The Unexpected Adventures of Martin Freeman (6 page)

‘People feel a sense of ownership with this story – particularly this person – because he’s the last [surviving] human,’ Freeman told AP Radio. ‘I’m aware of some people thinking I was a
really great choice [to play him] and some people thinking I was a terrible choice.’

He reiterated this to
Movie Web
’s Julian Roman: ‘I knew some people would think I was a great idea and some would think I was a terrible idea. And I know that’s still the case. All I can do is just do what I can do and not be hampered by knowing that some people won’t like it. But some people won’t like everything I do.’

Freeman wasn’t a fan of the series of books, as such, though his family had the novels at home and while he’d read them he was not fanatically enthusiastic. He thought
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
was a good story and one that was perfect for the big screen. It wasn’t the role he had been waiting decades to play and nor was it something that he was especially destined to act, but he was more than capable of pulling it off. Dent is the main character and the one the audience root for because he is the last man on Earth, so Freeman’s character is the film’s most important role.

When he read the books for research and preparation, Freeman appreciated Adams’s irreverent, dry and sarcastic sense of humour and the fact that Adams never censored himself. The late British author had his ideas and was willing to go where the story took him, even if it meant the other side of the universe. There’s some silly schoolboy humour amongst Adams’s work, which became a trademark of his, but the perceived frivolousness did not mask the story’s inherent intelligence.

Freeman approached the role the only way he knew how, which was not to mimic Simon Jones, who had played Dent in the original 1981 TV series, but rather to look at the script in
an objective way and to play the part in the best way he could, using the details of the script.

‘…I just played it as real and as funnily as possible, all the while knowing that you’re in a comedy,’ Martin explained to
LatinoReview.
‘You’ve got to kind of know what you’re in. So it’s slightly heightened with humour. The humour is definitely there, but I thought that the stakes had to be genuine because he’s a man whose day starts badly, and within ten minutes of the film, his planet’s gone. So all of his reference points, every single thing that he’s ever known or thought he knew or will ever know has gone.’

The filming process was laborious because it was necessary for Freeman to wear a thick dressing gown throughout the summer, as seen in the film. The days were long and hot. On top of that, Martin was envious of Mos Def’s and Zooey Deschanel’s attire, feeling unglamorous in comparison. The young actor got along really well with Mos Def – they spoke about music the whole time. Freeman also found him very easy to work with and considered Mos to be an all-round ‘top bloke’.

Working on
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
was a different experience for Freeman because it was a much bigger-scale production than anything he had worked on previously. He had a sense that there was a lot of money floating around because of the film sets, and there was a much bigger crew than he was used to and more people around on set. He enjoyed getting lifts in nice cars to and from the location each day and there was more choice on the menu when it was time to eat. Coming from a background in British TV and theatre, this was the sort of service he was unused to. The one thing that he found
was a bit of a drag was the boredom that sinks in in-between shoots because organising sets takes longer for films than for TV.

Much of the film’s cast is American, though the books are British and it was filmed in London with a British crew, yet Freeman felt like the only Brit on set at times.

‘I think people’s fear – well certainly British people’s fear – is that it would be completely Hollywoodized or morphed into this thing where the stuff we initially cared about is no longer there,’ he explained to
Movie Web
’s Julian Roman. ‘I believe and hope people don’t feel that’s happened. Occasionally I would feel like the only Limey in town. I felt it was in good hands. No one was on board to scuttle it. They all wanted to serve the film and make something good happen. We were all on the same side.’

To his ongoing frustration, Freeman is seen as the everyday British man. Dent is not written as a hero or a screen icon in the vein of James Bond. He’s the last surviving human and just an average, flawed bloke. He has a job he isn’t enamoured by and has little luck with women. These are things many men can relate too. Freeman just wanted to be real and funny, that’s all. A great deal was riding on him as the main character and linchpin of the story.

‘I could pretend to be posh, but I didn’t think there was any point really,’ Freeman confessed to
Empire
. ‘I think, maybe, having the last surviving person from Earth be very upper middle class and probably went to Cambridge wasn’t as accessible as having someone who doesn’t look or sound like they did that stuff. So Sam [Rockwell] probably means it as a compliment because I guess he thinks we hit it more on the head by going for that.’

