Nativity! set to raise Christmas cheer
Martin Freeman has finally put his alter ego from The Office behind him with his new film comedy, Nativity!. He talks to Kate Whiting about the demands of shooting the primary school-set, improvised movie and why he prefers to stay well away from the limelight
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MARTIN Freeman is camera-shy. The impish dirty-blond actor is standing awkwardly in an old-fashioned hotel library flashing a non-smile towards a photographer.
“I wish I had that talent of being able to accept a photograph being taken,” he says, apologetically.
Almost 10 years since the role of Tim Canterbury in The Office made him famous, Martin still doesn’t behave like a “celebrity”.
You’ll never catch him being papped at a nightclub or parading his two children in Hello magazine.
“I don’t like it when I see people do it. I don’t think they should be put in prison or anything, I just think that’s not for me because I’ve never wanted to trade on anything else other than work. I’d rather be at home.”
Equally, the 38-year-old is not about to appear in a reality TV show.
“What I try to resist is doing stuff that I don’t want to do just to get on telly. But if someone says, ‘Do you want to go to Detroit and make a thing about Motown?’, I’ll do it because I’m interested in that.”
Whether he likes it or not, Martin is now firmly back in the spotlight, promoting his new film Nativity!.
He plays frustrated-actor-turned-primary-teacher Mr Maddens, who is tasked with putting on the nativity play and beating the rival posh independent school to a five-star review in the local paper.
But having been dumped by his girlfriend, Jennifer (Ashley Jensen), five years before, Maddens hates Christmas. Struggling to cope with the nativity task, he accidentally boasts to his rival that his ex-girlfriend, now a hotshot producer in LA, is coming over to film the nativity play.
Ignoring the old adage about never working with children and animals (in this case, camels, donkeys and sheep), Martin threw himself into the film, which was conceived and directed by Debbie Isitt and entirely improvised.
“I loved the idea. I’d worked with Debbie before on Confetti and we had a meeting back in December 2007 about her next idea – she just described the outline of my character and his journey and I was hooked.
“She has a good way, even just one to one, of telling a story – not showily but really enthusiastically.”
Martin enjoyed the freedom of being able to improvise.
“Debbie’s general MO would be, ‘We need to get from this point to this point by the end of the scene – away you go!’. How you get there is down to you, but you have to hit certain landmarks along the way. I think Debbie likes the uncertainty of what can happen in a moment.”
With more than 30 children in most scenes, there was plenty of uncertainty – and Martin is convinced that some of the children didn’t even know he was an actor.
“For grown-ups, it’s easier to understand that we’ve got other names that we call each other, but some of the younger children weren’t sure if I was an actor or if I was their teacher – some of them thought of me as Mr Maddens.”
Being mistaken for a teacher had its advantages, though, especially when it came to disciplining the children.
“I was able to draw on being a dad and speak sternly, or occasionally go ballistic,” he says.
Another draw of the film was the opportunity to work with Ugly Betty and Extras star Jensen.
“I had met her before because I know her husband (actor Terence Beesley) – I didn’t know her very well, but I felt like I knew her because we had people in common.”
It’s impossible not to ask Martin whether he ever starred in his own school nativity play as a child, but he insists he can’t remember ever being in one.
“I was at a Catholic school so there would have been nativities happening – I remember a lot of Christmas stuff, a lot of Mass and jollity, but I don’t remember being in a nativity.”
His own children are still too young to play Mary and Joseph – Martin politely declines to give their names and ages – but he’s very keen to bring them up knowing the nativity story.
“I always go for an Advent calendar with religious people on it, as opposed to snowmen. I think that, whatever society we are now, we have the date for a reason.
“Regardless of whether you’re a believer and whether you dig it or not, this culture is where we come from, so it’s just good to know stuff.
“It’s still my favourite story. I can’t think of a better one. It’s a lovely story to tell your children, and I want them to be included in that.”
In the New Year, Martin will be filming for TV once more as Dr Watson in a modern-day version of Sherlock Holmes for the BBC.
He’s not going to watch Jude Law’s version in Guy Ritchie’s latest film, which stars Robert Downey Jr as Holmes – or any other adaptations for that matter.
“If you’re over 20 in this country, you’ve grown up knowing Sherlock Holmes as part of our shared culture. I’d never read any (Arthur) Conan Doyle before doing this, but what strikes you is that my character wasn’t written as bumbling. He was an Army doctor invalided out of Afghanistan in 1880.
“So for this one, it’s set in London now and I’ve just been invalided back from Afghanistan, so the parallels are there – hopefully without being too anachronistic.”
He has also just finished work on film comedy Swinging With The Finkels, but unlike his Nativity! co-star Ashley, Martin won’t be moving to Hollywood any time soon.
“It’s an ongoing conversation I’m having with myself and the people around me. I have very good representation there, but I have more considerations now that I’ve got the family. I can’t just go ‘Bye’, and I don’t want to either. I love home – and I’m obviously at a different level there. It feels like starting again.
“I would love to work there, but then I’d love to work anywhere there’s something I want to work on. It has to feel really right, and I certainly don’t want to be working like a slave at a TV show all year in another country. No way.”
Nativity! is released in cinemas on Friday, November 27.
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