by Neil Daniels
Never too far from each other, Abbington later appeared in several more productions alongside Freeman, most notably Sherlock, Swinging with the Finkels, The Debt and The All Together.
Abbington spoke to the Daily Mail’s Vicki Power about seeing Freeman for the first time: ‘I’d seen him in a TV sketch show and thought he was gorgeous. My ideal man. As I sat watching I said to my friend “He’s lovely, isn’t he? I’d love to meet him.” Then a couple of months later I did.’ One day, while in a make-up bus on the set of Men Only, she complained to her make-up girl that she didn’t have a boyfriend, to which the make-up girl replied that there was a man on set who had been whining about a similar thing because he didn’t have a girlfriend. ‘At that minute Martin walked in and I just had a thunderbolt,’ Abbington continued. ‘It dawned on me, “Oh, God it’s him!” We flirted with each other all day and when I went home he texted me, saying, “You left and I wasn’t done flirting with you. That’s a bit rude,” which I thought was really smooth.’ Freeman invited her out for a drink the next day and a few months later they were living together.
Following his appearance in Men Only, Freeman played various characters in five episodes of the seemingly now forgotten World of Pub. The comedy ran for six thirty-minute episodes from June to July of 2001 and was originally broadcast on BBC2. It had initially been a radio series that aired on Radio 4 from March 1998 to January 1999 and lasted for two series. It is set in an unpopular pub in London’s East End and each episode ends up in a disaster of some sort.
The British Comedy Guide said, ‘The series had previously run on BBC Radio 4 and did have some interesting ideas, but it did not have the legs to earn a second TV series. While the TV series was not successful, it did give some early TV appearances for future comedy stars including Peter Serafinowicz, Martin Freeman, Tamsin Greig and David Walliams.’
Total Film reviewed the DVD release and summarised, ‘Cockney rhyming slang is well funny. But before you and the trouble and strife put up your plates for a butcher’s at this 2001 sitcom featuring a pre-fame Martin Freeman, David Walliams and Tamsin Greig, pause a moment. Essentially a pub version of Father Ted, Tony Roche’s wilfully silly show is one of the glut of early noughties comedies that hits just wide of the mark, complete with canned laughter echoing in the background.’
Freeman returned to the theatre in 1999 for a production of La Dispute, a staging of Pierre Marivaux’s eighteenth-century play, co-produced by the RSC and Neil Bartlett’s own Lyric Hammersmith, where the play was staged. Bartlett translated the original French and directed and designed the play, which, following its Hammersmith date on 15 April 1999, travelled north for showings in Brighton and Poole. Freeman won praise from critics for his performance as Azor. It was another string to his bow.
Martin Freeman’s breakthrough TV role was undoubtedly the character of Tim Canterbury in The Office. He was dubious about going for the role initially because it was such a departure from what he’d done in the past but he reasoned that change is good, especially for a jobbing actor. He originally read for the part of Gareth, which ultimately went to Mackenzie Crook, and it was only as he was leaving the audition that Gervais offered him the part of Tim.
‘There’s a brilliant ordinariness to Martin’s character, an endearing low-level grumpiness, and he was able to tap into that [in The Office],’ said the show’s producer, Ash Atalla, to Guardian journalist John Plunkett. ‘He is a very charming, slightly grouchy man-next-door who has become a superstar.’
Freeman appeared in fourteen episodes of the acclaimed series between 2001 and 2003. His first appearance was in the pilot and his last was in the Christmas Special Part 2, which aired on 27 December 2003. The Christmas Specials were hugely successful.
The Office has become one of the most popular and respected programmes in the history of British comedy on television. It was first broadcast on 9 July 2001 on BBC2 and, due to low ratings, it was almost cancelled. However, word of mouth and positive reviews gained it a consistent fan base. Entirely fictional and scripted, The Office was filmed in a documentary-style (often called ‘mockumentary’), as the camera is acknowledged by the actors. It was created, written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and follows the day-to-day lives of a group of office employees in the Slough branch of the fictional Wernham Hogg Paper Company. Gervais plays the main character, David Brent, the office manager. A successful US remake ran from 2005 to 2013.
