INTERVIEW: Robert Downey Jr. On Becoming Misses Holmes For Sherlock Holmes Sequel

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Category: Interviews

Created: Wednesday, 14 December 2011 23:10

Published: Wednesday, 14 December 2011 23:10

Written by Lupe Haas

Robert Downey Jr. goes undercover as a woman in SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS, but the star says his turn as a misses was a far cry from something out of Some Like It Hot and more of looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger's dwarf brother or The Cure's Robert Smith.

At a recent press conference with the stars and filmmakers behind SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS, Robert Downey Jr. joked about his transformation into a woman for his return as Sherlock Holmes  in the Guy Ritchie action adventure comedy also returning co-star Jude Law as Dr. Watson.  In A GAME OF SHADOWS, Sherlock faces a new adversary with Professor James Moriarity (Jared Harris) who is out to alter the course of history.  When Professor Moriarity threatens his friend and newlywed Dr. Watson, Holmes boards a train incognito with his frilly  dress, bonnet, and some badly applied lipstick and eyeshadow.  

While on set of SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS, Susan Downey, Robert Downey Jr's wife and producer of both Sherlock Holmes movies, told Robert his turn as a lady reminded her of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon's Some Like It Hot drag, but the two-time Academy Award nominee disagreed

"I thought I looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dwarf brother. That’s what I thought I looked like. And the lead singer from The Cure. Robert Smith, sorry. I should know that. It’s embarrassing."

Interestingly, many viewers thought Holmes' smeared red lipstick reminded them of Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight movie. Whatever the comparison, Downey changed the subject at the press conference quickly not because he was embarrassed about wearing make-up for the movie, but more so about not remembering Robert Smith's name.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS opens in movie theatres nationwide on December 16, 2011.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? WHO DOES HE LOOK LIKE TO YOU?

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS Press Conference

Robert Downey Jr., Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris and Guy Ritchie sat down for a press conference in Beverly Hills the weekend of December 3rd.  Below is the complete interview with the stars of SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS.

Q: What was the challenge to recreate Holmes and take it to another level?

RDJ: Oh, well, after the first one worked out pretty good, we were pretty much doing the press tour talking about things we would like to improve, other directions we could go, blah blah blah. And then there’s the reality of doing it. Anybody who’s ever been involved in making the second part to a first that worked, there should be a whole online support team for this. We happened through it. We were just thinking about this over lunch too. There’s so much to learn and again I think the greatest disguise was us disguising ourselves as consummate by the numbers professionals when in fact we’re all kind of incredibly eccentric. And Warner Brothers has given us the opportunity to try to do something that’s complicated and needs to tick a bunch of boxes and all that. The great thing we had this time is we had Noomi and Jared.

Q: At the Due Date press conference, you described that as the second greatest story ever told. Is this at least the third greatest?

RDJ: I don’t talk to Todd Phillips anymore. Let’s stay on topic.

Q: Talk about your lovely transformation into a woman.

RDJ: Okay, so I guess we’re not talking about this as being one of the most important films of the year? Uh, I put on some makeup.

Q: Are you excited about being a new dad?

RDJ: Yes. Can’t wait. Very excited. More questions for me please. This is how I was hoping the last press conference would go.

Q: Robert, there was a rumor in the National Enquirer - -

RDJ: Ha! Would you mind repeating? This could be the most important thing that anyone says today. How are we going to get nominated with these kinds of questions?

Q: Are you and Jude doing Some Like It Hot with Guy directing?

RDJ: That’s called act two of Sherlock 2: A Game of Shadows. No, the Mrs. [Susan Downey, producer] referenced that a while ago. That’s what it reminded her of. I thought I looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dwarf brother. That’s what I thought I looked like. And the lead singer from The Cure. Robert Smith, sorry. I should know that. It’s embarrassing. Any other movies you want to talk about? Did you like The Artist?

Q: Guy, why did you want to come back?

RDJ: Why? Why?

GR: Even he answered that for me. Why? Because we enjoyed it so much the first time. And I waited with some anticipation for the box office results for very different reasons than everybody else, because it was such a cathartic experience the first time around and an enjoyable one that we just wanted to do it again.

