Who's the best actor to portray Holmes?

[All Right, Spock]

I'll keep this simple, so out of all mainstream actors to portray Holmes in radio plays, television shows, and movies but not as a cameo, i.e Data pretending to be Sherlock Holmes in Star Trek The Next  Generation doesn't count. Actors like Jeremy Brett, Robert Downey Jr, Benedict Cumberbatch, Basil Rathbone, Clive Merrison et cetera. I'm sure this has been posted elsewhere on this forum, but I couldn't find it. 

If anyone says their favourite actor to portray Holmes is Will Ferrel, I will be disappointed. 

Personally, my favourite actor to portray Holmes in any medium is Clive Merrison in the BBC radio plays. He sounds exactly like I imagined Holmes would in my head. My favourite actor to portray Holmes in television is Jeremy Brett, with Benedict Cumberbatch coming a close second. 

Tell me what you think.

[_Holmes_Rebecca_]

In my opinion, the best adaptation I've seen of Sherlock, was Benedict Cumberbatch, and I think he would very well again. 

But I'm not a film critic, it's just the opinion whose seen many films about Sherlock!

[Caya]

None of us here are pros. Well we do have one member who wrote some screenplays, but she's not much around these days. Anyway, hard to pick a favourite - and does it have to be someone who actually played him? Because I for one would love to see Sir Patrick Stewart give it a try.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh, dear -- there are so many to choose from (and of those I've seen only a fraction) -- but I suppose most of us are in that boat.

I guess I'd have to pick Jeremy Brett.  But I don't think I've ever seen a Holmes that I didn't like -- they're merely different.  (Note to All Right, Spock:  I have not yet seen Will Ferrell's version, nor do I expect to.  I like him far better as a serious actor.)

[Artemis]

I don't know about favorite, but I'm going to give props to RDJ (and Jude Law) for rekindling my interest in Sherlock Holmes after many years.  Before "A Game of Shadows", my exposure was mostly in early childhood with "The Great Mouse Detective" and Basil Rathbone (which I found dry at the time, but have since learned to appreciate more).  All the portrayals I've seen are different and interesting in their own way.  I think some notable mentions are Sir Ian McKellen in "Mr. Holmes", and Nicol Williamson in "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", even though he wasn't as I pictured Holmes to be.

I'd also add that, for me, how much I like a Holmes portrayal is highly dependent on the chemistry between Holmes and Watson.  If I don't feel their kinship, then they don't seem quite suited to their individual characters' roles, either.  But as long as that piece fits, I can enjoy pretty much any portrayal.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

50 minutes ago, Artemis said:

I'd also add that, for me, how much I like a Holmes portrayal is highly dependent on the chemistry between Holmes and Watson.  If I don't feel their kinship, then they don't seem quite suited to their individual characters' roles, either.  But as long as that piece fits, I can enjoy pretty much any portrayal.

Hear, hear!  That chemistry is SO important!

[DoctorHolmes91189]

Tom Baker

 

 

[Hikari]

On 5/6/2020 at 12:55 AM, Artemis said:

I don't know about favorite, but I'm going to give props to RDJ (and Jude Law) for rekindling my interest in Sherlock Holmes after many years.  Before "A Game of Shadows", my exposure was mostly in early childhood with "The Great Mouse Detective" and Basil Rathbone (which I found dry at the time, but have since learned to appreciate more).  All the portrayals I've seen are different and interesting in their own way.  I think some notable mentions are Sir Ian McKellen in "Mr. Holmes", and Nicol Williamson in "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution", even though he wasn't as I pictured Holmes to be.

I'd also add that, for me, how much I like a Holmes portrayal is highly dependent on the chemistry between Holmes and Watson.  If I don't feel their kinship, then they don't seem quite suited to their individual characters' roles, either.  But as long as that piece fits, I can enjoy pretty much any portrayal.

Having recently watched Jeremy Brett as Maxim deWinter in the 1983 television version of Rebecca, it was brought home to me again how very perfectly Jeremy inhabited the skin of Sherlock Holmes, even though he was a very reluctant Holmes at first.  It seems quizzical to us, but JB did not consider himself a 'Holmes type'.  He viewed himself as a classical actor: robust romantic leading man and all-arounder, having a very fine singing voice and of course, impeccable stage training.  Which he was.  But he was also Holmes to a tee.  Perhaps Holmes embodied too many of the darker, neurotic qualities that were manifestations of Brett's mental illness and which he tried to quash strenuously.  Maxim deWinter and Holmes share some similar dark qualities but watching JB in leading man mode was a little unsettling--it felt rather that Sherlock Holmes had slipped into 1930s Monte Carlo as his younger self and was wearing another man's clothes and haircut.  This movie came out the year before JB assumed the mantle of the pipe and deerstalker.

I came to the Granada Sherlock series late, but I can certainly understand why Brett's portrayal is so widely praised.  He's got great chemistry with both of his Watsons--David Burke (Watson 1.0) and Edward Hardwicke (Watson 2.0).  Jude Law's Watson is firmly in the David Burke school of Watsons.  

