblown. Ridiculous. The standing ovations have been instant & from young & old alike.’
This was a refreshing role for Freeman that not only challenged him as an actor but, much like his recent choices in film and TV roles, challenged audiences’ perceptions of him as the dreaded and now clichéd ‘everyman’. There must come a point where people no longer see him that way.
Professional theatre critics gave the play mixed to positive reviews but praised Freeman, though many found the play to be complicated. The set from award-winning designer Soutra Gilmour was also highly praised.
Critics appeared to share a similar mindset that, while Freeman has a much-deserved reputation for his sometimes quirky yet interesting approaches to texts due to his impeccable comic timing and underlying anger, his performance as Richard III all comes down to how the viewer interprets Richard III in the play, regardless of who the actor is. Some prefer Richard III to be played as a brooding man who has boundless amounts of charisma, yet he is someone who is sickening and repulsive at the same time. He is also amusing.
Michael Billington of The Guardian wrote, ‘It’s fair to say that Freeman’s Richard is perfectly suited to the concept. This is no grandiose villain but a dapper, smooth-haired figure who only gradually reveals his psychopathic tendencies.’
Paul Taylor of The Independent enthused, ‘Freeman gives a highly intelligent, calculatedly understated performance, full of witty mocking touches in his rapid line-readings (he refers to ‘this princely… heap’ with a comically fastidious pause) and creating a rapport of shared superiority with the audience over his dupes.’
Ben Brantley of the New York Times wrote, ‘What he lacks is that hypnotic force of will that allows Richard to seduce a country, not to mention women like the doomed Lady Anne (Lauren O’Neil). It seems fitting that a later potential conquest, Elizabeth (Gina McKee), will listen to Richard’s suit only after she’s been trussed up in a chair by his henchman.’
Meanwhile, Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph wrote, ‘As the evil Richard, Freeman seems frankly miscast. The great trick of the play is that Richard seduces the audience with his wit and panache, even as he leads us into a moral wasteland of cruel barbarity. Compared with the great Richards I have seen over the years – Antony Sher, Ian McKellen, Simon Russell Beale and Kevin Spacey – Freeman seems like a boy sent to do a man’s work.’
Henry Hitchings of the London Evening Standard observed, ‘Martin Freeman is a smiling, self-satisfied Richard III – not the psychopath we tend to see, but instead an illustration of the banality of evil. He makes the hunchbacked monarch efficient and dapper, rather like a prim bureaucrat. Yet he punctuates this ordinariness with moments of malign mockery and savagery. It’s a crisp, thoughtful performance, in which Freeman successfully shakes off his familiar Nice Guy image. But he never seems truly dangerous.’
It is not unusual for high-profile actors to receive criticism in the theatre. It is part and parcel of the job. However, it was actually Freeman’s intention to bring Shakespeare to younger audiences, as he told Andrew Marr on his TV show that he wanted to cut out the ‘boring bits’. He said, ‘Among very educated, very smart, very theatre-literate people who sort of tolerate the boring bits and boring passages without telling anybody and tolerate the bits of the play where they think, “I don’t know who she is,” and, “Who’s he talking to?” without saying so because that would sort of be a black mark against them.’
Some theatregoers and critics may find his remarks patronising but there is something noble about wanting to entice younger people to the theatre. The play’s website stated that only people over twelve should see the show. As quoted in the Daily Mail, Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, rebutted, ‘I don’t think children should get some diluted version, it’s very patronising and it means they will never understand what drama is about.’ He continued, ‘But [Mr Freeman’s] view isn’t unusual, it’s very prevalent within schools, the idea that children can’t cope and that it has to be watered down… I think it’s very anti-educational and very patronising and it deprives children of an understanding of what a play is all about.’
However, and despite the minor controversy, Freeman was applauded by audience members as many fans posted rave reviews of his performance on Twitter. Such is the age we live in that social media is awash with instant reviews, headlines and newsbytes. Fans used to have to wait for the newspaper or magazine reviews, which could take days or weeks, but in the twenty-first century everything is instant.
While Freeman was on the London stage until September and Cumberbatch was busy with multiple movies and a move to the theatre with a production of Hamlet at the Barbican, it meant that series four of Sherlock could not be filmed in the autumn as originally hoped, and so the schedule was put back to begin in January 2015.
Freeman told the Sunday Telegraph’s Seven magazine, ‘If that’s going to be a special – I’m speaking off-message here; if this was New Labour I’d get fired – I think that might be for next Christmas. A Christmas special. That’s what I understand.’
It was then confirmed by the BBC that Sherlock series four would be broadcast in late 2015 with a one-off special. In the same interview, Freeman also said that his partner is likely to return: ‘While we play fast and loose with the original stories, we generally follow the trajectory of what Conan Doyle did. So he [Watson] gets married, and then Mary dies – so at some point presumably she’ll die.’
In the original Conan Doyle stories, Mary Morstan dies sometime during the period between Holmes’s apparent death at the Reichenbach Falls and his shocking return three years later. However, both of these events have already taken place in Sherlock. In the stories, Mary dies of natural causes but it is likely she will meet her demise in a far more adventurous fashion in the series, given that she is a former assassin. Watson picks up the pieces and joins Holmes in more adventures, which opens up the possibility of more one-off specials or even a fifth series but Freeman is likely to be in the frame of mind that the fourth series should be the last. A twelve-episode, four-series run is perfect and will have the sort of longevity afforded to all the great long-running TV shows.
