The Unexpected Adventures of Martin Freeman

by Neil Daniels

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BACK TO MIDDLE EARTH

  ‘I like the odd day on my own in the course of a film because you’ve got complete control and you can indulge yourself and all that sort of stuff.’

  FREEMAN SPEAKING TO ANDREW ANTHONY IN THE OBSERVER, 2014

  Since The Office, Freeman appeared on several panel shows, such as as Shooting Stars and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, as well as popular talk shows like Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Parkinson, The New Paul O’Grady Show, This Morning, The Justin Lee Collins Show, The Five O’Clock Show and The Graham Norton Show. He also appeared twice on the Late Show with David Letterman, one of the most popular late-night talk shows in America. Though he tried to shun the spotlight, there was no way around it.

  Consequently, Freeman may be worth a staggering $10 million and have a shrewd business eye for finances but his long-term life partner is not quite as financially secure.

  In March 2013 Abbie Abbington was declared bankrupt by London’s High Court after failing to pay a huge tax bill but she refused to let her millionaire partner pay off her debts.

  She confessed to the Radio Times in May, ‘It was just me not managing my finances properly. I was putting some money away [to pay tax], but not all of it. I was working one year and not working another year. So I was using the money I’d saved… It will be annulled in a couple of months.’

  She said that she is an only child (born in north London to Patsy and John Abbington) and is more than capable of looking after herself and does not want to rely on her partner and be seen in the eyes of the public as ‘Freeman’s girlfriend’.

  ‘I know she copped it and it hurt,’ Freeman explained to The Independent’s Emma Jones in 2013. ‘It’s been said before so it’s a cliché, but it happens to be true: you can stand anything for yourself, but when they turn on the people you love, it’s excruciating and it’s invasive, no question about it. I do think we have a right to privacy. My job as an actor is for you, so why should my private life be for you too? That’s not fair. Fortunately, apart from this, I am not that fascinating for the tabloids. I don’t need their approval. There are about twenty people in my life that I want to love me, and none of them are the Daily Mail.’

  There were speculations in the press that the pair had already married. It’s never been publicly confirmed but they have alluded to it in interviews. Freeman spoke to the London Evening Standard’s Hannah Nathanson in 2010 for a piece on social life called ‘My London’. When asked where he has had his favourite meal in the capital, he responded, ‘My wife Amanda and I celebrated our wedding anniversary at Claridge’s. It’s quiet, not very showbiz and people do things properly there. I like being called Mr Freeman occasionally.’ (Note that he refers to Abbington as his wife, though they have never publicly announced their marriage. It remains a cause of interest among the tabloid journalists as to whether or not they are actually married.)

  Another piece of news was that she’d had a benign lump removed from her breast while Freeman was filming The Hobbit in New Zealand. Martin was desperate to travel the 11,000 miles back home to be with Abbington while she underwent surgery but she insisted he stay in New Zealand.

  She told Rob Bleaney of the Daily Mirror, ‘I said I’d be fine, but he was desperately worried. It was horrible for him. I found the lump after dropping the kids at school. I was sent to a specialist breast unit. They said they needed to get it out quickly because they didn’t know if it was malignant. I burst into tears and thought, “Oh no. I’m going to die. I won’t see my children grow up.”’

  There was an agonising two-week wait for the biopsy results, during which time Freeman sent her a bracelet and ring with a little note saying he hoped it would cheer her up. She thought it was a beautiful sentiment. When the results came back, she burst into tears as it was discovered to be a benign milk-gland tumour. She flew out to New Zealand with their two kids to be with Freeman. During their stay in that country Sir Ian McKellen babysat for them and read The Gruffalo to their two children, Joe and Grace.

  Martin played Dr Williams in the short film The Voorman Problem produced by Honlodge Productions in the UK and directed by Mark Gill, who co-wrote the screenplay with Baldwin Li. It is based on a section of the acclaimed novel number9dream by David Mitchell.

