（小小、死線合譯，所有了不起的註解都是死線的貢獻）
新聞來源：[the Guardian]Martin Freeman: from Slough to Smaug – then back to Sherlock
（譯註: Slough是英國地名。記者在標題玩了諧音…我不知道要怎麼翻XDDDDD）
他將出現在BBC1的回歸影集《Sherlock》與Peter Jackson賣座大片續集《The
Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug》（中譯：哈比人歷險記－荒谷惡龍）。
 |
| Martin Freeman, star of The Office, Sherlock and The Hobbit. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Guardian |
在《The Office》（中譯：辦公室笑雲）裡，Martin飾演的溫和業務代表Tim
Canterbury曾經把他的人生比喻為骰子。
「我現在的情況也許是個三點，如果我賭一把，著眼高處想過個好日子，也許我能骰出個六點，」他跟劇中的假紀錄片製作人說，「但我也可能會骰到一點，OK?
所以我想…還是別碰骰子。」
然而Freeman本人不但與Benedict
Cumberbatch挑大樑共同演出備受期待的當紅BBC影集《Sherlock》（第三季將在2014首日開播），也在Peter
Jackson的賣座大片續集《The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug》中（下週上檔）擔綱主人翁Bilbo
Baggins，這位演員才剛丟出了六六大順。
對42歲的他來說這是場美妙萬分的崛起，他第一次闖出名號是在2001年BBC 2出品的《The
Office》中舉國喜愛的小情侶(Tim and Dawn)之一。
「Martin的角色帶著一種極特殊的平凡感，偶爾情緒化但很可愛，而他就是有辦法以此(在影集中)好好發揮，」該劇製作人Ash
Atalla說，「他非常迷人，就像住在隔壁有點脾氣的鄰居突然成了大明星一樣。」
Freeman討厭『普通人』這個標籤，但這一直貼在他身上：曾有人這麼解釋過，那是種能詮釋『一個正常人在瘋狂的危險世界裡闖蕩』的特殊能力。
BBC前喜劇部門主管、同時身兼《The Office》執行製作的Jon Plowman就說：「他就是厲害在能扮演普通人，這也是他演華生和哈比人這麼適合的原因。」
「他帶有一種妙不可言的平凡感，也許這種特質你覺得不少演員都有，但很奇怪，擁有的人並不多。這不是冒犯—恰恰相反，是完全的恭維—而且如果身為演員你有這個特質，那你最好牢牢抓住。Cary
Grant和Jimmy Stewart，我們喜歡這兩位因為他們就是有這種特質，看起來像普通人。湯姆漢克則是最最棒的例子。」
儘管對身為《The Office》一員感到光榮，Freeman 也意識到這個不斷得獎的情境喜劇會是種詛咒。他2003年在BBC 1的歷史劇《Charles II: The Power and the Passion》中飾演Shaftesbury城主，同年《The Office》結束播映時，一份報紙刊了他的劇照並加上如下標題：〔Tim戴假髮〕。
兩年後，眾人引頸企盼、改編自Douglas Adam的《The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy》（中譯：銀河便車指南）電影播出，他飾演Arthur Dent，大夥兒再度把他視為上了太空的Tim。
「如果我變成半小時情境喜劇代言人那就太不妙了，」他曾經說過，「我不想到了50歲還是《The Office》裡的Tim。」
但後來有了《Sherlock》。當Steven Moffat和Mark Gatiss替這部柯南道爾爵士名著現代版選角時，他們很快就選定Benedict Cumberbatch擔任福爾摩斯。Moffat回憶起偵探的跟班，約翰華生醫師，卻非常難找。
「我們看過非常多很傑出的人，可是當我們把Martin和Benedict配在一起的時候，馬上就有了火花，你完全能看到影集成型。」Moffat說道。
「Martin對周遭的表演非常有反應，他們一開始互相對戲時我就跟Mark說『影集不就在那兒嗎』。」（Moffat也負責Doctor Who，來參與Sherlock試鏡的，除了其他人還有當時默默無聞的Matt Smith。Moffat幾天之後選他當了時間領主。）
