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Is Martin Freeman Getting Fed Up with Filming Amid Frenzied Sherlock Fans?

By Cindy Davis | Celebrity | January 19, 2015 |

By Cindy Davis | Celebrity | January 19, 2015 |


As limited outdoor filming of next year’s standalone Sherlock special continues, so has #setlock; crowds of fans gather to see Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in the flesh, and to photograph and report any spoilers they can glean. With only three episodes a year (and that’s if we’re lucky), our appetite has become insatiable, but it’s exactly that kind of schedule that likely allows the show to go on.

Though he did ten episodes for last year’s limited Fargo engagement, Martin Freeman says Sherlock’s intermittent and finite filming is (for him) what makes the series workable:

“By American standards it’s nothing!Even by Downton standards it’s pretty short! It’s not eight months of our year, and it’s not every year. It’s so intermittent. That’s what for me makes it do-able. I don’t know about Ben 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.”

But, overzealous fans might be making things a bit too uncomfortable for the actor…with “scores of young women” showing up to location filming:

“When we’re [filming at] our stand-in for Baker Street, it is hard to do your job. And I don’t love it…I don’t love it.

It’s like trying to act at a premiere. It really is. I’ve never…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 at the same time there are hundreds of people taking pictures of you and holding up placards. Of course you want to be gracious with it. And I obviously very much appreciate, as do we all, the fact that people love it. But also, yeah, it doesn’t make you doing your job any easier.”

(via The Independent)

Gotta give him credit for being clever enough to add in that last bit; turning off the myriad Sherlock fans would be a very bad idea. Sure, we can imagine it would be extremely difficult to film under such conditions, but at the same time, it can’t be entirely dissimilar to performing in a stage production, can it? It’s the thrill of live performance, man! No?

Meanwhile, eagle-eyed observers have been putting together Twitter clues, which seem to indicate this year’s special may be based on The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. The special episode director, Douglas Mackinnon and Mark Gatiss have been tweeting away:



According to imdb and the photo below, Episode 4.0 will also feature guest star, Natasha O’Keeffe:

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and a certain delightful old pal foe…

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The untitled Sherlock special airs sometime in 2016. Sigh…


Cindy Davis, (Twitter)