Jude Law, Robert Downey Jr Interview, Sherlock Holmes

In a dynamic new portrayal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous character, Robert Downey Jr. plays the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. Revealing fighting skills as powerful as his famous intellect, Holmes employs his own unique methods to get to the heart of a case, traveling where no one else would think to go to find what others cannot see.

Jude Law portrays Watson, Holmes's longtime colleague, who is joining him in what may be their last case before the doctor starts a new life as a married man. Rachel McAdams is Irene Adler, a woman from America, who is as alluring as she is dangerous, and whose tempestuous relationship with the detective has become the one puzzle he cannot solve.

Mark Strong plays Lord Blackwood, whose own intellect, combined with merciless ambition, makes him a formidable adversary.

MoviesOnline sat down with the cast recently at the London press conference to talk about their new film directed by Guy Ritchie. Here’s what they had to tell us about their characters and what it was like putting a bit more edge on a classic story:

Q: Jude, how do you see these characters that you reinvented for this movie? Are they different from what we’ve known as Watson and Holmes before?

Jude: When I was asked to get involved, Robert was already set as Sherlock and Guy was directing and I knew from then that it was going to be a different take on the older films of Sherlock Holmes and it fascinated me. Obviously they were coming to me not to put on two stone and fool around and not to put my foot in wastepaper baskets and they were coming to ask me to play Watson with a bit more edge. What was intriguing – because I hadn’t read the books as a boy – was to go back to the books and realize how much of this new rediscovery, if you like, was also in the source material. So, it was kind of a happy juggle between going back to Conan Doyle and relishing all the inaccuracy that perhaps in times in the past had been overlooked and also looking to the future and adding a new energy to an audience that we hope will rediscover a new Sherlock Holmes or discover Sherlock Holmes for the first time.

Q: Robert, this movie has none of The Seven-Percent-Solution and I wondered if that was your input to say you didn’t want to be part of something that might glamorize cocaine use?

Robert: I loved The Seven-Percent-Solution. It was never a highest enough percentage for me – kind of a weak, tepid solution if you ask me. But this is a PG 13 movie and, even if it wasn’t, the idea was – if you go back to the source material – he’s never described as being some dumb, strung out weirdo. And also, back in Victorian times it was absolutely legal and acceptable. You could go down to your corner pharmacist and grab all that stuff. So, we thought it would be irresponsible to not make reference to it. Again, I think a lot of the flaming hoops we had to jump through doing Sherlock were how do you take what comes from the source material and amend it so that it’s accessible? How do you not whitewash it and still be respectful to that? As far as if there’s anything we’ve added this time around, is that essentially as much as it is about this far reaching case and Holmes and Watson save life on earth as we know it, it’s also a fight over Mary Morstan.

Q: There are sequences shot in super slow motion. How did you do that?

Robert: It’s a seven second take and so, if you notice, everything that happens, that you never see in seven seconds, you see in playback. So I think it’s just about trying to do less.

Q: Would you say because it is super slo-mo and there’s no hiding, you can’t bring in a stunt double?

Robert: Guy used to tell me, try one just like ‘that tastes like peanut butter’ and I thought that is the strangest direction I’ve ever got, but it actually kind of worked.

Q: Robert, Holmes has been an inspiration for so many people. Were you scared about approaching this role?

Robert: Scared? I don’t get scared anymore. I just get busy. I already knew by the time Guy was directing this that it was a fresh interpretation and then I’ve worked with Joel Silver a bunch. I’ve lived with Susan Downey a bunch. And Lionel Wigram is basically the person who figured out how to reprise this as a film. So, I knew I was in good hands and then it was just a matter of getting down to business. Fortunately, I’d spent some time here (London) in the late 80s playing Chaplin and I had a great tutelage in all things British from Lord Attenborough so I felt like I passed go. But I definitely felt the onus of – it’s not the fear of the judgment of others – it’s just that at a certain point it comes down to will you meet the standards that people are expecting of you and you expect of them.

Q: For Jude and Robert, the relationship between Holmes and Watson on screen reminded us of an old married couple at times. How did you collaborate together to create that chemistry between the two of you?

Jude: We started the moment we met.

