Martin Freeman Online

Over the past few days I have done a massive image dump over at the http://www.martinfreemanonline.co.uk gallery with promo images from Hardware,the office, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, and the good night as well as DVD extras from the office, Hichhikers guide to the galaxy, Breaking and entering and Confetti. I have also added screencaps from his appearences on Who do you think you are?, Micromen and the culture show so enjoy

Martin Freeman Online

Martin Freeman Online

We have a brand new layout over at Martin Freeman Online so please check it out and let me know what you think? If there is anything you would like to see added to the site please don’t hesistate to contact me at admin@martinfreemanonline.co.uk

Martin Freeman Online

I have updated the gallery with some great photos of Martin at the recent Moet British independant film awards thanks to Julia for some of these:

Martin Freeman Online

Martin Freeman Online

I have updated the site with a great article:

Martin Freeman has said the success of the BBC1 drama Sherlock was “a lovely surprise”.

The actor, who played Dr Watson in the updated version of the classic detective stories, starts filming the second series next year.

He said: “I always thought it was good and I always think we believed in it but the extent of its success was a lovely surprise.”

He went on: “I don’t think any of us banked on it being so across the board successful.”

The series, which updated Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories to 21st century London, was a ratings hit, pulling in more than seven million viewers.

Martin will film the new episodes with co-star Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Holmes, in between stints in New Zealand where he is filming Peter Jackson’s two-part Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit.

He said: “January I go out and I’m out there until May then I come back and do Sherlock and then I go back until December and make the second part of the Hobbit.”
google.com – Martin says Sherlock success was a surprise and talks Hobbit schedule

 

I have also updated the gallery with photos from Martin’s appearence at the Women in film awards 2010 and thanks to Julia some lovely photos of Martin on the set of Swinging with the Finkels:

Martin Freeman Online

 

Martin Freeman Online

I have added two articles to the site one about his recent appearence at a party Liam Gallagher held and another with the exciting news of Martin having been fitted for his Bilbo prosthetics! I have also added some images of Martin and his wife at the Evening standard awards in London:
deanpiper.com – Martin attends Liam Gallagher’s pretty green club night
bbc.co.uk – Martin has been fitted for his Bilbo prosthetics

Martin Freeman Online

Martin Freeman Online

I have added two great articles to the site as well as finding a little interview where Simon Pegg talks about Martin and his role as Bilbo:

todaygamenews.com – Martin talks ready to play Bilbo
thebestmoviereview.com – Martin talks about getting ready for Bilbo

In a recent interview Simon Pegg a long term friend of Martin Freeman commented on Martin and his role in the Hobbit: “He’s so the anti-nerd. He likes his Stax records, and his Sta-Prest [trousers] – he’s a Mod!…He takes the mickey out of me for my sci-fi ways, and now he’s playing one of the most iconic characters [in the fantasy genre]… But I think he’s great. Like a young Ian Holm,”
musicrooms.net – Simon Pegg talks about Martin

Martin Freeman Online

Martin Freeman Online

I have added two great articles to the site
insideblip.com – Sherlock cast hope for US success

greencelebrity.net – who is Martin Freeman?

Martin Freeman Online

Martin Freeman Online

I have added a review of Sherlock and 2 new articles to the site:
topics.wsj.com – Sherlock review
nerdles.com – Sherlock not affected by the Hobbit casting
wired.com – Martin is Bilbo officially

Also Martin has been nominated for a theatre award:
‘The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, the first prize-giving of the London theatre awards season, announces its long list for categories including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Play, Best Musical, Best Director, Best Design, Most Promising Playwright and Outstanding Newcomer, before whittling the nominees down to a short list on 21 November and finally a winner, crowned at a ceremony on 28 November.
Among those to have made the first cut are Sherlock co-stars Benedict Cumberbatch (for After The Dance) and Martin Freeman (for Clybourne Park), film stars turned stage sirens Gemma Arterton (The Little Dog Laughed) and Keira Knightley (The Misanthrope), and London theatre regulars Roger Allam (Henry IV Parts 1 and 2), Simon Russell Beale (London Assurance and Deathtrap), Judi Dench (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Zoë Wanamaker (All My Sons).’
officiallondontheatre.co.uk – Evening standard theatre awards