  There was a long six-week pre-production where the creative time found it a challenge to accommodate the cast’s hectic schedule. Director Mark Gill spoke to IndieWire’s Carlos Aguilar: ‘We were very confident on our script, so we decided to approach some great actors, the first one we approached was Kevin Spacey. We just wrote him a nice letter and he responded very positively saying that he would like to help, he suggested we contacted Tom Hollander directly and not use his agent, which is something you are not supposed to do but it worked for us. Then Tom and I had a conversation and Martin’s name came up and we thought he’d be great. Tom sent Martin’s agent an email with the script, and Martin’s agent said yes. Sounds quite simple, but it really was that easy.’

  In the film Freeman’s character takes on the role of a prison psychiatrist after ‘The War In The East’ has produced a shortage of doctors. Williams is hired by Governor Bently. However, there is a prisoner named Voorman (played by Tom Hollander) who is adamant that he is God and has convinced the rest of the prisoners to spend all day chanting in worship. Due to a computer error, it is not known why Voorman is behind bars. This man, in a straitjacket, is interviewed by Williams in a locked room within the confines of the prison. Voorman explains that he is God and created the world exactly nine days ago. Naturally, Williams thinks this is the thought process of a loony and objects to the idea so Voorman suggests that, to test his powers, he will eliminate Belgium. Williams sits at home and tells his wife about the case. However, his wife has no idea what Belgium is so he gets out an atlas and points to where Belgium should be. It is a body of water called ‘Walloon Lagoon’. Williams is totally bewildered by this but does not believe Voorman. The latter suggests that he be the psychiatrist and Williams be God. They change attire – Voorman wears a suit and Williams puts on a straitjacket. Williams shouts out to the guards and, as Voorman leaves, he tells Williams to ‘keep an eye on North Korea’. Voorman exits the room as the prisoners are heard chanting, a sound which gets louder as the film ends.

  An intriguing little film, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2014 and was nominated for a BAFTA Award. It had a limited release on 23 April 2013 after being shown in Canada in August of the previous year.

  Freeman wrapped up his appearances in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy by appearing in the final film in 2013, The World’s End. Freeman had a non-speaking role as Yvonne’s boyfriend, Declan, in Shaun of the Dead and a cameo as a police officer in Hot Fuzz and now the trilogy was complete as he starred as Oliver Chamberlain, one of Gary King’s (played by Pegg) friends in the final film.

  Speaking about Freeman’s character in the film, Edgar Wright told Simon Brew of Den of Geek, ‘In the case of [Martin Freeman’s] Oliver character, there’s more than one kid at school who was destined to be a great businessman. And I think I was ever so slightly jealous of they because they seemed to have it all figured out, even at the age of sixteen. They know what they’re doing, they understand finance and business. They’ve gone on to be very successful. So there’s an element of me feeling like a little kid next to these guys. In fact one of them, just like the movie, was the first person I ever saw with a mobile phone. This was in 1991, and I was like what is that thing that kid has got?’

  A science-fiction comedy directed by Edgar Wright and written by him – he had written the original draft when he was twenty-one and named it Crawl – and Simon Pegg, The World’s End is the weakest of the films. It stars Pegg and Nick Frost as well as Paddy Considine, Pierce Brosnan and Eddie Marsan. The film’s premise is simple: a group of mates discover an alien invasion during a pub crawl in their home town. Wright’s influences included John Wyndham books in gen
eral and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Freeman personally has no interest in pub crawls or a live-now, die-young lifestyle, preferring to stay at home with his partner or have a meal and do a pub quiz with friends.

  Filming mostly took place at Elstree Studios Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire with some shots taken in High Wycombe railway station in Buckinghamshire, after principal photography commenced on 28 September 2012.

  Freeman had been friends with Pegg and Frost for years and they each watched their respective careers flourish in different ways. Pegg enticed Martin to star in the film because of where it was shot – Freeman did not have to travel too far from his Hertfordshire home.

  ‘It was part of the sugar pill to do the movie – “please sign up and we promise you’ll never have to travel more than half an hour to work.” That and the fact Simon and Edgar begged me to do it,’ he said to The Independent’s Emma Jones in 2013.

