Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is the follow-up to Guy Ritchie’s 2009 blockbuster action film, Sherlock Holmes. Screenjabber’s Martin Dunne travelled to North Audley Street to hear what the cast and crew had to say about their experiences on making the film
The Sherlock Holmes cast and crew present for the press conference were both insightful and enthusiastic, though producers Joel Silver and Lionel Wigram, as well as leading lady Noomi Rapace, couldn’t help but be sidelined by the golden boys of the production – Guy Ritchie, Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.
To start off, the leading men described how they approached continuing the story of their interpretation of the great detective: “We were just having fun trying to figure it out.” Downey said, “[Jude and I] worked really hard. We have an immense respect for each other and we’ve all seen, or some of us have been in, sequels that sucked and we really wanted to avoid those pitfalls.” Law concurred, “We never assumed that there would be a second but there was a lot of energy carried over into this one. I was excited just to investigate and mine more of the same.”
When quizzed about which specific sequels Downey thinks sucked, he takes a long pause before replying with a boyish twinkle in his eye: “I must have misspoken.”
Upon being asked about what attracted her to the role of Sim, a gypsy fortune teller, Rapace elaborated: “I’ve always had a strong thing with gypsies. I mean, it started from a very honest conversation about movies and what kind of movies we wanted to make and how we wanted to work.” She says, “It felt really personal; it felt like I was invited into an opportunity to work with people I’ve been admiring many years. So it was very much about the people in it and having the opportunity to play a gypsy.
When asked about the appeal of their characters, Downey was quick to respond: “I love his dependency on Watson. I love that we’ve found a way to make the audience not judge him despite his driving a wedge between Watson and his wife. I think he’s someone who needs to be taken care of so he can do what he does best.” Law offered an interesting perspective, “I think one of the reasons these characters have survived the test of time and have been explored by so many actors is because they’re incredibly rich. I think the reason they’ve been popular for so long is because they’re symbolic of characters that we all have in us, there’s this side to us that’s very down-to-earth and reliable and this other side which can be imaginative and creative and eccentric and anarchic, if you like.”
When asked about the creative process, Ritchie is keen to explain, “As a creative team, it is just that: a creative team. It might be overstating it, but it’s a powerhouse of creativity. I’m not sure if any one of us can really take credit for all these ideas. Sometimes you’ll have a bad idea, and it might get ridiculed but you realise that that bad idea can then lead on to a good idea.” He continues, “The script was so rough at first, frustratingly so, and we didn’t think that it was the film that we wanted to make. Then it got broken down and rebuilt by all of these creative minds.” The ever-humble Downey concurred, “Any moment in this film that touches you, makes you laugh or cry – those are mine.”
Rapace went on to explain what working with Ritchie was like, “The way Guy works, it’s kind of about finding new solutions every day. Stepping into a room and saying ‘How best can we use this room’ and like he said, no-one really came up with a good or bad idea.” Speaking of her exercise routine, she said “. I stopped training. I didn’t train at all because I wanted to look more feminine. Because of the time and place, I didn’t want to look like I’d just come out of the gym.”
Fans of Stephen Fry will be pleased to hear that the QI host plays Sherlock’s cocky elder brother, Mycroft. Some fans will be even more pleased to hear of a scene in which Fry strolls around in the nude. When quizzed about how difficult this was to shoot, Ritchie laughs, “He just turned up on the day naked.” He then refers to one of Sherlock’s disguises featured in the film, “Just like getting Robert into a dress, there wasn’t any resistance. I have a sneaking suspicion that it was his idea.” When complimented on the casting of Fry as Mycroft, he agrees, “Robert and I have a mutual friend in Chris Martin, of Coldplay, and he’s a strong Sherlockian enthusiast, as is Stephen Fry, and it was his idea.” Robert concedes: “Every good idea in this movie came from Chris Martin.”
Despite not having been able to get many words in edgeways over the charisma-cannons of Downey and Law, Joel Silver offered interesting insight into the thought process that went into developing the film: “The idea was always to try to make something fresh and original, while still replicating the experience of the first movie. We all have favourite sequels of which there are not that many.” He’s clearly not afraid to stretch himself, as he says “They’re starting Bond 23 and I don’t see why we couldn’t do Sherlock 23, but of course we would have to do 21 more movies.”
While the ante has certainly been raised in terms of plot in this film, Law explained how everything else was pushed that bit farther: “We were pushing the dialogue, the characters and relationships but we did say ‘Let’s step up the physicality’. Because, going back to the original idea, it was to take these guys out of Baker Street.” He explains, “You don’t just hear them talking about their adventures, you actually see them having them and surviving them. So that bar was pretty high.”
With so many blockbusters being released in 3D these days, it’s a bit of a wonder that Holmes hasn’t receives the dimensional treatment. “I actually really like 3D; I’m a bit of a film geek. I like the technical aspect of filming a lot.” Ritchie explains, “I actually wanted to push this for 3D but the real problem was that there was a lot of 3D coming out and it felt a bit tired at the time. If it had come out a bit earlier, I would have pushed a lot harder.”
On interpreting and understanding how to convey their characters, Downey recalls, “From the minute me and Jude met, we cracked open a book and started getting chills, going “Hey, Watson was never this chubby old doofus”, he was dynamic, and he was in the army. We felt like we had this opportunity, not to re-write the history of Holmes, but to extrapolate the untapped accurateness.” Law concludes: “You can compare Holmes and Watson to great Shakespearian characters that have been interpreted by many different actors over the years, each one of those has a different interpretation. The fact is that the source material can take that kind of interpretation and this is ours.”