Martin Freeman Online

Martin Freeman Online

Martin Freeman has landed the role of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, producer Peter Jackson has announced. The Lord Of The Rings director, who is overseeing the film based on the book that takes place before the trilogy, praised The Office actor’s versatility. “Martin is intelligent, funny, surprising and brave, exactly like Bilbo,” he explained. “I feel incredibly proud to be able to announce that he is our Hobbit.”
nme.com – Martin is officially Bilbo
guardian.co.uk – Martin is officially Bilbo
Martin is officially announced in the Hobbit

Martin Freeman Online

Martin Freeman Online

It must be tiring being Martin Freeman. As we speak, he’s lining up a trip to Spain. “I’m backwards and forwards from Barcelona,” he says, with a contented sort of sigh. It’s for a feature film called Animals, he says; a half-English, half-Spanish fantasy with a mostly unknown cast, made by a young Catalan director whose best-known work is a BBC Three pilot that never became a series (The Things I Haven’t Told You). Offbeat? A bit. “It has a very beautiful script,” he adds quickly.

These days, Freeman can afford to be picky. At 39, he’s enjoying a career renaissance. He’s just been in the most talked about TV drama of the year: BBC One’s Sherlock, playing Dr Watson. His name has even been linked to the star role in what could be the most expensive movie ever made (of which more later).

So perhaps we shouldn’t begrudge him a few leftfield projects. The latest is a Radio 3 adaptation of BS Johnson’s book, The Unfortunates, in which he plays a football reporter whose thoughts turn to the death of an old friend.

The Unfortunates is about as far from mainstream as you can get: a 1960s experimental novel; cult in its day but now rarely read; written in stream-of-consciousness by a man once described as “the most important young English novelist now writing” but who is, today, largely forgotten. Oh, and originally published as a book-in-a-box, with unbound chapters to be read at random.

“I just thought it was an interesting idea,” says Freeman. “I hadn’t heard of the book before. Or of BS Johnson. But I liked the idea of a book being published in no particular order, and of applying that to a radio version.” The book’s shapelessness has been played up in an intriguing way. “They did it like an FA Cup draw,” he explains. “They put the chapters on little wooden balls and then drew them out [one by one] to get a random result.”

The other thing that should be said about The Unfortunates is that its hero is typically Freeman; that is, meat-and-two-veg ordinary: downbeat, humdrum. Playing the English Everyman is Freeman’s shtick. He rose to stardom doing it in The Office (2001-03) as Tim, and has flirted with it in subsequent roles, such as Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005).

Hits have been thin on the ground since The Office – though Freeman has often insisted that his best roles have been the rarely seen ones, such as BBC Two’s 2005 comedy The Robinsons. But then came Sherlock, where he was brilliant as a modern-day, war-scarred Watson, ironing the starch out of Benedict Cumberbatch’s sociopathic Holmes. And even stealing the show, according to some.

Freeman says he was “taken aback” by the programme’s success (it had more than 7 million viewers and critics hollered its praises), but thinks it deserves the accolades. “It’s the best British thing that’s been on telly in ages,” he says. “Quality will out, if that doesn’t sound too arrogant. But why should I sound arrogant? I didn’t write it. I just think it was undeniably good.”

Ironically, though, Sherlock also presented him with a career-defining dilemma. His commitment to the filming dates for series two (due to be screened next year) meant that he had to decline the plummiest of movie roles: that of Bilbo Baggins in the much-delayed big screen version of The Hobbit, reportedly to be directed by Lord of the Rings supremo Peter Jackson, with a record-breaking £315 m budget.

Freeman says he turned down Bilbo “with a heavy heart”, but still hopes there might be a way of resurrecting the part, dates permitting. “If something could be worked out, that would be great,” he says.

But, then again, he’s also a famously unstarry actor who has spent most of his post-Office career eschewing the bright lights of LA. He has admitted being “freaked out” by his first trip to Hollywood six years ago (to promote The Office) and recently described red carpet events as “four hours of my life lost”. Could he really handle being the star of potentially the biggest film ever?

He mulls this for a second. “Well,” he says, “for a start, it wouldn’t be in Hollywood [New Zealand is the likely location]. And I think Peter gives Hollywood a fairly wide berth himself. So it wouldn’t be all that Hollywoody.

“And anyway, I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to say that I wouldn’t do anything Hollywoody.” He pauses. “It’s just that I’m more of an Englishman, really, than a Hollywood man.”

telegraph.co.uk – Martin talks Hollywood and the Hobbit

Martin Freeman Online