Freeman told BBC News in August 2014, ‘It’s going to be full of surprises for you, and for us and for everybody. I think we just know to expect the unexpected now.’ He added, ‘The plans they have got for the overarching series – oh man, it’s just so exciting!’
In a sense, Moffat and Gatiss, the creators of the modern-day Sherlock, are living on borrowed time. The Hollywood careers of Cumberbatch and Freeman are doing so well that it is unlikely they will want to keep going back to the BBC regardless of how loyal they are to the small-screen show. It’s not about ego but rather the logistics of making a TV show – regardless of its global popularity – around so many Hollywood movies. Perhaps there is also the question of money because, usually, the more successful an actor is, the more expensive he becomes. Of course, actors take salary cuts but Hollywood is fickle – as is the entertainment industry in general – and an actor’s success tends to be based on his financial worth. An actor who makes millions is generally considered to be very popular. It’s doubtful that both of the Sherlock protagonists will stray too far from their London acting roots though.
Moffat said at the Ad-Lib event at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, ‘The show could not continue without Benedict and Martin. It’s absolutely them… Benedict and Martin have been announcing on various red carpets that they’re happy to come back and keep doing it. It would be quite nice to do it for a long, long time – let them age and become the normal aged Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.’
However, co-creator Steven Moffat also admitted that, if they were to do long runs of Sherlock, they would lose Cumberbatch and Freeman to Hollywood and that many more series of the BBC1 drama would not be possible.
Moffat spoke to EntertainmentWise.com at the premier of the Marvel movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, which stars former Doctor Who actor Karen Gillan: ‘It’s because it’s an occasional treat, every two years you get back together and make a few of them and that can go on for a bit… We’re all very excited by it and we all support whatever other successes we have or are having.’
Freeman has had an extraordinary career with so many varying roles to his name. As with all the great actors, he’s been in some garbage but his performances always shine. For him to jump from a major Hollywood movie to a British TV show to a Shakespearean play is evidence of just how talented he is. He’s also an actor who will not settle; he is constantly challenging himself. It’s a journey he has been on since his teenage years when he decided that he wanted to become an actor. He’s starred in thrillers, dramas, comedy, fantasy and Shakespeare. You name it, he can do it. And while he detests being labelled an ‘everyman’, there is much to like about Freeman as an actor. Being an ‘everyman’ is not a bad thing, of course. James Stewart, Jack Lemmon and Tom Hanks made careers out of their everyday, accessible and friendly personas.
‘You don’t see people like me walking up and down the street,’ he said to Esquire’s Michael Holden. ‘You don’t, frankly, see this [he points to his jacket] all the time and I’m not trying to give myself the big thing but you don’t. Not everyone dresses like me. Not everyone has my record collection because that implies I’m beige and I’m not fucking beige, you know. That’s the headline isn’t it?’
Freeman entered the acting profession out of a desire for joy and play and because it is something he happens to be very good at. It’s very upsetting if people don’t like him, as it is with anything, but he is the ultimate critic of his work. He knows when he has given a good performance or not. There are many things in life he finds daunting but work is not one of them. He does not worry about work; he enjoys it even when it frustrates the hell out of him.
‘It’s not something I was ever seeking and of course I understand that it’s the nature of this business, that with success comes recognition,’ he told Anthony Pearce of London Calling.com. ‘It can be pleasant to have people acknowledge your work and express their appreciation but sometimes the attention can be difficult to bear, and I admit I’m not good at that sort of thing. I like having my little world to myself and for my friends and family.’
Acting certainly does have its pitfalls but there is nothing else Freeman would rather be doing. He has moments where he questions his profession and he does get bad days on set, just like anybody gets with any job, but he loves his work. What brings out the best in him is when he is working with other people. He gets to meet a whole boatload of new people with every job, some of whom he manages to work with on more than one project. Acting is just about the best way to earn a living as far as Freeman is concerned.
‘Sometimes it’s hard to say. It’s like being in love or loving people,’ he told Anne Bayley of TwoCentsTV.com. ‘If you really sort of say, but what do I love about that person? Sometimes you’ve actually got to sit down and think, hang on, do I love them or is this habit or whatever, you know? So, you’ve got to kind of think for a minute about whether you do still love something. And I do that with acting.’
Freeman is not an actor that you will read about in the paper immersing himself in some sort of hedonistic lifestyle, the kind of behaviour that is often popularised by the tabloid press. It’s probably very frustrating for the salacious end of the journalistic spectrum that Freeman is a pretty ordinary, casual guy. There’s no dirt to be dug up, no stories of extramarital affairs – he’s totally committed to his wife and children. Nor is he especially adventurous.
‘Well, depending on the adventure. I mean I wouldn’t go into life-and-death [situations] really but nor would anyone unless you’re a moron,’ he told the New Zealand Herald. He continued, ‘But I’m an actor and I’ve chosen a life where there’s no security, where there’s no wages, no pension – so for a start that’s braver than those who go to work at the bank in my opinion.’