“They’ll get my job”: Benedict Cumberbatch Revealed His Sherlock Co-star Was Best Fit for Dr. Watson As Other Actors Were ‘Too Much in The Vein’
Benedict Cumberbatch has been acting since 1998 and has established a successful critical and commercial career based on his talent alone. He has received many awards including a BAFTA Award for playing the titular character in the series Patrick Melrose and two nominations for Academy Awards for his work in 2014’s The Imitation Game and 2021’s The Power of the Dog.
The Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy star provided his voice and motion capture for both the Necromancer and Smaug the Dragon for The Hobbit series movies from 2012 to 2014. The shooting for the dragon was rather bizarre as Cumberbatch had to not only wear a suit and use facial markers but also go through motions alone on a carpeted floor like he was stuck in a government building with four static cameras and many sensors.
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Benedict Cumberbatch was The First and Only Choice for Playing Sherlock
Benedict Cumberbatch is undoubtedly one of the best Hollywood actors out there. However, it didn’t mean that the general public knew him as watching plays in theatres is something that remains exceptional to literary geeks. Luckily, director Steven Moffat and his wife, producer Sue Vertue watched the movie Atonement.
Sue Vertue was enamored by Cumberbatch’s performance in the movie and decided that he had to play Sherlock Holmes in the series Sherlock that was yet to be produced. Steven Moffat discussed the proposal with director Mark Gattis who knew the Doctor Strange star and they gathered together for a reading. Moffat said:
“At the end of that reading there wasn’t really any point in going anywhere else. There wasn’t going to be anybody else who looks the part, sounds the part and walks the part to that degree.”
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When asked what Sherlock should look like, directors Moffat and Gattis had said that he should be tall, thin, and have a big nose. Even Benedict Cumberbatch’s mother was skeptical of him having the role because he lacked a big nose but Sue Vertue insisted to cast him anyway and for good because he played the role well.
Benedict Cumberbatch Felt Threatened by Dr. Watson Auditionees
Although initially there was no competition to Benedict Cumberbatch for the role of Sherlock Holmes, the actor felt threatened by the auditionees for the role of Dr. Watson once the hunt for the perfect one began. He said:
“We had some fantastic reads, brilliant actors, some of whom were a little bit too much in the vein of where I was going with Sherlock either because they were picking up on my energy, or because that’s what they could’ve contributed, which made me a bit nervous. I thought, Christ, they’ll get my job.”
This is one of the reasons why Martin Freeman was deemed perfect for the role of Sherlock Holmes’s companion Dr. Watson. He was also chosen because Cumberbatch felt that Freeman complemented his character in a mismatched kind of way which was exactly what was needed for the series Sherlock that catapulted the Hawking actor to overnight stardom.
Source: npr
