Интервью 2010 года - 4 часть
Интервью №4 - Стивен Моффат и Сью Верчью с с ведущими Биллом Тернбуллом и Шиан Уильямс в утренней программе "Завтрак" на BBC1 10 августа 2010 (2 дня спустя после окончания показа первого сезона "Шерлока")
Turnbull: Twenty-four minutes to nine. Sherlock, the updated tales of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective, has been a summer success for the BBC. Actually, it's been a massive hit, really, with the third and final episode on Sunday getting an audience of 7.3 million.
Williams: So what is the key to reinventing such a well-known tale? Is it the cast? Is it the special effects? Is it the writing? The series' co-creator, Steven Moffat, and producer Sue Vertue are here to answer the questions that matter. Morning to you both.
Moffat and Vertue: Good morning.
Williams: First though, before we speak to them, we're going to have a look at a clip from the final episode.
Lestrade: That explosion...
Sherlock: Gas leak, yes?
Lestrade: No.
Sherlock: No?
Lestrade: No. Made to look like one.
John: What?
Lestrade: Hardly anything left of the place except a strong box – a very strong box and inside it was this.
Sherlock: You haven’t opened it?
Lestrade: It’s addressed to you, isn’t it?
Lestrade: We’ve X-rayed it. It’s not booby-trapped.
Sherlock: How reassuring.
Sherlock: Nice stationery. Bohemian.
Lestrade: What?
Sherlock: From the Czech Republic. No fingerprints?
Lestrade: No.
Sherlock: She used a fountain pen. A Parker Duofold – iridium nib.
John: “She”?
Sherlock: Obviously.
John: Obviously.
Williams: And Sue Vertue and Steven Moffat join us now. Husband and wife team behind Sherlock.
Vertue: Worth mentioning, isn't it?
Williams: I think so.
Moffat: And with Mark Gatiss as well, though we're not married to him.
Williams: No, no, no.
Moffat: No, that would be wrong.
Williams: I think so.
Turnbull: We were asking a question in the cues, you know... The acting... "Is it special effects? Is it writing?" Actually, it's surely a combination of all three. First of all, the acting is fantastic. Casting...
Moffat: Yes.
Turnbull: Was perfect, wasn't it, for Benedict Cumberbatch?
Moffat: Yes, the only man to play Sherlock Holmes with an even stupider name. Yes, absolutely perfect for the role. (Williams laughs)
Williams: And, so, everybody was concentrating on the name rather than the man, really, when he was cast as Sherlock.
Vertue: I know. I think, the first episode, that's all anybody could talk about, was what a weird name he had, and now he's this huge overnight star.
Williams: But he has this sort of otherness about him, doesn't he? I mean, his face looks... It's slightly... I hesitate to say "alien quality" about it... (laughs) He's not watching, he's not around at the moment. He's in the States, is he?
Vertue: No, he's here.
Williams: He's here?
They're talking over each other.
Moffat: He's sitting at home weeping at what you're saying.
Williams: Weeping. Weeping.
Moffat: You've called him E.T.!
Williams: Yeah, no, I did. Um, why only three episodes?
Moffat: They're 90 minutes long! (Vertue sighs) Three 90 minutes! That's longer than a sitcom. Stop complaining!
Vertue: Took us ages to make.
Moffat: Yes!
Williams: No, no, I'm sure.
Turnbull: People want more, you see? They're desperate for more.
Moffat: Yeah, good.
Vertue: There will... There will be more. I mean, we haven't yet... We're having a meeting, um, just to talk about how many and when, really.
Williams: Yes.
Vertue: But, um, I mean, Steven and Mark are both... They're busy. Steven's obviously doing Doctor Who as well, so, it's just when we're going to do them.
They're talking over each other.
Turnbull: It's very clever. A very clever ploy, I don't want to spoil too much for anybody who's still to watch it on iPlayer, but to leave... Leave that question mark over the third and final episode...
Moffat: Yes.
Turnbull: 'Cause you knew that people would be clamouring to see another one afterwards.
Moffat: Just us being needy for another series. Yes, yes.
Turnbull: And when it came to... Because the other very important thing is the chemistry between Holmes and Watson, getting the right two actors in Benedict and Martin Freeman together. How closely were you involved in that process of finding...
Vertue: Yes, Benedict was the only person we actually saw for Sherlock. Once Benedict was there, it was really just making sure you got the chemistry, uh, for John. I think you get it as soon as they come in the room. You can see that they work together.
