Guy Ritchie Interview For ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’

Robert Downey Jr reprises his role as the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, and Jude Law returns as his formidable colleague, Dr. Watson, in Guy Ritchie’s ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.’ Sherlock Holmes has always been the smartest man in the room…until now. There is a new criminal mastermind at large – Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) – and not only is he Holmes’ intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil, coupled with a complete lack of conscience, may actually give him an advantage over the renowned detective. When the Crown Prince of Austria is found dead, the evidence, as construed by Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan), points to suicide. But Sherlock Holmes deduces that the prince has been the victim of murder–a murder that is only one piece of a larger and much more portentous puzzle, designed by one Professor Moriarty.

Mixing business with pleasure, Holmes tracks the clues to an underground gentlemen’s club, where he and his brother, Mycroft Holmes (Stephen Fry) are toasting Dr. Watson on his last night of bachelorhood. It is there that Holmes encounters Sim (Noomi Rapace), a Gypsy fortune teller, who sees more than she is telling and whose unwitting involvement in the prince’s murder makes her the killer’s next target. Holmes barely manages to save her life and, in return, she reluctantly agrees to help him. The investigation becomes ever more dangerous as it leads Holmes, Watson and Sim across the continent, from England to France to Germany and finally to Switzerland. But the cunning Moriarty is always one step ahead as he spins a web of death and destruction–all part of a greater plan that, if he succeeds, will change the course of history. ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ is set for release December 16th 2011.

How do you come up with the ideas? From speaking to the actors they often talked about this being an extremely collaborative film.

Guy Ritchie: As a creative team, it’s just that. Lionel Wigram (producer) came up with the idea, he started the whole thing running. Everyone has an equal part in creating what we think an audience will like, and what we think is exciting, creatively. This might be overstating it, but it’s a powerhouse of creativity. I don’t think anyone trumps another individual in this mix. I’m not sure any one of us can take the credit for any one idea. Someone would come up with a bad idea that would get ridiculed, and then you realise it’s the bad idea that led to a good idea, so there’s no such thing as a bad idea. I very much like being a part of that. I feel like if any one of us take ownership of a concept, they become alienated by the group. It happens organically, because we’ve all got egos, but then when you get excited by the creative process, everyone gets excited, as no one is trying to own anything – five or six brains think as one. Joel Silver (producer) and Lionel got the momentum going to make the films, then thereafter it became a living organism. We just tap into that. The script was so rough, which some of us found frustrating at times, as we felt it wasn’t the film we really wanted to make. Then it got broken down and rebuilt by the organic mind.

How was it directing a naked Stephen Fry?

Guy Ritchie: (Laughs) I thought it was going to be an issue when we were presented with the pages, and at the end it said he was naked. Then, yes, he turned up on the day naked! There was no great resistance – rather like getting Robert into a dress (laughs). So I’ve got a sneaking suspicion it could’ve been his idea. There was no work on my part! Robert and I have a mutual friend, that chap Chris Martin out of Coldplay, and he’s a Sherlockian, as is Stephen Fry. It was his idea to cast Fry.

You’ve also got fresh blood in Jared Harris as Moriarty and Noomi Rapace as Sim, what was it like having them come on-board?

Guy Ritchie: Jared and Noomi were great. With Jared, he didn’t come with a great deal of baggage, there’s an advantage to that. Plus he’s a very good actor and he’s also very smart. I saw him in ‘Mad Men,’ and I thought he was very good in ‘Mad Men,’ and he just sort of popper up on the radar – I was mad on him from the off (laughs).

Noomi felt fresh, she felt driven, she’s passionate and ambitious, in all the right ways. She’s kind of a tour-de-force in her own right. As soon as I met her, I knew she would be right for the job. I think we all saw ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ about the same time, and there was an unconscious, collective agreement by the time we got on the phone about Noomi. And after a very short meeting with Noomi, our desires were confirmed and we pretty much wanted Noomi. She ticked all the boxes. And she took it pretty seriously. Needless to say, all the actors take it very seriously, no one was late. So she had all the prerequisites, and it wasn’t a tricky decision.

I really enjoyed the score for the film. What was the collaborative process of working with Hans Zimmer like.

Guy Ritchie: Hans and I like the same music, and we’re influenced by the same.…origins, I suppose, of music. So we’re both big fans of Gypsy music. In fact, we tried to get some Gypsy music in the first one, but organically, it pops out in the second one. But music, in no small way, plays an enormous part in these films. Hans and I spent many a drunken evening talking about these things (laughs).