Martin Freeman opens up about on location shoots for SHERLOCK and why else is more for the show.
Martin Freeman is not too keen SHERLOCK’s #SetLock phenomena, it seems.
The BBC has always done lots of outdoor on location shooting. But with the recent jump in popularity of the show, fans have been showing up in droves to watch the cast at work in London and throughout the UK. The crowd falls very much outside Freeman’s comfortable bubble, he admitted in a recent interview.
“When we’re [filming at] our stand-in for Baker Street, it is hard to do your job. And I don’t love it. It’s like trying to act at a premiere. … I wasn’t in The Beatles. But I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s such a heightened sense of excitement, so every time we come out, there’s applauding — and it’s like, ‘No, can you n—.’ Or, if we do anything — ‘Cut!’ — applause. … It’s like, ‘No, this isn’t a gig.’ “
While he’s glad to be back filming, Freeman admits that the intermittent shooting schedule for SHERLOCK is an important factor in remaining on board. Besides allowing him to take on other projects like THE HOBBIT trilogy and the award nominated FARGO, the pacing keeps him from getting jaded with the show:
“I don’t know about [Benedict Cumberbatch], but certainly for me it would soon lose a lot of its appeal if we were schlepping that around for eight months of the year, every year. A bit of the sheen would have gone off it.”
Martin Freeman will return as John Watson in SHERLOCK late this year for a Christmas special, but another series of the show won’t hit the airwaves until sometime in 2016.