  The rule was that anyone who was in both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz had to return for The World’s End regardless of how small their part might be.

  ‘… with Martin Freeman,’ Edgar Wright told Dork Shelf’s Andrew Parker, ‘after Shaun and Hot Fuzz, we knew we HAD to get him back and give him a bigger part. It’s great having these people back and giving them something to do because they’re all really talented comedians.’

  The World’s End received its premiere on 10 July 2012 in London’s Leicester Square and was released nationally on 19 July and in the US on 23 August. Its UK box-office takings were strong: it earned £2,122,288 during its opening weekend, which was higher than Shaun of the Dead but lower than Hot Fuzz, and it lost the top spot to Monsters University. It grossed $3.5 million on its opening day in the US and eventually made more money than the previous Cornetto films. The film won Best Ensemble Cast Award at the Alternative End Of Year Film Awards.

  Reviews of the film were mostly positive, though some critics took swipes at it. There is a general consensus among fans of the films that it is the weakest link in the trilogy with less gags that hit the mark. Still, though Freeman’s role was only minor, it was another string to his bow.

  London Evening Standard’s David Sexton wrote, ‘So this one’s easy to decide about: if you loved Shaun and Hot Fuzz, don’t hesitate. You need some affection for men who are having problems growing up, perhaps. And maybe it is just very British to prefer the spoof to the original? Perhaps it was a mistake to watch it stony sober at a morning screening. It is still pleasing to think of all the less enlightened nations around the world being so fully informed at last of just what a proper pub crawl looks like.’

  Though on the surface Freeman may not have anything in common with Pegg and his co-conspirators Nick Frost and Edgar Wright – self-appointed pop-culture geeks and comic-book nerds – it was certainly a wise move to be a part of the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy. Add that to The Hobbit and Martin Freeman, whether he appreciates it or not, is now firmly a member of the ‘Geek Universe’ for want of a better term.

  Pegg is not only a colleague but a friend. His own career has taken off in unlikely directions and it’s good to see both Freeman and Pegg enjoying their own turn in the spotlight. Pegg, born in Gloucestershire in 1970, carved an interesting career for himself post-Spaced and Shaun of the Dead. He struck up an unlikely friendship with director J.J. Abrams and was cast not only in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness as Montgomery Scott (aka Scotty) but also as Benji Dunn in the third and fourth Mission: Impossible films. He was also cast in the Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg film The Adventures of Tintin and, perhaps more surprisingly, he cropped up on the small screen in the Frank Darabont 1940s LA-noir series Mob City, which was unfortunately cancelled after one series.

  Their mutual mate and colleague Nick Frost, meanwhile, may not have enjoyed as high-profile a career as Freeman or Pegg but he has starred in some projects of worth. He played drug dealer Ron in the awesome British sci-fi alien-invasion thriller Attack the Block and also starred in various roles in the sketch show Man Stroke Woman. His role as Jeremy Sloane in the series Mr Sloane won him critical praise, as did his performance as John Self in the adaptation of Martin Amis’s acclaimed novel Money in the BBC TV movie of the same name in 2010.

  Director Edgar Wright co-wrote, produced and directed the 2010 movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World based on the cult comic books. He also co-wrote (with Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat) The Adventures of Tintin. For some time he was involved with the much-anticipated and written about Marvel superhero film Ant-Man but left the project.

  There’s no question that despite being on screen for only a short time, Freeman had pivotal roles in the three films and it proves again just how eclectic his body of work is.

  There wasn’t just a euphoria around the release of The World’s End in July; it was announced by Peter Jackson on his Facebook page that the final scene featuring Bilbo Baggins had been filmed. It was probably a bittersweet moment: they were no doubt pleased that the long and arduous journey had come to an end and Freeman was probably ecstatic that he could fly back home to be with his family but at the same time the visiting cast and crew had a wonderful time in New Zealand, which they would miss. Fans were now looking forward to the release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug on 13 December 2013.

  On 12 July 2013 Peter Jackson wrote, ‘Tonight Martin Freeman finished his last shot as Bilbo Baggins… The end of an incredible two-and-a-half years. I cannot imagine anyone else in this role – a character that Martin has nurtured and crafted with love and great skill.

