The Unexpected Adventures of Martin Freeman

by Neil Daniels

  The Times’s Libby Purves described Freeman as ‘pleasingly unrecognisable as a terrible prat in a sports jacket’.

  He also played a character named Clive Buckle in the short film The Girl is Mime, which, with an estimated production cost of £2,000, was released on 12 March 2011. Freeman’s character is questioned by the police over the murder of his wife. Buckle says he didn’t do it but the police are convinced he is the murderer – they just haven’t got any evidence to prove it.

  Martin then cropped up as Alvin Finkel in the film Swinging with the Finkels, released on 17 June 2011 in the UK and on 26 August in the States. Written and directed by Jonathan Newman, the film is about a couple – Alvin and Ellie, played by Freeman and Mandy Moore – who decide to shake up their marriage by ‘swinging’ with another couple. The film is part of a sub-genre of films known as ‘sex comedy’. It’s as British as tea, beans on toast and Cadbury’s chocolate. These types of comedies go back to the 1960s and 1970s with the Carry On films that involve double-entendres, naughty one-liners and slapstick comedy. The early 2000s produced a few other risible films of this sort – notably, Sex Lives of the Potato Men, Lesbian Vampire Killers and Three and Out.

  The film was poorly received. It was one of those silly British comedies that failed to hit the right buttons and engage with audiences.

  Time Out’s Tim Huddleston said, ‘From the opening shot of Martin Freeman wandering through Borough Market to the strains of some tedious sub-Richard Curtis soul-lite, we’re squarely in unambitious British romcom territory. But it’s still remarkable how lazy and lacklustre Swinging with the Finkels manages to be.’

  Total Film’s Emma Didbin said, ‘Thank God for Freeman, a reliably wry, likeable and emotionally truthful totem around which the rest of proceedings messily revolve. But he’s saddled with a script that descends from misjudged raunch-com into mawkish sap come act three.’

  Gabe Toro put the boot in with an extensive review on IndieWire.com: ‘There’s no way around this, there’s no kind way to preface this, there’s no purpose to side-step it: Swinging with the Finkels is one of the worst, cheapest, dumbest and most dishonest films of the year. The film has the same tin-ear for its material that student films usually sport, often when they’re about retirement, hit men, or a litany of subjects young people tackle despite clearly having no experience in the field. “Swinging,” in theory, would be a film oblivious to the matters of sex and intimacy, but, in fact, it’s merely alien to any and all human behaviour.’

  In 2011 Freeman took part in a charity cricket match to raise money for victims of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. He also played Simon in What’s Your Number? based on the book 20 Times a Lady by Karyn Bosnak. What’s Your Number? was a box office and critical failure after its 30 September 2011 release. It stars Ann Faris as a twenty-something woman who looks back at the men in her life and wonders if one of them was her true love.

  The Daily Telegraph’s Tim Robey wrote, ‘Faris, who has deserved exactly this lead role since her 2008 cult hit The House Bunny, proves once again that she has the bubblegum likeability and comic chops of peak Goldie Hawn. There are sequences here that deserve a round of applause – particularly when she tries to impress an ex (Martin Freeman) by posing as a Brit, strangled accent sliding from Eliza Doolittle to (somehow) Borat. She plays someone called Ally Darling and pulls it off, which is fairly impressive in itself.’

  A.V. Club’s Nathan Rabin wrote, ‘There’s a smart, funny, observant comedy-drama to be made about the role our romantic pasts play in determining our futures, but director Mark Mylod and screenwriters Jennifer Crittenden (a Simpsons veteran who really should know better) and Gabrielle Allan are less interested in making that movie than in cycling Faris through a series of non-starting encounters with one-note-joke ex-flings, like the terminally British Martin Freeman or closeted gay Republican Anthony Mackie.’

  Total Film’s Ellen E. Jones said, ‘Martin Freeman’s friendly face pops up as her charming English ex, but doesn’t get to do much, instead flanking Faris while she performs a bad British accent tour de force that provides the film’s largest laugh.’

