The Unexpected Adventures of Martin Freeman

by Neil Daniels

  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.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AMERICAN FILMS, BRITISH ACTOR

  ‘People thought, “Danny Dyer and Martin Freeman in a film together? That sounds good,” but actually they hated it.’

  FREEMAN SPEAKING TO CHRIS SULLIVAN, DAILY MAIL, 2008

  Though he may have only had a minor role in Hot Fuzz, Martin Freeman was gaining enough credible roles and minor parts in successful movies that his name and face were becoming more prominent in Britain and elsewhere. He was still best known as Tim Canterbury in The Office and he was not yet the household name he would one day become but, as jobbing actors go, he was becoming rather successful.

  Dedication, released in August 2007, is an American romantic comedy about Henry Roth (Billy Crudup), who is an obsessive compulsive and a children’s-book writer. His illustrator and sole friend, Rudy (Tom Wilkinson), dies after a successful collaboration on their children’s-books series Marty The Beaver. Henry has to produce another book in the series in time for Christmas and is under pressure from his publisher, Arthur Planck (Bob Balaban). An illustrator named Lucy Reilly (Mandy Moore) is assigned to work with Henry. However, her ex-boyfriend (Freeman) is back on the scene and attempts to wow her back after having dedicated his latest book to her. Dedication was not a box-office success nor did it win over the critics.

  Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times wrote, ‘The directing debut of the actor Justin Theroux, Dedication is almost saved by David Bromberg’s tart dialogue and exceptional acting from its three leads.’

  Jesse Hassenger of Contact Music.com wrote, ‘Though the script may be the culprit for the mismatched clichés and broad supporting characters (chief among them Dianne Weist as Moore’s shrieking mother), it’s disappointing that Theroux wasn’t able to finesse it into something more nuanced and clear.’

  The Good Night is an American romantic comedy starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Penélope Cruz, Martin Freeman, Danny DeVito and Simon Pegg and is set between London and New York. Freeman plays Gary Shaller, a former pop star who now makes a living writing jingles for commercials and experiences a midlife crisis. Freeman may not have been able to relate to his character on a deeply personal level, even though there have been times when Martin has had similar crises of confidence, as experienced by many, but all it takes is imagination and empathy to understand Gary. He’s a failed musician who is frustrated with life. It’s a universal theme.

  Gary tries to live out his dreams and Freeman is a person who’s had some indelible, recurring dreams, as he told IGN.com’s Leigh Singer: ‘I’ve had several really tangible dreams about UFOs and they’ve been amazing! You know that sort of everyday quality that you get in a couple of scenes in Close Encounters [of the Third Kind] where these lights fly over a road and it somehow seems tangible, somehow seems real. I’ve had a few of those dreams about UFOs where it’s been absolutely clear that this is the day that the world changes and it’s very exciting. I’ve not had one of those for a while, but I love them when I have them!’

  It was director Jake Paltrow’s first feature and, as such, he didn’t want his famous sister overshadowing him too much, so she was not involved initially. As time progressed, however, he reasoned that he’d got an outstanding actor for a sister who knows the material and was volunteering her talents, most likely for a fee cut, given the nature of the film’s budget.

  ‘Jake Paltrow contacted me while I was making The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy three years ago and sent me the script,’ Freeman explained to NYC Movie Guru. ‘I responded to it very positively. It was original and I thought it had a true voice. I like working with people who just like to tell a story. [Jake Paltrow] adores film, so it was a joy to work with somebody with that passion.’

  He added, ‘The ending is one of the reasons I wanted to do it. When I got to the last page [of the script], I thought it was a great way to finish it – sort of, unresolved. It could have been a lot happier. I like knowing that it’s enough for him to keep dreaming.’

  From the get-go Freeman got along with the writer/director Jake, who had also directed episodes of the acclaimed cop series NYPD Blue. Their initial phone conversation lasted almost an hour and they shared similar ideas for what the tone of the film should be. If Paltrow did not write the role specifically for Freeman, he was certainly one of the director’s top choices of actors for the part. They were both working on faith; Martin hadn’t seen anything Paltrow had been involved with, while the director had only seen a couple of things Freeman had starred in. Life is too short, Freeman thought, so he committed to the script. The script was Paltrow’s vision and Martin could see that. It wasn’t a script churned out by a committee of writers to appease a certain audience demographic but rather the sole idea of a committed film-maker.

  Freeman didn’t actually consider himself to be a bona-fide movie star, so he was pleased that he was approached for the part. Americans knew Freeman mostly for The Office and Love Actually at this stage in his career. Paltrow did not need convincing to cast Freeman but perhaps the rest of the cast needed to be persuaded because Martin wasn’t a household name and, as such, the film had less box-office appeal. Paltrow put their minds at rest and Freeman was more than happy that someone he hardly knew – almost a stranger – saw something in him to warrant a lead role in a US movie.

  ‘I read a lot of American scripts that are better than British scripts,’ he admitted to Movie Web.com’s Julian Roman. ‘They’re for grown-ups. They’re not trying to remake The Italian Job. We do a lot of capery stuff in Britain and a lot of American scripts are a bit more grown-up.’

  Freeman didn’t actually know that his female cast would be Gwyneth Paltrow and Penélope Cruz. He also got a kick out of working with his old mate Simon Pegg, whom he lobbied to be in the film. Both actors have a very truthful, honest and un-egotistical nature about them. Martin sees that there’s a seriousness to Pegg, though he may be best known as a comedian because of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead. He’s not begging to be liked on screen all the time. Pegg has great timing too. Some comedians are awful as serious actors, some are excellent; Pegg has a natural acting talent.

  Martin enjoyed working with both Paltrows; he’d never met Gwyneth before but Simon Pegg knew her through her then husband, Coldplay singer Chris Martin. Freeman took to her straight away. She was very easy to work with and did not bring any Hollywood ego with her, which Freeman admired. She is an excellent actress and he has a great deal of respect for her because of that.
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br />   Everyone in the film was excellently suited to their role. There was a vibe, a relentless energy on set that came from the outstanding cast. Another key member of the company was Danny DeVito. During filming on the streets of New York, people were thrilled to see him; teachers, cops, everyday Joes, children and parents. Freeman found him to be immediately likeable and a delight to work with. He’s a celebrity but he’s approachable. DeVito is an interesting man and Martin enjoyed their scenes together.

  The film is set in New York, where there is an artistic community, similar to that in London. There is great cultural life in both cities and it’s a rat race to get jobs, especially for creative people. Creative people are attracted to cosmopolitan cities but it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Freeman, unlike his character in the film, has never been out of work.

  Martin spoke to Ain’t It Cool News writer Capone about the film’s melancholy ambience: ‘I like the sort of calm of melancholy and also the stability of that. So, you sort of know where you are, which I like. Yeah, the film does have that quality, I suppose. I think it might have less of it, as you say, depending on what expectation you bring to it. Because if someone said to you, “God, it’s a really, really depressing film,” then you’d go, “No, no, there are really quite a lot of laughs in it.” But, yeah, if you’re expecting a lot of laughs, there are some laughs in it, but yeah, it’s darker than that, I suppose, which is exactly… well, I suppose it partly reflects my taste in films, and in art generally, and in life.’