  ‘We have said goodbye to our elves, humans, wizards and now the hobbit. We now enter our final 2 weeks of pick-ups, and it’s wall-to-wall dwarves.

  ‘These pick-ups have been gruelling and intense, but I’m so happy with what we’ve been shooting. These next two movies are going to be pretty great!’

  While Freeman will miss the cast and crew of The Hobbit, he won’t miss the rigmarole of putting on Bilbo’s costume. He had to shave his legs, and talcum-powder them for the flipper-like Hobbit feet. He put an inner-sole in the shoe then put a latex leg and foot over it to make him look like a hobbit. It was a two-person job that took around a fortnight to get used to. Shooting three movies back-to-back in another country while flying back home to work on Sherlock was hard work. It was eighteen months that required Freeman to be fit and healthy. Back in London there was a period of decompression; a feeling of returning to normality.

  2013 was a productive year, not only with the release of The World’s End but also Svengali, in which he played Don, and he voiced the character of Bernard D. Elf in Saving Santa.

  Svengali is a British film about a postman from South Wales named Dixie (played by Jonny Owen) who is a music fanatic and dreams of discovering a great band to rival the best. One day while trawling through YouTube videos he stumbles across The Premature Congratulations. He tracks them down and offers to be their manager. He gets them to record a demo so he can shop it around the London record labels. The story follows Dixie’s journey around the London music industry. His partner is Michelle (played by Vicky McClure), who helps him on his quest and he struggles to deal with egos and the general issues of band management. As the band’s success grows, his chances of continuing to manage them decrease. He is divided in his loyalties: a life as a band manager – something he has always dreamed of – or a life with Michelle. Directed by John Hardwick, Svengali had been screened at the sixty-seventh Edinburgh International Film Festival on 21 June 2013 and nominated for the Michael Powell Award, which honours best British feature films. It later had a UK release on 21 March 2014. The film has since all but disappeared from recent memory.

  In a one out of five-star review in The Guardian, Jonathan Romney wrote, ‘With sparky prestige support (Martin Freeman, Maxine Peake, Matt Berry) and cameos from Alan McGee and Carl Barât, Svengali ought to be sharper, but this good-natured, clunky labour of love feels about as fresh as a 2002 copy of the NME.’

  Total Film�
��s Kevin Harley wrote, ‘Likeable casting can’t quite salvage director John Hardwick’s threadbare British pop comedy, under-developed from a web series… Martin Freeman’s grumpy shop-owner and several pop cameos (label maverick Alan McGee, The Libertines’ Carl Barat) play like sketch matter, better suited to this spread-thin project’s online origins.’

  Freeman was presented with a fellowship by the members of University College Dublin’s Literary & Historical Society on 5 October 2013. The campus’s Fitzgerald Chamber was filled to capacity as students sat to listen to Martin give an engrossing talk about his successful career. He even posed for photos with guests and his framed accolade.

  Saving Santa is a computer-animated comedy created and written by Tony Nottage and directed by Leon Joosen. It’s about an elf who is the only one of Santa’s elves that can stop the invasion of the North Pole by using the secret of Santa’s sleigh, a TimeGlobe, to track back in time – twice – to save Santa. The film also stars Tim Curry, Joan Collins and Chris Barrie. It was released in the US on 5 November 2013 and went to DVD in the UK and has since faded into the mists of time.

  Total Film’s Neil Smith wrote, “‘Once something is done, it cannot be undone!” declares Father Christmas in Saving Santa, an amateurish cartoon that’ll have you fervently hoping the opposite.’

  The Observer’s Mark Kermode wrote, ‘That Martin Freeman and Tim Curry (both mighty in their own way) should lend their voices to this let-down is depressing enough; that Joan Collins and Ashley Tisdale have been roped in somehow makes it worse. On this evidence, Santa’s sadly not worth saving.’

  It had been a year since the release of the first Hobbit film, so was Freeman prepared to enter the world of cult fandom and become an icon to millions?