Robert: Well we were trying to get him to do the movie and you’re a pretty savvy guy so it’s not like just all talk, talk, talk. It’s ‘are you interested in making the best version of this?’ and the great feedback that we’ve been getting today is that ‘the movie is about the two of you and the third thing that that creates.’ It’s one thing to promise you can get there and it’s another thing to just roll up your sleeves and get into it. Guy created such a sublime atmosphere on set. And really, we weren’t sure it was going to turn out as well as it did but we efforted and efforted. They’re talking about Jude and I like we should be doing romantic comedies together or something. This film is not a comedy and it’s a love affair of sorts but it’s about what it’s about. I think that Holmes and Watson are aspects of all of us and I think that we knew when to yin and yang back and forth and we were just a good team.

Q: Rachel, how did you cope with these two behaving like this?

Rachel: It was very difficult. I think Watson should have warned Mary, you know, before they go for dinner. I think he should have said he may be a bit tricky with you.

Q: How satisfying was it throwing that glass of wine?

Rachel: It was my first day on the first week of filming. I was terrified but he took it well.

Robert: You’d probably rather have done it closer to the end of the shoot?

Rachel: Yeah. I think I missed the first time. I think what’s nice about Mary is she is the woman behind the already good man and I think the fact that she can have a place in that relationship that isn’t the woman that wants him to stay at home, that she does love him as much as Holmes does and wants him to go and continue his adventures but unfortunately you didn’t see it like that.

Q: When was your first introduction to Sherlock Holmes as a story or as a movie?

Jude: My second job on TV was in the Sherlock Holmes television series. I played a stable boy.

Q: You’ve talked about doing a fresh take on Sherlock Holmes but you’ve also talked about if you go back to the books this is actually taking a lot of what Doyle intended. Could you go as far as to say this is the most accurate film version of what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle intended or is it a revisionist version?

Robert: There’s an esoteric element to this as well in that you just feel you’re in the right groove and you feel the history and the legacy of something. Particularly, you could say this about Shakespeare and my having just done Hamlet. Sometimes you just feel like you’re being silently approved of from some other place and time. And there were times when we were so locked into exactly as Doyle expressed it and you can’t beat the guy’s words so we had one of his quotes on the call sheet every day. But then we had to twist it up a little bit. I think it’s no mystery that Sherlock Holmes didn’t invent the silencer. If he invented it, he certainly did a crap job because it doesn’t work. But him shooting the letters VR into the wall is right out of one of the books and I think that has to do with the Jubilee of Victoria Regina. It’s a strange way to celebrate it but it just spoke to how strange the guy was. It was just an interesting way to get the job done and that we were honoring it but still being entertaining.

Q: Robert, could you tell us how you prepared for the bare knuckled boxing scene?

Robert: There was a choreographed version of it that I went in and got all pissy about it. Then Guy came in and we worked on it. So, I think you were probably seeing version 6.0 by the time we shot it. Guy is a jujitsu fellow. We managed to get along somehow. It was so fun. By the time we were done shooting that and doing that scene I felt we really had a handle on the movie – not because we’d finally top lit me and I’d shown my rippling abs and all that, but this was Guy’s idea of Holmes’ vision and it was a really bold thing and it could have gone very poorly, in which case the rest of the movie is trying to recover from the bad Guy Ritchie idea that we went out and shot. It was literally perfect and I think it set the tone. It was just his take on the film so it was about me trusting him and us getting each other’s approval so to speak. 

Q: Robert, can you tell me a little bit about why you love filming in Britain?

Robert: Look, I was here 20 years ago and the food sucked and I was not particularly happy when I was here. I was doing a movie called Air America. I renamed it
Air Generica and we were at Pinewood and these studios and then I came back and I did Chaplin. But, I think there’s just something about the work ethic here. I think there’s something about the people and the culture. Obviously, as Americans, I can speak for myself and Susan (Downey) and Joel (Silver), there’s sometimes a bit of an abrupt attitude that we have. “Alright! We’re here! Let’s get down to the work. Fuck what you’re going through. We’ll eat later.” We were very shortly put in check that there’s a more civilized way to operate and that it’s nice to put out a little cheese and let’s talk. Let’s be grown-ups about this. It’s tea time. And by the way, we’re not vulgar or anything. It’s just very, very much part of the furniture here. For me anyway, it was just a huge experience in the proper way to do things and I’ve taken it forth ever since.