I am less familiar with Basil Rathbone's ouevre, having only caught snippets here and there on YouTube or some late night matinee on TV.  I think for better or worse, Rathbone & Nigel Bruce remain the popular conception of 'classic Holmes and Watson'.  Poor Watson comes off much the worse for it there, since Bruce portrays him as an all-around buffoon.  The greatest mystery ever facing this pair would have been how such a Class A idiot could have graduated medical school and been given the rank of Captain in Her Majesty's Army.  One certainly wouldn't want to put one's life in his hands.  Rathbone looks like an elegant bloodhound.  Hardcore 'Rathbonians', as I have been informed is the collective who regard him the top Holmes object to Brett's characterization as too prissy and neurotic, evidently.   But I think he's damn close to the part as written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who furthermore gave Holmes a high, reedy, querulous, nearly womanish speaking voice that grated on Watson's nerves.  As it would do.  Thankfully none of our Sherlock purveyors have gone this route.  JB has a wonderful baritone voice.

Our Benedict wins top honors as a modern Sherlock Holmes, channeling everything that's great about JB's portrayal into a contemporary package--the style, the voice, the jumped-up energy, the needling of his Watson.  Johnny Lee Miller over on Elementary comes closest to the peevish voice envisioned by Conan Doyle and perhaps closest to some of Holmes's more off-putting personality features.  ACD envisioned a superior misanthrope who keeps everyone but Watson at arm's length.  Most of our Holmes interpreters have been charismatic and physically appealing guys who break down this barrier between Holmes and his audience, even as they pretend to be haters of mankind in general.  People are drawn to SH, even if he's not drawn to them.   I'd be more than happy to give JLM's pissy Holmes a wide berth and that goes double for his Watson.  

If you haven't had a chance to check out Miss Sherlock (HBO-Asia, available on Amazon Prime), I can highly recommend this female-female version of Holmes and Watson.  Sadly series star Yuko Takeuchi took her own life recently, so there will be no more episodes.  The feeling is very like a Japanese femme take on Cumberbatch/Freeman.  R.I.P. Yuko-san.

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, Hikari said:

Jude Law's Watson is firmly in the David Burke school of Watsons.  

That comparison would never have occurred to me, seeing as how Jude Law looks so much like Paget's tall, slender illustrations of Watson, whereas most other Watsons (including Burke) look a good deal like Watson's shorter, stocky description of himself in "Charles Augustus Milverton."  But I think I see what you mean, Law tends more toward the "Oh, my God, Holmes!" reactions, whereas Hardwicke portrayed a Watson who had grown more accustomed to Holmes's surprises.  I've never been sure, though, whether that was a difference between the two actors, or merely a difference in how Watson was written for the first series vs. subsequent ones.  I tend toward the latter conclusion, since it seems like a natural evolution of the character.  Also, Hardwicke was trying so hard to resemble the slightly-taller Burke that he even chose to wear lifts for a while, so it seems unlikely that he would have tweaked the character's reactions.

 

[Hikari]

33 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

That comparison would never have occurred to me, seeing as how Jude Law looks so much like Paget's tall, slender illustrations of Watson, whereas most other Watsons (including Burke) look a good deal like Watson's shorter, stocky description of himself in "Charles Augustus Milverton."  But I think I see what you mean, Law tends more toward the "Oh, my God, Holmes!" reactions, whereas Hardwicke portrayed a Watson who had grown more accustomed to Holmes's surprises.  I've never been sure, though, whether that was a difference between the two actors, or merely a difference in how Watson was written for the first series vs. subsequent ones.  I tend toward the latter conclusion, since it seems like a natural evolution of the character.  Also, Hardwicke was trying so hard to resemble the slightly-taller Burke that he even chose to wear lifts for a while, so it seems unlikely that he would have tweaked the character's reactions.

 

I was thinking of Burke/Law in terms of the 'manly, military bearing soldier' Watson--the younger, more vigorous man of action Watson who gets to show his physical courage and how crack of a shot he is.  In 'Game of Shadows', we get a taste of the 'Watson who enjoys the gaming tables and his cups a tad too much' when the Doctor has a bit too much entertainment at his bachelor party and is significantly the worse for wear at his wedding the next morning.  The doc is generally a temperate person, in comparison to his flatmate's excesses, but occasionally he gets bit by the gambling bug, which is why SH has to keep his checkbook locked up in the desk.

And also, the impressive mustaches.  Burke and Brett were the same age when the series commenced (49), and Edward Hardwicke was only 2 or 3 years older.  Yet visually, he seems like a much older Watson when we meet him in The Empty House episode.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, Hikari said:

Burke and Brett were the same age when the series commenced (49), and Edward Hardwicke was only 2 or 3 years older.  Yet visually, he seems like a much older Watson when we meet him in The Empty House episode.

It was the wearing effect of those three years thinking Holmes was dead!

 

[Hikari]

14 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

It was the wearing effect of those three years thinking Holmes was dead!

 

That would age anybody, yeah!  Not to mention the shock of Holmes suddenly appearing from the dead.  SH underestimated the effect that would have on a grieving friend.  He might have given Watson a heart attack.

Edward Hardwicke's Watson was considerably more forgiving than Martin Freeman's.  When we reconvene with the RDJ-JL pair, I imagine some fisticuffs will ensue.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

Edward Hardwicke's Watson was considerably more forgiving than Martin Freeman's.  When we reconvene with the RDJ-JL pair, I imagine some fisticuffs will ensue.

That's because Hardwicke was playing Doyle's Watson, and Freeman was playing Moftiss's.    You may have a point about the 3rd Downey-Law movie.  It's currently in pre-production, with an expected release date (with any luck) of sometime next year.