The Unexpected Adventures of Martin Freeman

by Neil Daniels

  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.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE FINAL ADVENTURE IN MIDDLE EARTH

  2014 closed with the release of the third and final Hobbit film, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies on 12 December, following in the footsteps of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013). The third film had been confirmed on 30 July 2012 after the creative team chose to extend the story from the original two-film idea. The Battle of the Five Armies expands the story of Middle Earth as Tolkien described in the appendices to The Return of the King.

  Director Peter Jackson announced that the film would use footage already shot but not used in the first two films as well as additional material. The original title was There and Back Again but it was later changed to The Battle of the Five Armies in April 2014. Jackson stated on his Facebook page that he felt the new title was better suited to the story and that There and Back Again would have been better for the second film in a two-film story but not for the final film in the trilogy.

  ‘I didn’t find it hard,’ Freeman said to Hollywood Reporter’s Jordan Zakarin about completing filming. ‘I think the hardest part about anything you do for eighteen months is just keeping yourself together for eighteen months. But I do think I’m quite good casting for it. I don’t think I’m the only one, but as a candidate, I think I was pretty good casting.’

  The trailer for The Battle of the Five Armies was premiered at Comic-Con in San Diego in July. Freeman could not attend the event as he was starring in Richard III in London.

  Cumberbatch spoke about the film at Comic-Con. He told the audience, ‘I think rather like The Lord of the Rings there is obviously a natural progression to the end and that means it will be a pinnacle of sorts, it will top what’s come before it. It’s about building to this point so as far as the end of the story goes I think it will be the greatest of the three to be seen so far, for obvious, narrative reasons.’

  Fans were coming round to the idea that there will be no more Middle Earth adventures, at least from Peter Jackson. Cumberbatch added, ‘That to me already sort of heightens the enormity of what it is going to be as an experience as a filmgoer. But I am kind of in the dark – I don’t do all that much in this film, and there is a hell of a lot that is done in this film so I am going to be equally surprised and fascinated when I see it all.’

  Freeman realises that he’ll forever be remembered as Bilbo Baggins, just as Mark Hamill is remembered for Luke Skywalker, Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Christian Bale as Batman in Batman: The Dark Knight.

  ‘I hope by the time my life is over I’ve given them something else to talk about,’ he continued to tell Zakarin of the franchise’s relentless fandom, ‘but I think in all reality I think it’s very likely that they’ll be calling me Bilbo.’

  The Lord of the Rings actor Viggo Mortensen criticised Jackson (‘I guess Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him’) and the trilogy of films in an interview with the Daily Telegraph’s Tom Robey in May: ‘… really the second and third ones were a mess. It was very sloppy – it just wasn’t done at all. It needed massive reshoots, which we did, year after year. But he would have never been given the extra money to do those if the first one hadn’t been a huge success. The second and third ones would have been straight to v
ideo.’

  It can certainly be argued that The Hobbit films rely on style over substance and Peter Jackson would not be the first director to become obsessed with technology over basic storytelling techniques such as plot, characters and dialogue.

  Freeman’s rebuttal to the Daily Telegraph’s Craig McLean was, ‘All I can say is: I hope that’s not the case. I know Peter and the team who make those films, they’d be horrified to think they’d jettisoned all subtlety. Yeah, there’s a lot of CGI, an awful lot of that business going on. But they are still very, very interested in story. They want the human side of it to be absolutely pivotal. Beyond that? Of course it’s a question of taste and I respect Viggo’s opinion.’

  The film sees the dwarves find and wake the dragon Smaug while the battle between the goblins and the wargs, the men of Lake Town, the elves, the dwarves, the eagles and Beorn takes place as they attempt to gain control of The Lonely Mountain (Erebor) and the treasure that lies inside it.