  Freeman continued to remain dubious about Hollywood. He’s never seen himself as an actor sitting by a pool in LA with a cocktail in one hand and his mobile phone in the other as he chats to his agent about movie deals. He has never allowed money to be the guiding force behind his career. Of course, he wants to make enough cash to have a comfortable life and to support his family but he’s never picked a role specifically for the aid of his bank account.

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to say that I wouldn’t do anything Hollywoody,’ he said to Olly Grant of the Daily Telegraph. ‘It’s just that I’m more of an Englishman, really, than a Hollywood man.’

  What matters to Freeman is the story and the characters, whether it is a funny production or an emotional one. Everyone has been affected by a film, especially in childhood, and it’s those films that have longevity.

  ‘I’m not in a hurry to go to Hollywood, because there are so many British actors who go “Hollywood! Hollywood! Hollywood!” and they end up doing jack-shit there. Or just nonsense. And not doing their best stuff,’ he admitted to IGN Filmforce’s Ken P. ‘But Christ, if a good director and good people wanted to work with me, I’d be over the moon! Of course, I’d sweep the floor on The Sopranos. But as for the idea of equating Hollywood or America with success, I find it quite abhorrent.’

  He has a modest outlook on fame and his priorities are his family, his home and his health. He enjoys his life the way it is.

  ‘There are still plenty of people who don’t know who I am,’ he told Steven Balbirnie of the University Observer. ‘That hasn’t changed in that way, really. It’s not like everywhere I go I’m mobbed, you know, certainly not in non-English speaking places… I think your world changes as much as you want it to change. I think if you go out there and court everything, it depends on how much you embrace, how much you want it and there are some things I don’t particularly want. I want work and I want to be doing good work but I don’t necessarily need everything that goes with it.’

  Freeman is not overly ambitious, as some actors are, but, then again, he’s never been out of work. If he does not like a script, he will not audition for it but he also likes to know why actors have turned down the roles he has been offered. He is interested in good projects, regardless of nationality.

  Acting is his main passion in life outside of his family and it’s something he is getting better at with every passing day. His lifelong ambition is to simply refine and progress in his profession; to be a great thespian. He has little interest in much else.

  He spoke to BBC Movies’ Rob Carnevale about the possibility of one day directing a feature film: ‘I’m not sure that I could. I don’t know that I’d be great at that. I think the only directing I’d be any good at is theatre directing. It’s the only thing I can see myself doing. But I don’t feel confident enough delegating that much work on a film set. There are still things technically about films that I think are a mystery to me and I want to remain a mystery. I don’t particularly want to know what everyone’s job is because I’ve got lines to learn.’

  Fame had certainly not gone to his head. He wasn’t a household name – well, perhaps in Britain to a certain extent, but certainly not in America. He didn’t crave Hollywood success early in his career. He doesn’t really crave Hollywood success in 2015. He loves London. He always has. He’s a home bird.

  ‘It would be easy to get carried away thinking how big you are, but I’m sure the vast majority of people don’t even know who I am – I’m not Robbie Williams,’ he admitted to journalist Siobhan Synnot of Douban.com. ‘Even though people come up to me in the street and say things, they still don’t know my name. In America they come up to me and say, “You were in my favourite film.” And it turns out their favourite film is Love Actually. Or Ali G. And they tend to assume I have been unemployed since then. So I’m not abo
ut to be Tom Cruise.’

  He never went knocking on Hollywood’s door. He didn’t need to because Hollywood called him, or rather New Zealand did.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE HOBBIT IN NEW ZEALAND

  ‘When people call me an everyman they think it’s a compliment. I want to rip their fucking eyeballs out. I don’t want to be the cosiest man in Britain; it’s not the way I feel about the world or the job I do.’

  FREEMAN SPEAKING TO BRUCE DESSAU IN THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD, 2005

  2012 would bring some incredible opportunities to Freeman as he returned to Baker Street and also made a trip to Middle Earth in the great fantasy world of author J.R.R. Tolkien.