It is interesting that the Americans eventually took such a liking to The Office and decided to remake it. Often, US audiences can be very curious about non-home-grown TV shows, as they are an insular country by nature. They may know such shows as the detective drama series Inspector Morse or the comedy Keeping Up Appearances and a few others but these are set in lovely English towns and villages where everyone has a well-do-do accent. Americans know little – if anything – about the working class areas of Britain and the TV series that come out of it. Brits know about rock ’n’ roll, jazz, blues, comic books, Hollywood movies and American TV but it’s not something that is reciprocal. Americans know fewer British TV shows. Also, America is so big that it could claim to know about The Office but perhaps it’s only really New York and California and not the Mid-West or the South. Americans tend to take things they don’t quite understand and totally remake them into something else they can comprehend. When Americans remake British films (Get Carter, The Italian Job) and TV shows (Cracker, Prime Suspect) the results are usually bad. The Office US only worked after season one because the writers made it something other than a literal remake of the original British version.
Freeman’s personality suited the role of the straight man in The Office; he’s an actor who has never begged to be liked or laughed at.
He explained to IGN Filmforce’s Ken P., ‘I suppose the tone of The Office fits that, absolutely, and I guess that’s why I’m in it – why they wanted me in it and why I wanted to be in it. Because it’s so subtle, and that’s the kind of sketch comedy I like. The Marx Brothers isn’t subtle, and that’s hilarious. There are a lot of things that aren’t subtle but work just as well, but I think I’m best suited to stuff that is…’
Freeman’s character in the show, Tim Canterbury, is a thirty-year-old sales representative whose sense of humour is very self-deprecating and ironic. He often jokes and flirts with the receptionist Dawn Tinsley (Lucy Davis). His office enemy is Gareth Kennan (Mackenzie Crook), whom Tim often plays practical jokes on to brighten up his otherwise tedious day. Tim, who seems to get along with everyone due to his sense of humour, humility and some good-natured traits, often jokes with his boss, David Brent, although their relationship has mixed results, as Brent is an extreme character with childlike behaviour and narcissism. However, Tim is something of a pathetic and insecure character who lives a shallow life. He lives with his parents and dropped out of university, only to end up in a job he feels no passion or zest for.
The flirtatious relationship between Tim and Dawn goes through several transitions throughout the series and becomes something of a ‘will they/won’t they’ situation as the series progresses. However, Dawn is engaged to Lee (Joel Beckett), which prevents the work colleagues from deepening the feelings they have for each other. In the episode ‘Training Day’ Dawn and Lee have some relationship trouble, which Tim mistakenly believes means the end of their engagement, so he asks Dawn out and discovers that he was mistaken in his assumption. Tim jumps to his own defence by saying that he was only asking her out ‘as friends’. Tim and Dawn seem to drift apart during series two, especially as Tim gets a promotion and begins to take his job more seriously. He starts to date Rachel, a former Swindon employee. It’s obvious that Dawn becomes jealous over his new relationship and even his nemesis Gareth is jealous because he had feelings for Rachel before she started going out with Tim.
During the fifth episode of the second series, Dawn sells kisses for Red Nose Day and Tim makes a donation and they kiss. He is torn between his feelings for
both Dawn and Rachel but he is not aware that Dawn and Lee plan to move to the US. Tim breaks up with Rachel and admits to Dawn his feelings for her but his confession is kept private from the cameras as he takes his mic off. Both characters are left depressed by the end of the series.
As time passes, Tim becomes unhappy in his job, while Dawn and Lee are equally unhappy living in Florida. They fly back for the office reunion and she reignites her friendship with Tim. They finally become a couple after she receives a Christmas present from Tim telling her to hold on to her dream of becoming an illustrator. She returns to the Christmas party without Lee.
