Behind every great detective there is a trusty sidekick. For Sherlock Holmes, it is the courageous yet grounded medic John Watson who strives to keep the mercurial sleuth in check and out of trouble.
Robert Downey Jr, the actor who plays Holmes in Guy Ritchie’s screen versions, says that he too relies on the support of another, in this case his wife Susan.
They met on the set of Gothika in 2003, which Susan was producing, as Robert was rebuilding his career after his struggle with drug addiction had seen him imprisoned, in rehab and fired from jobs.
So united are the pair, who are currently expecting their first child in February, a sibling for Downey’s 18-year-old son, Indio, from his marriage to actress Deborah Falconer, they called the production company they formed last year Team Downey.
But is this romantic and professional partnership one of equals?
Not according to Downey Jr.
“Well, first of all, I’m definitely the boss at home,” says the actor, after a mischievous glance at Susan who is sitting within earshot. And I’m the boss on the set. So that doesn’t leave a lot of room for discussion, does it? I mean, I’m so happy she’s sitting behind me right now. Where she belongs.”
He keeps a straight face for all of about two seconds before it melts into a wide grin.
Dressed in a dapper dark suit, shirt and tie, the 46-year-old boasts a devilish streak. It’s clear he’s absolutely besotted with his wife of six years, who – technically speaking – was his boss, as one of the producers of Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows.
“The Mrs and I, we’re buddies. We’d rather work together than not work together,” he continues. “But when you’re married to someone who’s central on a production, you have to make sure that anyone who’s part of that experience doesn’t wish that the two of you would stop working together immediately.
"It puts responsibility on making the relationship healthy, which is good.”
A Game of Shadows is a sequel to the 2009 box office hit, also directed by Ritchie, which raked in $524 million globally.
Downey Jr’s funny and eccentric portrayal of Holmes defied convention.
Gone were the once-emblematic deerstalker hat, curved pipe and British decorum of author Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic Victorian stories, and in their place was a streetwise, bare-knuckled brawler, whose physical prowess was equal to his superlative mind and preternatural powers of perception.
“The bar was pretty high in the first one, which bothered me because I thought, ‘If we don’t beat this or do something new or different, I’m going to be miserable’,” he says.
In the new film Holmes finds himself challenged by his nemesis, Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris).
Not only is he Holmes’s intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil and complete lack of conscience might just give him an advantage over the renowned detective.