  The writers of Sherlock, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, came to the conclusion that they should rework three of Conan Doyle’s most well-known stories as the friendship between Holmes and Watson developed. Even Watson was brought in as the lead detective in episode two, ‘The Hounds Of Baskerville’, which was sandwiched between ‘A Scandal In Belgravia’ (aired 1 January 2012) and ‘The Reichenbach Fall’ (aired 15 January 2012) and was first shown on TV on 8 January 2012.

  The series-two finale, ‘The Reichenbach Fall’, was Freeman’s favourite episode to film. He was very excited about it as soon as he’d read the script. The finished programme is superlative.

  The Washington Post’s Hank Stuever said of Cumberbatch and Freeman, ‘He’s [Cumberbatch] quite something, all right, but I can’t be the only one who finds this particular version of Sherlock to be a little grating. He’d be almost unwatchable if it weren’t for the tender devotion and counterbalance Martin Freeman brings to the role of Watson.’

  Den of Geek’s Louisa Mellor wrote, ‘Cumberbatch and Freeman remain a fantastic double act, with even more bickering and gags at their status as a couple this time around. There can’t be a greater pleasure on telly at the moment than seeing the look of arch disdain on Cumberbatch’s face dissolve into boyish giggles with Freeman on a sofa in Buckingham Palace, or in the back of a cab.’

  As with any friendship, partnership or marriage, there is a familiarity between the pair and, as such, there is also contempt and love, compassion and everything else that is fuelled in a relationship. They’ve settled for each other. The relationship between Holmes and Watson is what the public have enjoyed about the series. It was a gratifying experience for both Freeman and Cumberbatch to see how much the characterisation between the two characters had progressed. The writing is excellent and, when the scripts are so good, that’s half the job done.

  The duo may be best friends on screen but behind the camera, due to their busy schedules, they don’t have the closeness of Holmes and Watson.

  ‘We are very friendly [Benedict and I] and we’re good work colleagues but we’re also quite busy and I don’t really hang out with many of, or any of, my co-stars,’ Freeman admitted to Yahoo.

  There’s a tendency for the public to think that actors hang out with each other and become lifelong friends after a film is made, which may be true in some cases but, for the most part, actors work together on set for a few weeks or months and, through the nature of the job, they automatically make friends but once filming is wrapped up they move on and perhaps never see each other again.

  Freeman added, ‘It’s obviously because of the closeness of that relationship on screen, people expect it, or want it to be echoed in real life, which is understandable… You want all your favourite band members to live together in a flat and they don’t.’

  Martin spoke to ShortList.com about the show’s increasingly rapid and ever-growing fan base: ‘… Sherlock is a much finer line between love and hate [laughs]. Because they love it so much that they have to hate it as well and they have to sort of hate you, or hate aspects of what you do, or hate Stephen [sic] Moffat if he’s said something that is half a degree off menu for what they want him to say.’

  It’s fun to watch the relationship between Holmes and Watson develop throughout the first two series. It has become more of a partnership with Watson only one step behind Holmes rather than six. Watson still gets annoyed by some aspects of Holmes’s behaviour but he learns how to deal with the detective’s quirky and eccentric personality. Even with the nail-biting scenes between Holmes and Moriarty, Watson still has a presence there. The writers have not side-lined him at all. Moriarty is one of the most famous villains in all of literature and he comes across remarkably well in the series.

  At the same time that Sherlock series two was broadcast director Guy Ritchie released the sequel, A Game of Shadows, to his surprise blockbuster Hollywood version of Sherlock Holmes with the American Robert Downey Jr as Holmes and Brit actor Jude Law as Watson.

  ‘Well, obviously Jude has the misfortune of not being very good-looking, so he has to watch jealously,’ Freeman joked with Empire’s Nick de Semlyen. ‘No, we all went to see the first film and came away going, “We wanted to hate that, but we didn’t.” It was very entertaining and I love Jude. He’s good.’

  ‘A Scandal In Belgravia’ was nominated for thirteen Primetime Emmy Awards, including ‘Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Miniseries Or Movie’ for Freeman’s portrayal of Watson, while Freeman bagged the TV Movie/Miniseries Supporting Actor award at the Gold Derby TV Awards in May 2012. The episode won three British Academy Television Craft Awards and later the Edgar Award for ‘Best Episode In A TV Series’ in May 2013.