這對很成功，Moffat評論道，因為Freeman是Cumberbatch這「具特殊長相的傢伙」的完全反面。「Martin當然也很端正，可他有種特質讓他就像你會遇上的某個一般人。如果你是Sherlock或是神秘博士，你是華麗耀眼、愛秀型的，你有很大的詮釋空間；」Moffat補充，「但John
Watson不想博取注意力，他只是做我們都在做的—觀察別人。」
《Sherlock》在英美都不斷獲得高度好評，也即將於一月一日回歸，屆時觀眾便能終於得知Holmes究竟怎麼假造死亡，這是近年來最受期待的劇集之一。
但這幾乎讓Freeman損失一個更大的角色：在Peter Jackson的《The Hobbit》三部曲中演出Bilbo Baggins。這位《The Lord of the Rings》（中譯：魔戒）的導演因為《The Office》、《The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy》而知道Freeman的存在，甚至在兩人見面之前就認定『他是這個角色的唯一人選』。
但因為《The
Hobbit》的宕延，到Jackson真正能給出合約時Freeman已經被《Sherlock》訂走了。由於Freeman不願意背棄《Sherlock》，Jackson於是做出了前所未見的決定：在拍攝期間空出兩個月讓Freeman可以回歸《Sherlock》，然後再回到紐西蘭繼續拍攝《The
Hobbit》。
「我們就是覺得他有能完美演出Bilbo的特質。」Jackson說道。「那種很壓抑、一板一眼的英國特質。他是個很生動的演員，不是喜劇演員，但他在喜劇方面很有天賦。」
雖然《The Hobbit》的首部曲所獲得的掌聲不如《The Lord of the Rings》，但這仍然是一部商業巨片，全球票房超過10億美金。《Heat》雜誌總編Charles Gant說道：「他在《The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug》中才華橫溢，讓我想起他扮演這個角色有多完美：一個頗為溫順的小個子就這樣踏上一個了不起的探險之旅。」
「他在這部電影中彆扭的處境沒什麼新奇的，但他演來有種神奇的魅力而且真情流露，讓你自然而然地同理起這個角色。」
這個角色讓Freeman成為一位家喻戶曉的明星。對一個小時候想成為職業壁球選手的演員來說挺不錯的。他曾打進英國國家隊成為國手，但最後對這個運動失去熱情；後來他受到當時每天要看一次的Michael Caine 1972年版《Sleuth》（中譯：非常衝突）的啟發，轉而加入了位於Teddington（倫敦西南方）的小劇團Middlesex。（譯註：《Sleuth》也很妙，有1972年版跟2007年版，Michael Caine兩次參演的角色剛好對立，好像Benny演《科學怪人》那樣的互換身份 XD）
Freeman是五個兄弟姊妹中的么子，父母在他很小的時候就分手了，而他的父親，一位海軍軍官，在他十歲過逝。而身為一個有哮喘的孩子，他曾在表演的時候昏厥－－還被他的家人誤以為那也是表演的一部份。
自倫敦大學的中央演講和戲劇學院 (Central School of Speech and Drama
in London)受完訓後，他在《Casualty》、《The Bill》與名製作人Amy Jenkins的 《This
Life》中（皆為電視影集）客串演出－－「我主要都是演些小壞蛋。」－－接著加入Channel 4殘忍的輪暴戲《Men Only》。事情在《The
Office》之後整個改觀，他參演了Richard Curtis的《Love, Actually》（中譯：愛是您，愛是我），和Sacha Baron Cohen一起演出《Ali G Indahouse》。
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| Sacha Baron Cohen一起演出的《Ali G Indahouse》 |
（譯注：SBC在台灣比較知名的作品是《大獨裁者落難記》，這人超猛超敢玩，是笑片大王，《Ali
G
Indahouse》應該也是很敢開玩笑，兩人在裡面演嘻哈歌手（混混吧這）。Molly曾說要送Sherlock的聖誕禮物是Mankini，這也是SBC另一部戲的穿著。SBC本人是牛津高材生，其實人很好～XDDD）
「我在《Sherlock》裡幾乎看不到他在《The Office》的影子，」《Sherlock》的製作人，Hartswood電影公司的Sue Vertue說道，「他真是個了不起的演員。他有時候會說：你知道這裡有句台詞，我想我可以加上點表情試試。編劇們很清楚這些孩子骨子裡有什麼料，也寫了些能讓他們玩得很開心的台詞。」