Williams: And there are little references as well to the Conan Doyle books. Which one of you was a fan? You were a fan, presumably.
Moffat: Well, Mark and I are huge fans of the originals. Massive, massive Sherlock Holmes geeks. If you know your Sherlock Holmes stories it's full of stuff from those stories, and there's little details in there...
Williams: This is a three-patch job, with the nicotine patches...
Moffat: Three pipe problem. The fact that they meet at Bart's, the fact he's invalided home from Afghanistan... All that's from the original.
Turnbull: How close are the plots, though, to the original?
Moffat: They're reasonably close. I've seen a lot of people saying that the two poison thing came from The Princess Bride. It actually comes from A Study In Scarlet, the original Sherlock Holmes story, which we adapted as "A Study in Pink." So there's quite a lot of detail in there. But the demands of a 90-minute film are slightly different from the demands of what are usually short stories, so... Yeah, but...
Vertue: It's very sweet that the amount of, um, times I've sat with the two of them, Steven and Mark, and they just get each other excited about the actual Sherlock Holmes, you know, Conan Doyle stories.
Williams: Really?
Vertue: Yeah.
Williams: Once you've got that, and once you see the partnership and it working so well, you get the Holmes and Watson, but the Moriarty character, I would imagine, was actually... Was that more difficult, in a way, to cast?
Moffat: It was just another trait, really. We knew what we wanted to do with Moriarty, from the very beginning. We wanted somebody who was... Moriarty is usually a rather dull, a rather posh villain. We thought someone who's genuinely, properly frightening, someone who's an absolute psycho. 'Cause, in a way, Moriarty's the man that makes Sherlock a hero, 'cause he's a rather amoral character, Sherlock Holmes, so you want, um, someone for him to respond to, that turns him into the hero he's sort of destined to be.
Williams: Right.
Turnbull: Can we deal with the "elementary" question, which is, "Elementary, my dear Watson." I'm not sure if it was ever written into any of the originals.
Moffat: It's not in the stories. Why shouldn't it be, but it's not...
Turnbull: Elementary, not even the adjective? He didn't even say...
Moffat: He says "elementary" all the time. He says "my dear Watson" all the time. The two never actually happen together, but so what?
Turnbull: You resisted the temptation to put that...
Moffat: The thing is, the word "elementary" would be an odd one for a modern young man to say.
Williams: Yes.
Moffat: It would be normal for, uh, in Victorian times, but now it's odd, so we were quite strict that they can't sound like Victorians. They have to sound like modern men.
Vertue: In the same way, you wouldn't say, "The game is afoot."
Moffat: He always said, "The game is afoot," actually. He only says that once in fact, but... And you wouldn't call each other Holmes and Watson. You have to call each other Sherlock and John. All those things have to be right. They have to be properly updated. They have to be modern.
Williams: We're going to see another clip from the final episode. This is, uh, Sherlock trying to solve a bit of a puzzle. Here it is.
John: Shoes.
John: He’s a bomber, remember.
Sherlock: Hello?
Woman’s voice: H-hello... sexy.
Sherlock: Who’s this?
Woman’s voice: I’ve... sent you... a little puzzle... just to say hi.
Turnbull: Oh, it's very scary. Even at this time in the morning, it's very scary. Um, the Americans are going to love this, aren't they, because you're taking it there, aren't you?
Vertue: Yes, we're taking it there. It's being shown there in October. Yeah.
Moffat: Mmm.
Williams: And, also, what's quite nice as well is that the people who wouldn't know Arthur Conan Doyle's work, maybe have a chance to look at the original.
Vertue: Yeah, it'd be great to get children starting to read again, I think, with the Conan Doyle books. Again, if you talk to Steven or Mark about the first time they read it... What's that thing in Mark's book?
Moffat: Yes, he was reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and he got his first copy of it, and there's a foreword by Eric Ambler, which ends with the words, "I wish I was about to read these stories for the first time." And Mark, little Mark, was sitting there, thinking, "I am about to read them for the first time!"
Williams: Aw, how Lovely!
Turnbull: Well, thanks very much for coming. Promise us you're going to make some more.
Vertue: There will be some more.
Moffat: We are, definitely.
Turnbull: You can't leave them hanging there, hanging there!
Williams: And 90-minute versions, again?
Vertue: Yes, I think so.
Turnbull: And more than three. Thank you very much.
Vertue: Thank you.
Williams: And, can we be in it? (Turnbull laughs)