Q: Noomi and Jared, as the newcomers to the franchise, what was it like? Was adjusting to Guy’s style of directing easy for you?

NR: Okay, yeah. Well, I came in - - you know, from most movies I’d done before, I’ve done a lot of preparation. I’ve known about them long before and I’ve prepped and I’ve changed my body and I’ve done research, all things you can imagine before. But on this one, I met Robert and Susan maybe six weeks, seven weeks before we started to shoot. It was a good, quick meeting in L.A. We didn’t really talk about Sherlock Holmes but we talked about movies and dreams. I remember Robert asking me how do you want to work and what movies do you want to make? It was really super intense and I walked out of that meeting and called my manager. I was like wow, those two are amazing. I would love to work with them. Then Warner Brothers wanted to send me over to London to meet Guy Ritchie. I was there for an hour, we talked and it was really also very intense. I came out of that meeting and I was like whoa, I would love to work with those people, but I didn’t expect anything. I think it was like a week later, two weeks later they wanted me to do this role. Then we started to shoot like three weeks later. So I just kind of jumped into it. It was super intense and so much fun. I was really nervous before. It was my first English speaking movie and I didn’t talk English, I didn’t speak English three years ago. So I didn’t really know how to deal with it and how it would be for me. The way Guy works, it feels, they were all very open. It was very playful and easy and creative so it felt like you embraced my ideas, and it felt like we kind of created this character together in a way. I was surprised the way they just opened their family for me and I became one of the boys pretty much. And the way Guy works, I don’t remember a single situation when I came on set and Guy said, “Okay, this is what I want you to do exactly.” He always asked me, “How do you want to do this, Noomi? How do you see this? What do you think Simsa would’ve done?” That’s pretty much the way I love to work, in a very searching, creative, open way. So you always need to use in what kind of shape are we today and what do we feel? What’s the energy today? And we use the energy today and go from there in a way. So it was fantastic.

Q: Jared, playing the iconic character Moriarty?

JH: I was a fan of the first movie and you could see from the first film that they had took such a fresh approach to how they were treating the characters and the period and the subject matter. It was exciting because you knew it had to be a reimagined version. It needed to be a different version of the character than we’d seen beforehand. It was a big mountain in the sense that the character has to be a formidable - - pose a formidable problem to Sherlock’s character. If it’s just about defeating a paperboy on a paper route, it isn’t a big enough challenge. He has to be formidable in that sense. How that was going to be achieved, I didn’t know but I knew it had to happen.

Q: Guy, how did you collaborate with Hans Zimmer on the musical score?

GR: Hans and I like the same music and are influenced by the same origins I suppose of music. We’re both big fans of gypsy music. In fact we tried to get some gypsy music in the first one but organically it popped up in the second one. But music in no small way plays an enormous part in these films and Hans and I have spent many a drunken evening talking about these things.

Q: Noomi, how has your Hollywood experience been? Has it been a dream come true?

NR: Well, I think I’m really spoiled now. This was the first American or English spoken movie I did. I was just so - - I don’t know, I didn’t know what to expect before, but the way those people worked and the way we worked together was just amazing and the journey we went on together felt like - - you said that we were in London all the time. I kind of forgot that because it felt like we were in different places. But it felt like we went through things together. It felt like you and me and Jude came closer and closer in this group. It was really fantastic. I remember I never felt like - - I’ve heard that you’re waiting around and you sit in your trailer and wait, then you go in and do something and then you go back to your trailer and wait. I don’t remember waiting at all. I was extremely happy and then I went amazingly enough straight into Ridley’s, I started to prep Prometheus straight after and I was in that movie for five, six months. So it was a really intense year and now I’m here. I’m really grateful for you, for those people that they believed in me and gave me the chance and invited me to this journey. So I’m extremely grateful and proud.

Q: Guy, what was it about Noomi that made you cast her?

GR: I think we all saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at about the same time and there was sort of an unconscious collective agreement by the time we got on the phone about Noomi. After a very short meeting with Noomi, that was confirmed. Our desires were confirmed and we pretty much wanted Noomi from there on. She ticked all the boxes and she took it pretty seriously. All the actors took it very seriously and no one was late, very rare. So she had all the prerequisites and it wasn’t a tricky decision though.