  The film stars Martin Freeman and Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins as well as Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug/Necromancer, Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel, Manu Bennett as Azog, Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, Lee Pace as Thranduil, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Luke Evans as Bard, Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Christopher Lee as Saruman, Billy Connolly as Dáin, Mikael Persbrandt as Beorn and Graham McTavish as Dwalin. Joining them is Ken Stott, Aidan Turner, Dean O’Gorman, Mark Hadlow, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, William Kircher, James Nesbitt, Stephen Hunter, Bret McKenzie, Ryan Gage, Sylvester McCoy, Lawrence Makoare, John Bell, Simon London and Robin Kerr.

  ‘He’s incredibly moving in the third film and that’s always surprising because you think you know Martin to be a great comedian but he’s also a great dramatic actor as well,’ Richard Armitage (who plays Thorin Oakenshield) said to the Radio Times’s Susanna Lazarus. ‘I really enjoyed working with him and I think a lot of the evolution of Thorin is down to the way that he portrayed Bilbo. There wouldn’t be a Thorin without a Bilbo.’

  What an adventure Bilbo Baggins has been on, and so has Martin Freeman. The actor spoke to Flicks And Bits about his character’s heroic journey and representation of himself as the audience have watched Bilbo Baggins become a hero: ‘I think like with any real-life heroics, no hero considers themselves a hero. You speak to people in the fire service or the military or whatever and they don’t see what they’re doing as heroic at all. And with Bilbo it’s heroism that kind of creeps up on him, out of necessity – because he’s got to save his friends’ lives or he’s got to save his own life, so it’s fight or flight.’

  Freeman saw something of a resemblance between the life of a hobbit (an insulated though rather cosy world of drinking tea and staying at home) and that of a typical middle-aged English person.

  ‘… it’s easy to say because I am English, you know?’ Freeman said to MSN Entertainment’s James Rocchi. ‘Maybe if I was American then… but there’s something also very American about not going abroad isn’t there? I think it’s fairly human. I think it’s fairly universal. It feels English because Tolkien is English and because I’m English I sound English. But I think you could probably apply it to most cultures that there is a love of home. There is a love of your homeland and sometimes a reluctance to leaving it for very long.’

  The films had taken some criticism from fans and reviewers who attacked them for being overlong and overblown and an exaggeration of the original novel but they were a major stepping stone towards gaining Martin Freeman mainstream prominence and recognition in Hollywood. The Hobbit trilogy may not stand as highly respected as The Lord of the Rings trilogy but they are high-quality fantasy films. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies will surely smash box-office records.

  The final piece in the story sees this once meek and timid character turned into an extraordinary hero.

  ‘You spend so much time playing Bilbo as this reticent person who is just trying to find his voice and trying to find when to speak,’ Freeman said to AsiaOne, ‘just finding permission to breathe almost, that it is really good fun in this film when he does have to find that bit of steel inside himself. He really, really has to find that for his own safety and that of his friends.’

  Though Freeman never had a specific life plan as far as acting was concerned, he knew he didn’t want to sell out to Hollywood glitz and glamour as well as to all the dodgy run-of-the-mill screenplays. Early in his career he had overly developed feelings against selling out and constantly worried about it. Success does not mean selling out. Most actors are lucky to have been in constant work for over twenty years. He has a career and money in the bank and the offers are constantly coming in for work. He can now pick and choose pretty much anything that takes his fancy.

  Martin is at a point in his life where he has never been happier. Sherlock is one of the biggest roles he will ever undertake and he receives more fan mail about the series than he does for The Hobbit, which says a great deal, considering the worldwide appeal and longevity of the Tolkien novel. Sherlock may even be the role Freeman is best membered for in years to come.

  ‘I get more twelve-year-olds coming up to me than I used to,’ he said to The Independent’s Emma Jones in 2013. ‘But, I promise, I still have a lot of conversations with people that have no idea who I am. Which is great for me as I usually just want to eat a bowl of pasta in peace.’

  Ten years later and people still ask Freeman about The Office and, though he is pleased to have moved on from being recognised as Tim Canterbury, he is delighted that the series is still highly thought of.