Freeman 極力保護自己的私生活，曾說自己「對隱私注重到病態的程度……我生命中有20人是我希望他們會愛我的，而這之中沒有一個是《Daily Mail》（譯注：英國某八卦報紙 XD）。」
他和他的伴侶－－13年前在《Men Only》片場中相遇的女演員Amanda Abbington，一起住在Hertfordshire。他們這一對共同扶養了兩個孩子，一起出現在部份製作中，而且將在下一季的《Sherlock》再度攜手，由Abbington飾演華生的戀愛對象。自認為是"mod with a small m"（譯註：這有點難…mod是指英國六零年代崛起的時尚潮流，這裡隱約是『我很注重打扮但我不亂跟流行』的意思，MF曾說自己的穿衣哲學很早就定型不變，以至於年輕時常被側目）以及"huge soul boy"（譯註：他自稱是soul boy，樂界說他是60/70年代靈魂樂權威），Freeman是個黑膠唱片迷(vinyl junkie)，還在BBC2慶祝Motown 50週年慶時，上Radio 6 Music and a Culture Show特別節目主持了自己的秀。寧願聽錄音帶勝過現場演唱的他曾有一次聲明：「對我而言，“待在家裡” 就是別人眼中 “最棒的出門尋樂”。」（譯注：潮爺在這邊玩了out/in的文字遊戲，看原文比較有意思 yay）
現在《The Hobbit: There and Back Again》已經殺青（很巧的是由Cumberbatch為Smug配音），Freeman的下一步將到美國，和Billy Bob Thornton共同演出科恩兄弟(Coen brothers)為FX電台製作的電視影集《Fargo》。他將扮演Lester Nygaard，在1996電影版中由William H Macy擔綱演出的懼內保險銷售員。
「他只接他覺得很棒的工作，」Moffat說道。「他對演戲認真得不可思議，偏執到某種會讓他一整天都很難過的地步。如果他覺得演得不順了，就會處在一種幾近乖戾的毛躁狀態－－就像在進行複雜數學運算的那種毛躁法。」
「如果會毀掉他的家庭生活，他會乾脆推掉一部大片。他真正想做的其實是回家待在老婆小孩身邊，這在影視明星身上真的是很難得一見的特質。」
生平概要
出生 1971.09.08出生於Aldershot, Hampshire
學歷 就讀於Surrey的一所天主教綜合中學Salesian，之後上了倫敦大學的中央演講和戲劇學院。
事業 因演出電視影集《The Office》中的Tim
Canterbury而有重大突破，接著參演《Sherlock》。演出的電影包括Anthony Minghella的《Breaking and
Entering》（中譯：非法入侵），Jake Paltrow的《The Good Night》（中譯：晚安好夢），以及在Peter Greenaway的《Nightwatching》（中譯：夜巡林布蘭）演出荷蘭黃金時期的肖像畫家Rembrandt，和Simon Pegg一起演出《 The World's End
》，以及在《The Hobbit》中扮演Bilbo Baggins。
人生高潮 因演出《Sherlock》這個角色而贏得BAFTA電視影集最佳男配角獎。
人生低潮 因為《Sherlock》的戲約而必需推掉（一開始的時候）Baggins
這個角色。「我並不想錯過它。這真的太糟了。」
他說過 「我在現實生活中並不是什麼和靄可親的人，我得告訴你……我演過不少討厭的角色。」
他們說 「如果你打算重拍《North by Northwest》（中譯：北西北，原意出自莎劇哈姆雷特（好了迷妹你們可以開始腦補了XD），希區考克驚悚代表作之一，講述一個平凡商人莫名惹禍上身的故事。），找他就對了。」前BBC喜劇部門主管Jon
Plowman這麼說。
(原文如下)
The actor is about to appear in the return of BBC1's
Sherlock and Peter Jackson's blockbuster sequel The Hobbit: The Desolation of
Smaug
There was a scene in The Office in which Tim
Canterbury, the benign sales rep played by Martin Freeman, compared his life to a roll of the
dice.