Freeman did not see any connection between Tim Canterbury and Arthur Dent, though he was asked about it multiple times in interviews. There is a real sense of wonder with Dent at what he is seeing in the universe, which Freeman wonderfully enacts with his facial characteristics and mannerisms. The scene where Slartibartfast takes Dent around the planet factory is especially effective in this regard.

When Martin was asked by the BBC’s Alana Lee if he saw any similarities between Arthur Dent and Tim Canterbury, he responded, ‘I think because I’m doing it people see that. I think if Hugh Bonneville was playing it they wouldn’t say, “He was a bit like Tim from
The Office
.” But I am using the same vocal cords and the same ears for both parts so I’m not going to be cast as many 70-year-old black women.’

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
also stars Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Mos Def as Ford Prefect, Zooey Deschanel as Tricia McMillan/Trillian, Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast, Warwick Davis as Marvin the Paranoid Android (voiced by Alan Rickman), Anna Chancellor as Questular Rontok, John Malkovich as Humma Kavula and Kelly Macdonald as Jin Jenz Reporter.

Other cast members also included Jason Schwartzman (uncredited) as Gag Halfrunt, Edgar Wright (uncredited) as Deep Thought Tech and Simon Jones (cameo) as Magrathea Video Recording with the voices of Stephen Fry as Narrator/The Guide, Helen Mirren as Deep Thought, Richard Griffiths as Jeltz, Thomas Lennon as Eddie the Computer, Bill Bailey as The Whale, Mak Wilson as Vogon Interpreter and Garth Jennings (uncredited) as Frankie Mouse.

Producer and long-term Douglas Adams collaborator Robbie Stamp told Rob Blackwelder of
SPLICEDwire
about Freeman’s casting in the movie: ‘He’s perfect, isn’t he? When I saw his audition tape, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. That was it. And I’ll tell you what it was: It was the way he said [the famous line], “This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” It had this freshly minted quality, as opposed to it feeling like a ka-ching Douglas line.’

He continued, ‘He’s been fabulous, and that’s been a very big issue. In the end, it is this story about this ordinary guy who gets thrown out in the universe and discovers that things are as absurd out in the galaxy as they are on Earth. He’s a character to whom things happen all the time, and that’s quite hard without turning him into a light-saber-wielding hero. And I absolutely think we’ve done it. He is a man in his slippers and his dressing gown, and he’s looking for a cup of tea, and he’s pretty befuddled about what he’s seeing out there. Douglas was working hard on the whole through-story for the film, working on Arthur’s relationship with Trillian [a romantic departure from ‘Hitchhiker’s’ previous incarnations], which I know is something that has some of the fanboys slightly exorcised.’

Sadly, author Douglas, who co-wrote the screenplay, died before production commenced in 2001. He had been trying to get a big-screen adaptation of his creation for decades but to no avail. Adams even moved to the States to get closer to Hollywood executives. It had been stuck in what is referred to as ‘development hell’ for the best part of twenty-six years. It was certainly his tenacity that finally got the film the green
light. It’s such a shame he never saw the outcome. The film is dedicated to him.

There was pressure for the creative team to make the production as faithful to the book as possible but Freeman did not let the overzealousness of the fans cause him any stress or sleepless nights. Martin knew that the film wasn’t specifically made to honour the hardcore fans because the book is more of a cult classic with little mainstream attraction so, in essence, the end product had to appeal to mass audiences while also pleasing the fans. There had to be some concessions made though.

‘I don’t particularly go on the Internet, and I don’t particularly go to Forbidden Planet and check out the vibe of the sci-fi world, because that’s not the life that I live,’ he told
LatinoReview.
‘But I was aware that there was something there that they’d obviously want it to be done well. I knew that was something that fans obviously cared about and cared about passionately, but we can only do what we can do, the best and the most honest interpretation of the story that we can do.’

He told AP Radio, ‘We would’ve failed, I think, if we only made a film that was dependent on having read the book or listened to the radio series. That would’ve been a failure on our part because our job is to make one and three-quarter hours of entertainment… for people who know nothing about it.’

