Video:Sherlock Holmes - Robert Downey Jr Interview, Comic Con
with Rebecca MurrayRobert Downey Jr had 6000 adoring fans eating out of the palm of his hand at the '09 San Diego Comic Con. Downey Jr not only won over Comic Con attendees as Iron Man, but also as super sleuth Sherlock Holmes in the upcoming Warner Bros Pictures film.See Transcript
Transcript:Sherlock Holmes - Robert Downey Jr Interview, Comic Con
Warner Bros Pictures' Sherlock Holmes at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con.
Robert Downey Jr - 'Sherlock Holmes' in Sherlock Holmes
How much fun was it playing Sherlock Holmes because the trailer is hilarious?
Robert Downey Jr: "There's a lot of humor in the movie but to me, when I think about playing Sherlock it was a very intuitive process, and there was a long time of discovery and reading as much as I could of the novels and short stories. There are literally trillions of pages of text and information about that character. He's one of the most recognizable images and names in the history of mankind."
How do you process that and make it into a character, with all that information?
Robert Downey Jr: "Well, I know from having played Charlie Chaplin, which is the closest thing I could relate this to, people got to the point where they thought Sherlock Holmes was an actual guy. And so when I was researching Chaplin I just got so overwhelmed, the more I learned about the guy, the less competent I felt to portray him. So with Sherlock I just would dip in as I needed to. There was always a wealth of information there."
How do you balance the humor and the drama in this because, like you said, it is more serious too?
Robert Downey Jr: "I think that that's the art of storytelling. I've been around and Guy [Ritchie] really knows how to tell a story. He's done complex storytelling very well, and he's got a great visual sense. I think that between that stuff and Jude Law and I really, really becoming very close-knit in our preparation for this, we've got Rachel McAdams playing the diva adventuress. We just had a great cast and we had a fantastic time shooting it. I think part of that, to really answer your question, I think the main ingredient was to make sure we were actually having fun doing it."