level 12
Source:Romangirl88的汤
The literary figure Irene Adler lives up to her surname – she is the only woman ever to addle Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective Sherlock Holmes. With that sort of power, it’s no wonder the character turns up to bedazzle and bedevil Holmes in SHERLOCK, a contemporary take on the sleuth developed by writers/producers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat for the BBC. Season Two begins this Sunday on PBS at 9 PM in theU.S. (Season Two previously ran on the BBC starting New Year’s Day).
Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as his companion, Afghan war veteran John Watson, soared to international popularity when they starred in SHERLOCK’s 2010 first season. Lara Pulver plays the fascinating Irene, who appears in Season Two’s debut episode, “A Scandal inBelgravia.”
Pulver has a substantial stage career in her native England. She played Isabella in the recent BBC version of ROBIN HOOD and Sookie Stackhouse’s goblin fairy godmother Claudine in TRUE BLOOD. The actress is clearly delighted with SHERLOCK and has quite a few stories from the set – some of them even concerningTHE HOBBIT, which features Freeman in the title role of the young Bilbo Baggins and Cumberbatch as the dragon Smaug.
2012年04月28日 23点04分
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AX: Had you read a lot of Sherlock Holmes stories before you became involved with SHERLOCK?
LARA PULVER: No. I’d read some of the Conan Doyle stuff in high school, but I hadn’t touched it once. I got the project and started two days later and fortunately, Steven Moffat had written such a well-rounded character that I went into it knowing she was of American origin and there were little things that I thought if I want to work them in [it can be done], but it’s knowing that they’re there, they’re somewhere in the layers of the character that I was building.
AX: Does Irene Adler have an American accent in this?
PULVER: Oh, no, because she didn’t spend the majority of her life there, I believe.
AX: Is there any comparison between playing an otherworldly character like Claudine in TRUE BLOOD and a character like Irene, who is not literally otherworldly, but different from pretty much everybody around her?
PULVER: There’s something in them both – they’re feminists in a weird way, aren’t they? [laughs] It’s using the power of being a woman. I feel for both characters. There are similarities. I’d say [the difference is more pronounced] in TRUE BLOOD, in the sense that she wasn’t who she really was. She was of the goblin world and protecting herself [by pretending to be] a fairy. In SHERLOCK, I’m not even sure that she’s aware – I don’t know that awareness of her being different even enters her mind.
AX: Irene Adler is famously the only woman to be of interest to Sherlock Holmes. Do you and Benedict Cumberbatch play your scenes as though Sherlock is an emotional, if not a literal, virgin?
PULVER: That’s not our intention at all. I don’t want to speak on Benny’s behalf, but I don’t think that’s his intention either when he’s playing it. I think [Sherlock has] never met his match in that way, and I think other things have always preoccupied his brain. I think on the list of one to ten, sex has been at the bottom [laughs].
AX: What’s Cumberbatch like as a scene partner?
PULVER: He’s a very charming man in essence. He’s also very intelligent and he has an intensity that’s quite alluring. In anybody else, it could be so intense that it’s too much, it’s repellent. For him, it’s completely new and he cares and he’s funny. He has a great sense of humor. He’s also a public schoolboy, a British schoolboy, and I don’t mean to generalize, but he and Martin have a wonderful sense of humor. They’re both very witty, funny men. And also, you have to be at the top of your game to do a show likeSHERLOCK. You can take more risks, and so he has that freedom. He has this real freedom going on. He’s a sensitive being and he’s a great guy. I can’t speak highly enough of him.
AX: Was there any discussion among the three of you about playing non-humans, since Cumberbatch is playing a dragon, Freeman is playing a hobbit and you’ve played a goblin?
PULVER: No, but there was a wonderful moment where there was a picture of an Australian tribe dancing around in the Guardian newspaper. And Ben cut it out and [the people in the photo] had these masks on one of these funny kind of feet-claw things, and he said, “Look, it’s Martin Freeman in THE HOBBIT!” So there’s a great banter on the set with that type of stuff.
2012年04月28日 23点04分
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level 12
AX: You had a different kind of challenge in TRUE BLOOD, working with the goblin makeup. Did you know going into it that you were going to have to wear prosthetics at some point?
PULVER: No, no, the goblin story was developed later on and it meant I was in the [makeup] chair for three hours.
AX: Had you ever done anything like that before?
PULVER: No, I’d never used prosthetics before, and they did an amazing job.
AX: Did that have an effect on your performance, make you feel that you wanted to be bigger or smaller?
PULVER: Totally. Well, working with [TRUE BLOOD show runner] Alan Ball gives you any license to do what you want anyway [laughs], because he encourages that craziness, but it definitely gave me a theatrical license.
AX: Are you mostly based in London or Los Angeles?
PULVER: Mostly, I’m inLos Angeles. I have a house in both. It’s completely project-based, because something that’s even American can often be filmed inEurope. It’s just one of those things. Something that’s British-based can film inSouth Africa.
AX: Is there anything you do to relax during downtime while you’re working?
PULVER: After a day’s shooting, I’ll make brownies and cookies. Often I take them to the set. The crew like me [laughs]. It keeps them happy.
AX: Were you able to bake while you were on the gladiator diet, or did you have to avoid baking during that time?
PULVER: I was in a hotel room, so I didn’t have kitchen facilities in order to spoil them. A happy crew makes for a happy show, so if that means feeding their bellies, great.
AX: You’ve been working steadily for a long time, but now you’re getting more public and press attention. Does that have any effect at all on your approach to your career?
PULVER: I’m mostly just living in the moment, because [press attention] can come and go. Longevity for me is everything. I think it’s more about the craft and the work, in theU.K., for sure. The fame element, if that comes, it comes. People I think are foolish to become an actor to get famous, because it’s too hard work. If you want to get famous, go do one of these crazy reality TV shows, or whatever it is, but acting is not an easy profession, and it’s gregarious and precarious and so therefore the fame element I don’t think is a part of it. It’s work, it’s a craft. Especially for so many of us [who go back and forth] from theatre to TV to film.
AX: Is there anything else you’d like to say about SHERLOCK?
PULVER: No, not that comes off the top of my head. Just watch it. Watch it.
2012年04月28日 23点04分
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