The Office was an accurate representation of Freeman’s sardonic sense of humour, although he admitted to Dark Horizon’s Paul Fischer that he also adores old-school slapstick comedy: ‘It was certainly pretty close,’ he said in the interview. ‘I mean, my taste in humour does go from slapping you around the face in Tom and Jerry, to The Office, Larry Sanders, or to Harold Lloyd, from the silly to the clever. I love physical shtick, and all sorts of things that are done well.’
Freeman was nominated for Best Comedy Actor at the 2002 British Comedy Awards and then nominated for a BAFTA at the 2004 awards for Best Comedy Performance for his role in The Office Christmas Specials, for which he also won a British Comedy Award nomination.
‘I don’t like affectation,’ he said to Esquire’s Michael Holden in 2012. ‘I think my job is to help tell the story and anything else is just showing off, trying to win awards and I truly do think that’s silly.’
No one knew The Office was going to be so successful and have such an impact on modern popular culture. Freeman thoroughly enjoyed his time in The Office and said he knew from the minute he saw the rough cut that it was going to be a great series: ‘It’s a funny thing, The Office, because millions and millions and millions and millions of people didn’t watch it,’ he said to the Washington Post’s Alona Wartofsky. ‘But culturally, it is more of a phenomenon than almost anything else I can remember as far as British television is concerned.
‘I think it had a bit more guts than other shows that have gone into that format,’ he added. ‘It was more uncomfortable to watch than a lot of things on television are.’
The Office had picked up some famous fans. On a trip to LA – his first visit to Hollywood – for the Golden Globes in 2004, he met Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest of This Is Spinal Tap. ‘… how many people do they meet and say, “Oh, I loved your show”?’ Freeman said to The Guardian’s Stephanie Merritt. ‘I mean, I heard that Paul McCartney always taped The Office, but that doesn’t mean he feels the same way about me that I feel about the Beatles.’
His first trip to Hollywood freaked him out. He felt like it was its own planet, alien to the rest of the US, let alone the world. Hollywood represents fantasy; it is a world of its own making. Freeman is English and he loves London and his family and does not wish to pursue an LA lifestyle. One would imagine that life in LA can be very emotional. ‘If I began to like it out there, I’d think I was going mad,’ he admitted to Andrew Duncan of Reader’s Digest, ‘rather than chilling out and not having a chip on my shoulder. I give myself chips. It’s my way of keeping myself in check. There’s a streak in me that says, “Life is not all great. Keep vigilant”.’
An intensely private man, Freeman shied away from the red-carpet events and all the glitz and glamour hoopla that came with his new celebrity lifestyle, choosing to stay at home with his family. He preferred to concentrate on the art of acting and the many technical details that come with it and avoid becoming trapped in the whirlwind lifestyle that fame and fortune brought him on the back of The Office. He admitted that he struggled to cope with the recognition that came with the series’ success. Some people apparently even thought he was an office worker before he appeared in the series and had no idea that he was an experienced actor who had several years of professional work behind him. ‘Have you done anything else?’ he would get asked by curious members of the public.
Freeman told the Daily Express’s Cheryl Stonehouse, ‘You soon realise you should never take that adulation seriously. People called me a legend but what they really meant was that they’d seen me on the telly. Some people moan about the cult of celebrity but if these people don’t want to be photographed then they should stay in.’
The role seemed to be a blessing and a curse for Freeman: in one way it opened his career up to new roles and made him a TV star but on the flip side, in the eyes of the public, it looked as though he was always going to be Tim Canterbury, and he struggled to get away from that stereotype. It is a predicament that many actors face when they are specifically associated with one role. Some actors never get away from their first or most popular character, no matter how hard they try; others attempt to completely turn their career around. Martin Freeman was desperate to get away from the tag ‘the bloke who played Tim in The Office’.
‘… obviously I don’t want to be seen as that character for the rest of my life – I’d like it to be seen as one of a number of things I’m proud to have done,’ Freeman admitted to The Guardian’s Stephanie Merritt in 2004. ‘But then I’m proud of plays I did in front of 200 people that no one gives a shit about who wasn’t there, and that doesn’t negate it for me.’
There often comes a point when certain members of the public assume the actor is the character they play and, as a result, they sometimes think they know that person off-screen but, of course, it is not the case.