  ‘I haven’t seen Ricky Gervais for a while,’ he said when asked by the Daily Mirror’s John Hiscock if he keeps in touch with his former Office colleagues. ‘I saw Lucy Davis in a play and I see Mackenzie Crook once in a blue moon. We’re moving on with our own lives, but I still have a tremendous affection for it.’

  The Office was the role that broke his career and got the TV producers calling and the scripts rolling in. It is a show he is very proud of as both a viewer and an actor. There is enough distance now between Freeman and The Office for him not to get defensive about it anymore.

  He remains uninterested in an Office reunion and, as with Sherlock, he believes that a short, sharp burst of creativity in just a few short years has greater impact than a long, drawn-out TV show that repeats and recycles its own ideas. The idea is to make the viewer crave more, not less. Freeman also prefers the idea of leaving something and moving on to the next project, as he gets rather restless and feels the urge to try his hand in different roles.

  ‘Well, I think my general outlook on life is that things should be finite and things are finite,’ Freeman told TwoCentsTV’s Anne Bayley. ‘You know, we all die. Everything ends. And so for me the idea of things going on and on and on, I don’t always find very attractive. But, you know, if it’s a show that I love and it keeps going on and it retains its quality then I’m delighted to be a viewer of it.’

  He said to Nerd Repository’s Kyle Wilson, ‘I want to leave something, hopefully, leave something behind that people go, oh, that was great, as opposed to, oh, why did they carry on with this? It was good for the first three seasons and then it all went wrong. I’m well aware that some things don’t go wrong after three seasons. Some of my favourite things are fantastic for a long time. But, yeah, for me personally, I like the hit-and-run approach. I love doing this for a bit and then doing something else for a bit and then doing something else for a bit. That’s the way I’m hardwired I think.’

  There’s no question that people will ask him about Sherlock and The Hobbit in ten years’ time and probably right up until his old age. But that’s fine with him. There are many actors that would die to be given those chances in life. He does not take his success for granted and remains rather humble about it all. Having said that, he has put the hard graft in since his first on-screen role in The Bill all those years ago.

  Although he made his c
areer initially in TV, he does not see a difference between working in either TV or film. He is more interested in good writing than he is on the specific medium. He’s attracted to strong roles more than anything else. Naturally, each role will be different but if the writing is of a high standard then he will be interested. Television will bring with it a different experience than film – there’s usually more money floating around in film, better buffet lunches, nicer trailers and such – but the work in front of the camera is still the same. The things he’s most proud of, such as The Robinsons, have not been seen widely.

  Freeman continues to have a love-hate relationship with fame. It comes as part and parcel with the job. If he could get paid for buying records and clothes, he’d more than likely make a living out of it but acting is his profession and with it comes some pitfalls. It’s not something he craves and nor is it something he can escape from. Not now. Not with The Hobbit and Sherlock being so successful on a global scale. Fargo was one of the most talked-about TV shows of 2014 and helped broaden Martin’s name in the US but it also meant he had to cope with the level of fame it brought him. If he goes to the local coffee shop to buy a cup of coffee, he has to face the fact that there might be a photographer on his tail waiting to snap a shot of him to sell to a tabloid. If he’s out shopping for records or clothes, he might – or rather, is more than likely to – get noticed by members of the public who’ll approach him for an autograph or photo, or both.

  He once said to Empire magazine, ‘It’s like when people say to me, “No really, it’s a compliment, you’re famous”; that’s not a fucking compliment. Himmler was famous as well, you know what I mean? It’s not a compliment.’

  If he is with friends or family when someone approaches him for a photo or an autograph, he will politely decline, but he finds it’s like he’s taken food away from them. He has the right to say no but some fans don’t see it that way; they see it almost as an obligation that Freeman has to always agree to a picture or autograph. Most of his fans do totally respect his privacy but social media has made it much harder to stay private. If Freeman commits to having a picture taken with a fan, it’s going to be plastered all over the Internet on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s the shape of the modern world.