The “extraordinary” TV series Martin Freeman called the greatest of all time
Martin Freeman has always had a knack for picking clever roles and delivering performances that stick, so it makes sense he’s got a real appreciation for top-tier storytelling.
Of all the shows that’ve left their mark on him over the years, there’s one gritty American gem that really stands out – a series that’s still shaping how actors, writers and directors do their thing across the globe.
Freeman reached his widest audience yet when he stepped into the hairy feet of young Bilbo Baggins for The Hobbit trilogy, Peter Jackson’s return to the world of Middle-earth. While the films themselves got a bit of a mixed bag from critics, Freeman came out shining. He absolutely nailed the charm and grit that made Tolkien’s unlikely hero so beloved. But long before his big-screen adventures, Freeman was already making waves back home, turning up in some of the most iconic TV shows Britain’s ever produced.
Long before the American version became a breakout vehicle for John Krasinski and Steve Carell, the British version of The Office redefined what a sitcom could look like with its pseudo-documentary style. Freeman’s blunt, straight-faced sense of humour was the perfect alternative to the goofier shenanigans that Ricky Gervais’ David Brent got up to. However, Freeman quickly proved he was more than just a comic actor when he appeared alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock, a modern update of the classic detective stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The character of John Watson may not have always been the most interesting in previous adaptations of Doyle’s stories, but Freeman helped turn him into the emotional crux of the series, and gave him plenty of room to develop great chemistry with Cumberbatch. It wouldn’t be the first time Freeman entered a television show that was based on an iconic property; he appeared in the first season of Fargo, the FX drama that was inspired by the 1996 masterpiece from Joel and Ethan Coen. While the idea of rebooting such a beloved film seemed sacrilegious, FX’s Fargo quickly proved that it was doing its own thing and wasn’t being derivative.
The Office, Sherlock, and Fargo are all examples of “prestige television”, a theory that streaming and TV shows have become a high form of art that, in many ways, has become a superior method of telling stories for adults than movies. Although it was a long process that helped to turn this idea mainstream, Freeman was quick to identify the show that changed it all when interviewed for Time Out.
“The Sopranos has everything in it,” Freeman said. “Family, humour, violence, great clothes, great music, and amazing writing and performances. It’s an extraordinary television programme, and the blueprint for everything we watch now.”
Freeman’s assertion is correct; The Sopranos introduced the idea of a scary, yet somewhat sympathetic anti-hero on television with Tony, played remarkably well by the great James Gandolfini, a character who would go on to inspire other great television characters like The Shield’s Vic Mackey, Breaking Bad’s Walter White, Mad Men’s Don Draper, and Succession’s Kendall Roy. Freeman even got to play a similar role when he was cast as Chris Carson, a police officer with anger issues, on the BBC drama The Responder.
James Gandolfini’s death in 2013 pretty much put an end to any hopes of a proper Sopranos revival. Sure, David Chase came back to pen the prequel film The Many Saints of Newark, with Alessandro Nivola stepping in as a young Dickie Moltisanti, but it was never quite the same without Tony. That said, Martin Freeman might still get the chance to team up with Chase, as the legendary showrunner’s got a brand new series in the works over at HBO.