‘If I leave the house it happens every day,’ Freeman said to Metro’s Andrew Williams. ‘I wasn’t dragged up, so I know how to be polite and how to speak to people. People think they know you. There are similarities between me and Tim but I am not him. If it means something to someone, that’s good – we didn’t make the show for people to feel indifferent about it. I am glad it’s affected people but there are times if you’re at a gig or a club and someone slaps you on the back and it’s not good. I tell them off if I think they’ve gone over the line.’
There was one point where Freeman admits the fame may have got to him and he started to develop an ego, which is understandable. Both he and his partner Amanda were jobbing actors with steady pay cheques coming in and, all of a sudden, people were nudging Amanda out of the way so they could speak to Freeman.
‘That is going to make her feel even more insecure and make me look like I’m being an arrogant prick,’ Freeman said to the Observer’s Andrew Anthony. ‘I’m not saying I wasn’t an arrogant prick. If I was, she says it didn’t last long.’
Freeman has never had any inclination to see a return of The Office. His blueprint for the series is the classic British comedy Fawlty Towers, which ran for just two series consisting of twelve episodes yet, decades later, is still thought of as one of the all-time great comedy shows.
‘I think The Office was the right length,’ Freeman said to ShortList in 2014. ‘A huge reason it’s so beloved is that we left it. And I think on the one hand people say, “I wish you’d done more,” and I think, “Well you might wish that now, but in five years you might not be thinking that when you’re saying, ‘Oh it’s not as good as it used to be,’” and I always admired Ricky and Steve for calling it a day.’
None of the cast and creative team expected to make so much money from the DVD sales of the series. ‘No one could have dreamed it would become a cultural phenomenon,’ Freeman said to BBC Movies’ Rob Carnevale. ‘We were doing it because it was really good and we really liked it. And if only seven people had liked it, I’d still be dead proud of it.’
One thing that Freeman remembers from the set of The Office is the light-hearted theological debates with Ricky Gervais. Freeman, a Catholic, and Gervais, known to be an atheist, would talk about the many concerns relating to religion, but those talks never got too serious.
Freeman has since admitted he would like to work with Gervais again but it has, to date, never been on the cards. He has also stated that such a reunion of the old gang would, perhaps, not be a wise
move as he has tried so hard to move away from his character in The Office. Martin has always had the guts to move on from any role he has been associated with. He’s not an actor who likes to live off past glories but rather one who looks ahead to other roles and new ventures.
It was not surprising that some of his Office colleagues went to America for work but Freeman remained a steadfastly London-based actor.
‘It really depends on what it is,’ he said to IGN’s Leigh Singer, when asked about his choice of roles. ‘It genuinely does because of course some big American films are absolutely brilliant and some of them aren’t, but that’s the way of everything. I don’t write anything off without reading a script and if it’s a good one, I’ll consider it, whether it’s for twenty dollars or a million dollars.’
The Office was not a full-time gig, so Freeman had other roles to branch out with. He cropped up as a pirate in the film Fancy Dress, written and directed by Jon Wright and released on 21 November 2001, and he had various other bit parts as well.
Once The Office became a success, Freeman reasoned that he was on a train that was not going to slow down and he was right: the scripts came flying through his door. But that did not mean he wasn’t insecure, as many actors are. He understood what a fickle business he was in and that one year you could be inundated with scripts, only to struggle to find work months later. Actors are never completely safe: the industry might tell you you’re the next Robert DeNiro but a year later slap you in the face, throw cold water at you and tell you your career is over and you’re relegated to TV movies.
He was cast as Richard ‘Ricky C’ Cunningham in the 2002 comedy Ali G Indahouse, based on the popular Channel 4 series by writer, actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Usually, comedy series work less well on the big screen than they do on TV but Ali G Indahouse was relatively successful, receiving some modest reviews and reasonable box-office returns. The film, which was released on 22 March 2002, also stars Michael Gambon as the Prime Minister, Charles Dance as the Deputy Prime Minister and Kellie Bright as Ali G’s love interest, Julie.