  ‘It’s a very good idea not to read reviews, because for better or for worse, you can end up “playing the review”. But I have [read them] – that’s why I’m awful in the second series!’ he said to Digital Spy’s Morgan Jeffery in 2011. ‘I didn’t actively seek [reviews] out, but we’ve all got an ego and if you know people are saying really nice things about you, you tend to open your ears. But I wasn’t maniacal about hunting down everything, because most actors hunt down the bad stuff – you want to know who thinks you’re a prick!’

  Sherlock was inundated with further awards and nominations in 2012. Freeman picked up a Tumblr TV Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series, a Crime Thriller Award for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination at the PAAFTJ Awards for Best Supporting Actor In A Miniseries Or TV Movie. The series won a PAAFTJ Award for Best Cast In A Miniseries or TV Movie and Best Cast at the Tumblr TV Awards.

  Freeman continued to be shocked by the success of the series.

  ‘Some of the viewing figures we got with the second series of Sherlock were fucking outrageous,’ he told Esquire’s Michael Holden in 2012. ‘One week we beat EastEnders, and I’m so proud – not because we beat EastEnders – but I’m just proud that millions, I mean literally millions and millions, of people wanted to watch it then. That night, do you know what I mean?’

  Aside from Sherlock, Freeman voiced the character of ‘The Pirate with a Scarf’ in the 2012 film, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! which was renamed in New Zealand as The Pirates! Band of Misfits. Directed by Peter Lord, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! is a British-American 3D stop-motion film produced by Aardman Animations, the British company behind Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit.

  Freeman had wanted to work with Nick Park and his Bristol-based Aardman Animations for a while and had first approached Park about a possible collaboration at a British Comedy Awards several years earlier.

  Hugh Grant made his first animated feature debut while Imelda Staunton, David Tennant, Jeremy Piven, Salma Hayek, Lenny Henry and Brian Blessed also lent their voices to the film. It is loosely based on the book of the same name in the Gideon Defoe The Pirates! series.

  Freeman told a journalist at Douban.com about his experience with voice work, which is everything Martin doesn’t want acting to be – alone in a room reading from a script.

  ‘It was very unique, you don’t even know what their physicality is,’ he said. ‘I had seen minutes here and there of what my character was going to be, I knew what he was going to look like, but he’s not literally me. I was doing the physicality that you n
ormally are in an acting job, but you leave his actual physicality to the team of animators, a team of people you hadn’t met in another city somewhere. There’s a lot of trust, I suppose, that goes on – definitely on both sides. I think from our point of view you feel quite privileged to be on the film anyway, every actor who was in it was, I’m sure, was quite chuffed to be a part of it, having seen all their work previously.’

  Freeman much prefers to work with actors and, while it was a new experience for him, he was genuinely only interested because it was an opportunity to work with Aardman. He didn’t get into acting to do this sort of work though because, for the most part, voice work is working alone. Freeman loves people and being sociable and voice work does not provide that sort of interaction. Acting is more ‘community based’, as he has described it. He loves to hear stories on set from other actors and mingle with the cast and crew.

  Martin’s inspiration for his character, Pirate With Scarf, was John Le Mesurier in Dad’s Army; basically someone who is cleverer than his superior and is level headed and knows how to deal with his superior officer. Freeman’s character is the Captain’s right-hand man. His Captain takes him for granted sometimes but knows he can rely on him. Pirate With Scarf would run through hoops for his Captain. In the film Pirate Captain gets a crisis of confidence and forgets how much high esteem his crew hold him in so, when he starts to feel negatively about himself, Pirate With Scarf boost up his boss’s confidence. None of the characters in the film have names as such – Pirate With Scarf, Curvaceous Pirate, Pirate With Gout and so on – and so they’re more like stock characters.

  It was a reasonable box-office success after its 28 March release but it was a critical hit and was nominated for the 2013 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.