Q: Did you and Jude improvise a lot?

RDJ: You know, I think the goal is to make a well written scene seem like it’s improvised and/or to come up with things that you find in the room that you couldn’t have known until you get into the real situation, just try to improve things as you go along. Jude, by the way, would’ve been here but, uh, his son had a soccer game. To answer the question about green [environmental question to the producers earlier] what came to mind was I just remember that every animal that was harmed was promptly taxidermied and sent as a gift to one of the many ecological companies that have these sorts of huge concerns that I validate.

Q: Were there a lot more physical challenges? Did you have to train a lot more?

RDJ: As far as me being in shape, I think you and I should probably talk about that for a half an hour as it is my favorite topic.

Q: Noomi, what was the most difficult scene either emotionally or physically?

NR: I like doing fight scenes and those more physical scenes. I always enjoy that and I try to do as much as they allow me to do of the stunt stuff and the more complicated things. So I think that’s always quite easy. You just have to kind of crack on and do it. Of course you’re bruised and your body is aching. You hurt yourself a lot sometimes but that’s kind of a part of it. I’ve done fight scenes and stuff like that before and I always find it quite amusing in a way. So I think that the emotional scenes, in the end when I lose a person that I really love and I feel kind of guilty for letting him down, that was quite complicated because you need to really get into that situation. It was like a lot of people around me, it was a room full of people and everybody was watching. You feel like in a way you just want to hide and do it really private, but of course you need to do what’s real in the situation. I think it’s always the emotional situations that are more tricky to nail and to get into because I don’t want to pretend. Weird enough, I don’t like to pretend. I try to use things in me and translate them into the situation and the characters. So it always needs to run through my own veins in a way. So it was the emotional scenes that were more difficult to find into because I’m really self-critical as well, so I don’t want to pretend.

Q: Guy, did you aim to make it a romp?

GR: Yeah. I mean, they are fun to make. They’re also very hard work but I don’t want anything to take away from the fun factor, and the work that everyone else here does. So they are tremendous fun to make. They’re pretty spontaneous. A lot of the film is spontaneous in terms of the levity and the humor, the spontaneity of the humor. A lot of that is organic and we’ve got something on the page. What we try and do is trump it. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. Just the game of trumping keeps everyone stimulated.

Q: Have you ever had a guy friendship or bromance like Holmes and Watson?

RDJ: Yeah, well, Jude and I are pretty close but Guy and I are practically brothers which makes things really interesting. There have been times when I’ve wanted to lop off his head with a machete, but it’s just because I love you so much. You know what I mean?

GR: Yessss.

RDJ: There’s no one you love more really, is there? Think about it?

JH: The first time I saw these guys, they were standing in front of each other and they were playing this sort of flinching game with each other where they were taking little kicks at each other. They both do martial arts training… at each other’s nuts. You lost of you moved out of the way. It’s like the karate version of Russian roulette.

Q: At your nuts?

GR: Have you never played this game?

Q: What about the camouflage costumes? That was so cool.

RDJ: Thank you. By the way, those are the kind of questions I like. I mean, what about? That was so cool.

Q: How did taking on this franchise change your approach, and how did it change the second time around?

GR: You know, I started making music videos fro 250 pounds and incrementally worked my way up the ladder. So by the time I got here, zeros weren’t as intimidating. The most intimidating thing I ever made was a music video for 250 pounds, so much so I shared the blame with another director. But after you get over the initial shock, then zeros become zeros and it all becomes ambiguous after that. What I’ve found is, I’ve made films where I’ve struggled against almost everyone and I didn’t have that issue with these two films. I’ve sort of had the reverse process that most independent filmmakers are supposed to have, which is you wait until you work for the man and then the man beats you down. I had exactly the opposite of that. I’ve had nothing but the man beating me up. It’s a bigger sandbox with more friends. So from my perspective, it’s the direction in which I’ve enjoyed going in. I’m not sure if the pressure’s there any more than it was on my 250 pound music video. You set out to do something and you set out to do the best that you can do, and you try and cross those bridges as elegantly and as creatively as you can. That’s the only thing that occupies my time on a daily basis.