Q: Jude, can you talk about your experiences shooting in the U.K.?

Jude: The production design [team] did an amazing job embellishing what were already pretty historic sites and making them beautiful. We’d turn up every day and they’d been there two days dressing and laying in stuff for as far as the eye could see and the detail was exquisite. It’s always fun to be out and about in film rather than in a studio. This goes back to what Joel was saying and the film always goes back to Holmes. The kernel of the story was a domestic drama, if you like, and you see them delving and picking through cases on a cerebral level but also they’re out and about getting their boots dirty and their knuckles sore. It was fun. It’s always fun working in the U.K. I love coming home and making films here.

Q: What is it about Sherlock Holmes that makes him so quintessentially English?

Robert: Ask an Englishman. Mark?

Mark: I’m not really sure. Maybe because Conan Doyle was an English writer and what he was trying to do was embody everything that was best about the empire at that time. It was a very confident time to be an Englishman and I think a third of the world had been invaded by us. Maybe it was precisely because he has flaws. It was interesting that at a time when we were supposedly running the world that a character was created who did have flaws. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just Conan Doyle’s vision of his version of an Englishman. That’s the best I can do, I’m afraid.

Q: Robert, Sherlock Holmes is not so much Iron Man as Tweed and Linen Man. Do you have any experience in handcuffs and being tied to beds?

Robert: Where are you? I want to look in your fucking eyes when I answer. You’d like to know if I’ve been involved in sado-masochistic activities sexually? I’ll only answer this if you’ll meet in the bathroom with your mask on. Bring your rubber mask and I’ll tell you.

Q: Mark, did you relish the opportunity to play an evil villain like Lord Blackwood in this film?

Mark: I’ve worked with Guy a few times so it was great to come back and work with him. More importantly, the pressure was on to find a villain who was worthy of the greatest detective in the world and I’m fascinated by the fact that, although everything else is cherrypicked from what was in the short stories and the novel, Blackwood isn’t and I think what that allowed the film to do was create whatever we wanted which was even more outlandish perhaps than anything you’d find in the novels. But he embodies Victoriana and the whole kind of imperial feel of showmanship that the Victorians are so famous for so I loved playing him. I’ve been rethinking my response to the question what makes Holmes so quintessentially English. I don’t think Conan Doyle wrote him with a view to him being quintessentially English. I think the point is that he has become considered as being quintessentially English and what this film does is reexamine that and make it something more modern and much more interesting that the slightly stuffy version of Holmes that we’ve all become used to.

Q: We’re obviously talking franchise here and I wondered about the shadowy figure of Moriarty. Clearly it’s the biggest tease in the film and we never actually see him and we get the disguised voice. Can you tell us a little bit more about the actor who plays that part and if Moriarty is at the center of things in Sherlock Holmes, Part 2?

Mark: As the arch-nemesis or so-called bad guy, Moriarty is obviously the guy that you would assume would be the adversary for Holmes. But, as I said, by not making it Moriarty, you allow yourself to create something much more interesting. I mean, you couldn’t have a Moriarty that dabbled in the occult that committed the crimes that Blackwood does at the beginning of the film without having everybody up in arms. So it’s, in a way, way more inventive to find somebody who isn’t Moriarty. Of course, it leaves the tease free for somebody else to play him. I think it was quite interesting that the villain was Moriarty in this one.

Q: Mark, why do you think you got cast playing such a dark character as Lord Blackwood?

Mark: God knows. I don’t know. I think of myself as a quite charming, easy going guy so maybe it’s quite nice the idea that I get to play something that’s completely different. I’ve obviously done it in the past and been horribly successful at it somewhere so people feel it’s something that I can pull off. Personally, I like to play them because I find them psychologically more interesting in that you kind of have to explain the reason for all that darkness. I absolutely loved doing this. I had a ball. All these people, working with them has been an absolute joy, I have to say.

“Sherlock Holmes” opens in theaters on December 25th.