"My situation now may only be a three. If I jack that
in, go for something bigger and better, I could easily roll a six," he told the
programme's faux documentary maker. "I could also roll a one. OK? So I think …
just leave the dice alone."
Freeman, who will star alongside Benedict Cumberbatch
in the eagerly awaited return on New Year's Day of BBC1's Sherlock, and as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's blockbuster
sequel The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug next week, has just rolled a double
six.
It has been an extraordinary rise for the 42-year-old
actor, who first sprang to fame in BBC2's The Office in 2001 as one half of the nation's favourite sweethearts, Tim
and Dawn (Lucy Davis).
"There's a brilliant ordinariness to Martin's
character, an endearing low-level grumpiness, and he was able to tap into that
[in The Office]," says the show's producer, Ash Atalla. "He is a very charming,
slightly grouchy man-next-door who has become a superstar."
Freeman loathes the "everyman" label but it is a
description that has stuck: an ability, as someone once described it, to present
himself as the only normal bloke in a crazy, dangerous world.
The BBC's former head of comedy Jon Plowman, who
executive-produced The Office, says: "He's great at playing the everyman, which
is why he is so good as Watson and in The Hobbit.
"He's got a wonderful ordinariness which you'd think
most actors would have but curiously they don't. That's not an insult – it's the
absolute opposite – and if you've got it as an actor you bloody well hang on to
it. Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, we like them because they are a bit ordinary
and he has that quality. Tom Hanks has it in spades."
Proud of The Office, Freeman was also aware that the
award-winning sitcom could be a curse. When he starred as Lord Shaftesbury in
the BBC1 drama Charles II: The Power and the Passion in 2003 – the same year The
Office ended – one newspaper featured a picture of him with the headline, "Tim
in a wig".
Two years later, when he starred as Arthur Dent in
the long-awaited big-screen adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy, it was hard not to see him as Tim in space.
"It would be a shame for me if I were to become Mr
half-hour sitcom," he has said. "I would not like to be Tim from The Office when
I'm 50."
But then came Sherlock. When Steven Moffat and Mark
Gatiss were casting Sherlock, their contemporary updating of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle's detective stories, they alighted immediately on Benedict Cumberbatch as
Holmes. His sidekick, Dr John Watson, proved harder to find, remembers
Moffat.
"We had seen a lot of very good people, but when we
paired Martin with Benedict it was stellar instantly, you could see the show,"
says Moffat.
"Martin is very responsive to the performances around
him and once they started bouncing off each other, I said to Mark: 'That's the
show right there.'" (Moffat is also the showrunner of Doctor Who, and among the
others who auditioned was the then unknown Matt Smith. Moffat would cast him as
the Time Lord a few days later.)
Sherlock went on to win huge critical acclaim, in the UK and US, and its return on 1 January, when viewers will finally find out how Holmes managed to fake his own death, is one of the most keenly anticipated dramas of recent years.
But it nearly cost Freeman an even bigger role, as
Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's three-part adaptation of The Hobbit. The Lord
of the Rings director knew Freeman from The Office and The Hitchhiker's Guide
and was the "only person that we wanted for that role", even before he met
him.
But delays to The Hobbit meant Freeman had already
committed to Sherlock by the time Jackson could offer him a contract. With
Freeman unwilling to turn his back on Sherlock, Jackson took the unprecedented
decision of delaying shooting for two months so Freeman could make Sherlock
before returning to New Zealand for The Hobbit.
"We just felt he had qualities that would be perfect
for Bilbo," Jackson said. "The stuffy, repressed English quality. He's a
dramatic actor, not a comedian, but he has a talent for
comedy."
