We sent Caroline off to see the cast of Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows tread the red carpet for its premiere on Thursday night. And here’s what happened...
As the stars arrived in their dapper gowns and suits, and screaming Downey Jr fans crammed into Leicester Square for a glimpse of their hero, London was seasonally pouring with rain, and the many homemade shrines in danger of getting lost in the wind. Most of the cast for the eagerly awaited Sherlock Holmes sequel thoughtfully braved the weather to come and speak to us, and shed light on everything from nude scenes and villainous technique, to superheroes and the return of Mad Men.
Battling against the wind and through the sea of umbrellas were director Guy Ritchie, new Moriarty Jared Harris, former Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Noomi Rapace, and the dynamic duo of Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. Stephen Fry also popped by, warning the audience of the film's nude scenes and advising us on the ideal point to hide our eyes. Seemingly thrilled to be taking part in a Sherlock movie, he talked about his days in the London Sherlock Holmes Society:
"I think [I was] its youngest ever member, and used to give papers and talks about Sherlock Holmes. I think I knew every story off by heart, and was totally obsessed with it. The idea that I would one day play Sherlock's brother Mycroft never crossed my mind."
The stars soon started to emerge from the theatre, walking past the slightly tragic sign reading, “Been waiting 24 hours, please say hi” to saunter down the red carpet. Before heading back to sign a not-insignificant amount of autographs and shake a lot of hands, they did shed some light on the making of the film, even if Guy Ritchie remained coy on the status of Sherlock Holmes 3. "I'll let you know in a couple of hours," he said, "we'll have to see if it plays well."
"It's about authenticity," he said of adapting the character, "and we're trying to service Conan-Doyle. I've always thought that had he been around now he'd be a screenplay writer. He'd be writing for movies, and when I read his stories I always thought they were kind of Bond-esque in his panorama of what he thought entertainment should be."
New villain Moriarty, played by Mad Men's Jared Harris, looks to be a bigger star thanks to the film, and it's clear that he took the role seriously: "He was the world's first supervillain. He really was the first archetype of that arch-nemesis type, so there was cliché on one side and uninspiring choices on the other; it was a pretty fine line. You really had to believe that these two people were evenly matched.
"It was always quite easy to fall into cliché with him, and I realised that less is more. Don't explain yourself or the motives of the character, and there was no bad guy monologue-ing. I watched characters like Phillip Seymour Hoffman's villain from Mission Impossible, and some Alan Rickman, just to see what the elements were that made those characters work."
On his other big project, the incoming fifth season of US drama Mad Men, he said somewhat nervously, "We're shooting season five right now, it's going really well. I can't tell you anything about the story whatsoever, but the atmosphere is great. It's one of the best places I've ever worked in my life."
At this point it was getting so wet that most of the designer-clad stars were being hurriedly rushed inside by their various entourages, but Kelly Reilly, the long-suffering Mrs Watson, did have time to muse of her character's tough exterior saying, "I didn't want Mary to be a push-over, because she wasn't in the first film. But she's still a very dignified Victorian lady so I didn't want to go too crazy. I think that core of steel is quite quintessentially British."
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, or Mr Eko from Lost as we know a love him, stopped to rave about working with Sylvester Stallone on upcoming movie Bullet To The Head, promising a balls-to-the-wall action movie: "He's great, one of the few movie stars who's as large off-screen as he is on, he's the real deal. You know, he's Rambo, he's Rocky, what are you gonna do? He's actually a very smart man, and I don't think that's always projected through the characters, but when you actually get to meet him, he's extremely shrewd."
Then there was Warwick Davis, now a star even without his costumes and goblin make-up thanks to current Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant series Life's Too Short. Everyone was clamouring for some confirmation of a second series, to which he said, "Let's finish this one first and we'll see what happens. At the end of episode seven, Warwick's left in a place where the world is his oyster, so it could really go anywhere.
"I'd like to see him go to Hollywood, and maybe do quite well for a little while. You start to feel quite sorry for him and it would be nice to see him succeed. A bit like Del Boy from Only Fools And Horses, he was a tryer and when he did do well it was really quite nice to see it, so I think Warwick deserves a bit of good fortune."
And just as Warwick divulged his plans to woo Robert Downey Jr into taking part in series two, the man himself broke free of his fans to come and have an (extremely brief) chat with us. After talking about how great and loving the set of Sherlock Holmes has been, he described the script for Iron Man 3 as the "best I've read in five years," adding, " it's going to be a phenomenal theatre-going experience."
And with that, the remaining celebrities and actors were ushered in to see the film, leaving us rather damp yet extremely excited for Downey Jr's future adventures.
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