The recently released series Young Sherlock has been receiving praise for it’s storytelling and characters. While the show delves into the younger and formative years of Sherlock Holmes, played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin, it focuses more on his family. Actor Max Irons essays the role of Sherlock Holmes’ brother Mycroft Holmes in the show, and he asserts on the importance of Mycroft in the Sherlock universe.
He says, “I think Mycroft is a useful counterbalance to Sherlock. Sherlock, at this particular point in his life, is a bit anarchic, a bit unstructured and a bit of an agent of chaos. Mycroft, on the other hand, is a believer of being an agent for change within the system, within the constraints of the system. He’s in the civil services and as you see in the early episodes, he is there to bail out Sherlock, to shepherd him and I think that counterbalance, that yin and yang is useful.”
Watch the entire chat with Max Irons here:
Max Irons and Hero Fiennes Tiffin share a playful sibling camaraderie on screen in the Prime Video series, and Max insists that their chemistry came naturally from day one. He shares, “I don’t know if this is the same with women, but for men, there’s a lot of psychological games involved when you audition as actors. You’re in a room with five or six other actors. Some of them are doing press ups and some of them are saying, “Oh, I hear they’ve already cast it,” or “they don’t want an Englishman. They want an American.” They are trying to get in your head and it can be intimidating.”
Max adds, “When I met Hero, he strode down the corridor and just gave me an enormous hug. I’d never met him before. but he gave me a huge hug, and we just went in and did it. The audition proceeded with as much love and generosity as that first moment that I met him and it didn’t stop for the entire shoot. He’s a natural leader. He’s kind, compassionate, he’s a wonderful Sherlock and also a wonderful guy.”
Another co-actor that Max feels fortunate to have worked with on Young Sherlock is the legendary Colin Firth. Having gotten the opportunity to share screen with him in multiple scenes, he calls it a privilege. “He’s one of the funniest, silliest, most playful men I’ve ever worked with. He loves playing ping pong in hotel corridors at three in the morning, disturbing all the guests. He’s just so fun and he understands that to be an actor is to play and to be silly, to try and stay in that mindset and not to take it seriously. He’s great. I loved him and it feels a real privilege to be with him.”
But with Mycroft having been portrayed several times before across films and shows, did he feel a pressure of comparisons and living up to those other portrayals? “Guy Ritchie leads from the top. There are many versions of Sherlock Holmes, and it’s easy to look back at the previous versions and go, “Oh, I need to be like that. I need to like worry about all the fans.” But Guy comes in, he throws it all up in the air and he goes, “No, we’re doing it this way.” And that’s fun. That’s freeing, liberating,” Max responds.