Q: Robert and Jared, what was it like doing the first scene as Moriarty and Holmes? Did the relationship grow as you had more scenes?

JH: We had about, what, six weeks before we actually started shooting and we shot the very end first. That was the first thing we did so that kind of helped in terms of focusing our attention on what needed to be in the other scenes before you got to that one. I think the rapport that was there is he’s a lovely guy. The inclusion and the welcoming of ideas that Guy and Robert had makes you feel right away that you’ve got something worthwhile. Even if they don’t like your ideas, they’ll sit there and nod politely. They just never circle back to them, but bad ideas are good ideas because any idea when you’re looking for an idea is welcome. Sometimes it might be some shitty idea that you came up with and three weeks later a little kernel of that is used somewhere. So you feel part of the group.

RDJ: All right, now let me tell you the other half. He would come in and we’d have a scene that he’s shooting in two days and he’d be like, “Is this going to pretty much stay like this?” I was like, “Not a word of it.” “Can I have something that I can study the night before?” I’d say, “I’m going to venture a no on the possibility of yes.” It would be like that and the stakes were so high in every scene, and then there’s complicated camera shots and stuff like this. It’s pretty terrifying but what really happened is we noticed with Jared is he kept pushing toward it wasn’t personal, it wasn’t like I don’t want to be embarrassed and I want to do a good job and I want to come off great and I want great dialogue. It kept going back to this archetype that you were trying to represent. Then there would be stuff where we were all in a groove with a fight team and he’d come in and be like, “Okay, we’re going to do this.” Guy was just introducing something the stunt team had found kinda by accident, a way of shooting something super super super slow as opposed to Phantom stuff we had done before. Next thing you know, he’s doing a rehearsal scene with our fight guys. Everything Jared Harris did in the course of making this movie was essentially thrown at him with very little time to prepare and also talked about a lot philosophically as opposed to actually getting ready to do it in a professional way. So it was shock and awe. I think what he brought back with him was something that was just so particularly him and the essence of you while still being this character. It honestly is the main reason that the movie works, but it was also an exercise in trial by fire for you. And you were really quite nice. Once in a while you would say, “I really just beg of you, if I could even have a semblance of knowing what I might say I guarantee you I could do a better job with it because I wouldn’t be like you, Robert, for this long scene that you just wrote wearing an earwig where someone’s telling you what to say in the other room. I would actually know what I was going to say.” I’d be like, “Interesting, yeah, everyone has their own process.” Guy told him to go home and he wanted him to come back singing a German aria the next day. Nobody learns a German aria overnight, except Jared Harris.

Q: What are the things you keep in mind as you try to stick to the basics of Sherlock, but also blow it up differently?

RDJ: Well, you just keep Doyle in mind because I just respect the guy more and more. I think the other thing is oftentimes what’s required, particularly if you’re in any central position is you just have to let go. You have to let go of the things that are darling to you. You have to take the focus off yourself and put it on the shape of the scene and the intention of what everyone else needs. You have to give people something to actually write music too so that you’re not just running your mouth all the time.

NR: It was also quite incredibly how Susan and Lionel always kept an eye over everything. Sometimes when we flew away and wanted to do things and had all those great ideas, it was always like you kind of navigated us back. It felt like you had the whole story inside you and you knew the books and everything. It felt like amazing teamwork.

RDJ: It was a democracy in the truest and most frustrating and most rewarding sense of the word. Anybody could come in and say, “You know, I’m just not cool with that.” We’d be like, “Who’s that?” “Oh, I was just cleaning the trailers.” It was nuts.

Q: Having done two of these, do you feel a sense of ownership towards Sherlock? Do you have any interest in the other portrayals?

RDJ: Yeah, I kinda like everybody. Whenever I watch someone doing something, even if it doesn’t turn out so great, I at least admire their intentions and stuff. I know that there’s some kind of quintessential performances that have happened out there. I’ve heard more about the series than I’ve seen but I’m intrigued by it. I think it’s important that we’re all part of the same collective of honoring this great writer and his stories.

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