On release,
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
was a reasonable box-office success but garnered mixed reviews from critics. It had a strong start in the US with a $21.2 million opening debut but tailed off in latter weeks. It peaked at
Number One at the US box office, ahead of the Ice Cube action thriller
XXX: State of the Union
.

Asked by Cindy Pearlman of the
Chicago Sun-Times
if it is important for an actor to have a hit movie in the States, Freeman responded, ‘There are two schools of thought. Some think if you haven’t made it in America, then you’re a bum. Some think, “What do they know over there?” I just care that I’ve made a good film because in a few days, I’ll either be a prick or a hero to fans of the work. I’ll either be a star or it will be “Martin who?” But in the end ultimately you have to sleep with yourself and be proud on your deathbed.’

Some commented that the film tries too hard to be too British, which alienated audiences around the world, notably in the US.

‘There’s a long standing tradition that America takes something, doesn’t quite understand it and changes it into something they do understand,’ Freeman explained to
Movie Web
’s Julian Roman. ‘I’m happy to report that from my experience here, that doesn’t apply. I would defy anyone to see it and think that not everyone has been cast right.’

During the making of the film, M.J. Simpson, the author of the Douglas Adams biography
Hitchhiker
and former Deputy Editor of
SFX
magazine, gave the film a scathing online review, to which Freeman responded in an interview with the BBC’s Alana Lee, ‘You know, fair play to M.J Simpson. I couldn’t say he doesn’t have a right to the opinion, of course he does. And I’ve met him. He’s a nice guy. But, ultimately, he’s also a grown man who wears a Darth Vader tie. Norman Mailer he ain’t.’

Freeman didn’t pay too much attention to the fan scrutiny
but he was more than well aware that many fans are often disappointed by big-screen adaptations. He knew the creative team had come up with a script that was faithful to the book but he also acknowledged that the finished film wasn’t going to please every single fan.

Some fans were dubious about the film version, thinking that Adams’s humour would not translate too well and that the story is best left to literature; other fans were excited about the big-screen adventure. The overall opinion after the film’s release was a split down the middle. In hindsight, perhaps the consensus was not so positive but the film has slowly become accepted by a larger audience of Adams fans.

‘For some people this is going to be like sacrilege if it’s perceived to have got it wrong,’ said Freeman to the
Washington Post
’s Alona Wartofsky. ‘But I couldn’t go to work with that feeling, and I couldn’t really go and do my job if I was paying too much mind to that. I just… tried to play him in the best way I could.’

Freeman and the rest of the cast and crew received very positive feedback from Adams’s family – his widow and son. They hadn’t made a perfect film by any means, as the critical response can attest, but they were respectful to the script Adams had left. Freeman even caught up with Adams’s family at the film’s premiere and they were delighted with the outcome.

So what did the critics think of the finished product?

Writing in
The Guardian
, Peter Bradshaw said, ‘Martin Freeman (Tim from
The Office
) is inspired casting as Dent, and delivers exactly the right note of futile English sarcasm in the face of complete and utter planetary destruction. His best friend, the oddly named Ford Prefect, tips him off about
what is about to happen; together they escape and hitch-hike across the Milky Way, armed with their invaluable book, the
Hitchhiker’s Guide
, voiced with lucid serenity by Stephen Fry.’

Darren Waters wrote on
BBC Movies
, ‘Despite outstanding production design and some fantastic visual effects, overall the film is a bit of a mess. A charming mess, maybe, but a mess all the same. Did the script veer too far away from the source material or tie itself in knots trying to keep faith with it? Bizarrely, I think the answer is both.’

Peter Travers was more enthusiastic in his three out of five-star
Rolling Stone
review: ‘The mission impossible, which first-time director Garth Jennings has bravely accepted, is to hold true to the droll, aggressive, very British verbal humour of the creator Douglas Adams (he died in 2001) in a movie that spills over with visual gags, puppet monsters and a digital John Malkovich … the script by Karey Kirkpatrick and Adams himself delivers the goods in inspired lunacy.’