Although the first instalment of The Hobbit failed to
win the plaudits of The Lord of the Rings, it was a huge commercial hit, making
more than $1bn worldwide. Charles Gant, film editor of Heat magazine, says: "He
is brilliant [in The Desolation of Smaug] and I was reminded how perfect he is
in this part, a small, rather meek person who goes on this incredible
expedition.
"There is nothing particularly new about the film's
fish-out-of-water scenario, but he does it with such incredible charm and is so
naturally sympathetic that he captures your empathy and makes you believe in
this character."
The role made Freeman a global household name. Not
bad for an actor who, as a youngster, wanted to be a professional squash player.
He made the British national squad but fell out of love with the game and joined
a theatre group in Teddington, Middlesex, inspired by Michael Caine's in the
1972 film Sleuth, which he used to watch every day.
The youngest of five, Freeman's parents split up when
he was young and his father, a naval officer, died when he was 10. As a child he
had asthma, fainting during performances – which his family initially mistook
for part of his act.
After training at Central School of Speech and Drama
in London, he made cameo appearances in Casualty, The Bill and Amy Jenkins's
This Life – "I mainly got cast as little toerags" – and was in Channel 4's
brutal gang rape drama, Men Only. Everything changed with The Office, leading to
big-screen outings in Richard Curtis's Love, Actually and with Sacha Baron Cohen
in Ali G Indahouse.
"I see very little of his performance from The Office
in Sherlock," says Sue Vertue, the producer of Sherlock, which is made by
Hartswood Films. "He is just the most incredible actor. Sometimes he will say,
you know this line here, I think I can do that with a look. The writers, knowing
what acting chops both these boys have, have given them lines they know they are
going to have fun with."
Fiercely protective of his private life, Freeman once
said he was "pathological about privacy … There are about 20 people in my life
that I want to love me, and none of them are the Daily Mail."
He lives in Hertfordshire with his partner, the actor
Amanda Abbington, whom he met 13 years ago on the set of Men Only. The pair, who
have two children, appeared in several productions together and will do so again
in the next series of Sherlock, with Abbington playing Watson's love interest. A
self-described "mod with a small m" and a "huge soul boy", Freeman is a vinyl
junkie, presenting his own show on Radio 6 Music and a Culture Show special on
BBC2 celebrating 50 years of Motown. Preferring to listen to a record than see
someone play live, he once declared: "My idea of a good night out is staying in."
With the third instalment of The Hobbit, There and
Back Again, already in the can (Cumberbatch, by coincidence, voices Smaug the
dragon) Freeman is next off to the US, where he will star alongside Billy Bob
Thornton in the TV version of the Coen brothers' Fargo for the cable channel FX.
He will play Lester Nygaard, the henpecked insurance salesman portrayed by
William H Macy in the 1996 film.
"He will only do things that he thinks are great,"
says Moffat. "He is incredibly serious about acting, concentrating fiercely to
the point where he can give himself a bad day. He can be a borderline grump if
he feels he is having trouble, grumpy in the way that someone doing difficult
sums is grumpy.
"He would turn down a major movie if it was really
going to screw up his homelife. What he really wants is to go home and be with
his kids and wife, and sometimes that's a rare quality to find in a film
star."
Potted profile
Born 8 September 1971 in Aldershot, Hampshire.
Education Attended Salesian School, a Catholic comprehensive
in Surrey, and later studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama,
London.
Career Big break came as Tim Canterbury, in The Office,
later starring in Sherlock. Films have included Anthony Minghella's Breaking and
Entering, Jake Paltrow's The Good Night, an appearance as Rembrandt in Peter
Greenaway's Nightwatching and with Simon Pegg in The World's End and as Bilbo
Baggins in The Hobbit
High Winning a Bafta TV award for best supporting actor
for his role as John Watson in Sherlock.
Low Having (initially) to turn down the Baggins role
because of his Sherlock commitments. "I didn't want to miss that boat. It was
awful"
What he says "I'm not particularly affable in real life, I have to
tell you ... I have played nasty people"
What they say "If you were planning a remake of North by Northwest,
he'd be your man." Jon Plowman, former head of BBC comedy.
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