“My idea of a good night out is staying in.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m a big believer that life changes as much as you want it to.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m not posh or common, I’m in between.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve never been to a festival. I’m a creature of habit, mashed-potato comfort, I like rugs. Our sofa’s squishy. Maybe too squishy – it’s hard to get up sometimes.”
― Martin Freeman
“If you are a plumber, you can work on a shed, or you can work on a mansion. It’s just scale.”
― Martin Freeman
“I would wear a full-length cape if I could get away with it – I do love a good swirl in a fog.”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man, but nothing winds me up more than people saying, ‘Chill out’ to me when I’m irritated!”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m geek royalty now.”
― Martin Freeman
“I think what ‘The Hobbit’ and Middle-earth deal in are quite universal and timeless themes of honour and love and friendship… so they’re things that do resonate with people.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m not particularly affable in real life, I have to tell you. I’ve got that side to me, of course, but that’s not all I am.”
― Martin Freeman
“True heroics, obviously, is not the absence of fear, but having that fear and doing something anyway.”
― Martin Freeman
“My ambition is to do what I like and to do good things that I might not have done before.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m afraid I don’t have a very pragmatic or unromantic view of props. I don’t imbue them with any great sense of mystery or anything.”
― Martin Freeman
“Like any friendship or marriage, familiarity breeds more contempt, and love, and everything.”
― Martin Freeman
“Any pigeonhole is something to be rebelled against.”
― Martin Freeman
“It’s more fun to keep stuff secret.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like the quiet life sometimes. I also love a bustling press conference sometimes as well. I love a 600 metre red carpet.”
― Martin Freeman
“I love that pre-mod jazz look of the late Fifties, the Steve McQueen style that influenced the British modernists.”
― Martin Freeman
“There are still things technically about films that I think are a mystery to me and I want to remain a mystery. I don’t particularly want to know what everyone’s job is because I’ve got lines to learn.”
― Martin Freeman
“Rehearsals are one of my favourite things in the world.”
― Martin Freeman
“When I was at youth theatre and drama school, I never thought people would mistake me for a stand-up.”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t like affectation.”
― Martin Freeman
“To my mind there are not enough things that show the Nazis as human, as smart people, charismatic people, who are not inhuman naturally. But who are able to be fantastically inhuman when they choose to be.”
― Martin Freeman
“Why does everyone have to pretend to be stupid and not know long words?”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve got a stag weekend coming up and I’ve said I’m not doing anything more than a few drinks. I won’t have it. I’ll go home and watch Antiques Roadshow.”
― Martin Freeman
“Most people have a passive relationship with music and clothes, with culture. But music was my first contact with anything creative. Music is it, as far as I’m concerned.”
― Martin Freeman
“People misunderstand me.”
― Martin Freeman
“I have a very extreme state of mind. Things are very black or very white.”
― Martin Freeman
“This isn’t meant to make me sound interesting and rock ‘n’ roll, but I wouldn’t want to live with me a lot of the time.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m one of the few people I know who believes in God.”
― Martin Freeman
“Name anything – high-definition TV, computer obsolescence – and I’m pretty much annoyed by it.”
― Martin Freeman
“You could say I’m a mod, but with a small ‘m’; I don’t wear a parka, but I do question what I wear and what I listen to, which is what it’s all about.”
― Martin Freeman
“Most actors are either a shower of bloody scruffs or think they should dress like Hamlet off stage.”
― Martin Freeman
“Being a mod is more of a sensibility than a style.”
― Martin Freeman
“I only really watch my own films, I don’t watch any other films and I don’t particularly like any other actors.”
― Martin Freeman
“I can spot someone with similar fashion sense to me a mile off.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like bootcut jeans in a plain style with a nice line.”
― Martin Freeman
“I love a good suit.”
― Martin Freeman
“When I wear jeans I want to look like a man, not a child.”
― Martin Freeman
“I was probably cool around the end of 2002.”
― Martin Freeman
“My mum was Labour-voting, but wanted us to know we were important. Basically, everyone’s equal, but you, my children, are a bit better.”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t think it was a surprise that I ended up as an actor, and it was anything but a disappointment.”
― Martin Freeman
“In London we give ourselves a pat on the back, rightly, for not killing one another, for our prejudice being subtle rather than lethal.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve always got my eye on my deathbed.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve got an overly developed sense of what selling out is, and I of course worry about it too much.”
― Martin Freeman
“Acting is the only thing I’m even vaguely good at and acting is something that I think I do know about.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve got no anti-America or anti-Hollywood kick, it’s just that I never wanted to go and kick my heels around L.A. for six months hoping something would happen.”
― Martin Freeman
“There is nothing far-fetched about disappointment as a subject for comedy. It’s something we are all too familiar with.”
― Martin Freeman
“Comedy can’t be about continuous success.”
― Martin Freeman
“Disappointment is an endless wellspring of comedy inspiration.”
― Martin Freeman
“I look like the man in the moon.”
― Martin Freeman
“I love home. I’d rather be at home than anywhere else.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve always loved Christmas and that’s not really gone away from me from being a child to now. It’s always a magical time and I’m unashamed in my love for Christmas.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like out, I like the outside world.”
― Martin Freeman
“I buy DVDs. I don’t really buy CDs unless they’re for other people.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like things that are simple, such as an alarm clock.”
― Martin Freeman
“I hate the fact that so much of our life is computerised rather than mechanised.”
― Martin Freeman
“I didn’t audition for ‘Fargo.’ It was a straight offer.”
― Martin Freeman
“There are lots of things that keep me awake at night, but work isn’t one of them. I mean, no-one’s going to die if someone doesn’t like what I do. So I don’t feel a great pressure.”
― Martin Freeman
“The reason I’ve never gone for pilot season even as a younger actor, and wouldn’t entertain that sort of thing now, is the idea of signing a piece of paper that binds me for six or seven years.”
― Martin Freeman
“As soon as a job finishes, I am done with it. When I’m really, really enjoying the job, I love the job, I want it to end because it’s supposed to.”
― Martin Freeman
“I think people just like seeing friendship. I think people like seeing people who just drive each other up the wall, but at same time, can’t live without each other.”
― Martin Freeman
“Not all art is great; most of it’s rubbish.”
― Martin Freeman
“Americans assume all British people have at least one servant.”
― Martin Freeman
“If I could get bands to come and play in my house, I’d like that.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve been doing interviews for years, and in all that time, I’ve virtually never read one and gone, ‘Yep, factually and tonally that’s exactly what happened.’ Pretty much never.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m very proud of ‘The Office’ – it was one of the best things I’ll ever do. But you do become a slight victim of your own success in the sense that people think that’s you, that’s what you are, and that’s what you’ll play forever.”
― Martin Freeman
“Trouble is, some accents lend themselves to comedy.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like talky scenes.”
― Martin Freeman
“The Marx Brothers isn’t subtle, and that’s hilarious.”
― Martin Freeman
“Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of things American – but when American people do British stuff, it’s so universally dreadful.”
― Martin Freeman
“I can’t actually believe how good ‘The Sopranos’ is. I genuinely am dumbfounded by it. It’s like when you realize how good The Beatles are, and you think, ‘How did they do that?’”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t want to be alone; the thing I love about acting is the other people you’re doing it with.”
― Martin Freeman
“You have to, in a way, just get your head down and do the work and not expect every day to bring riches and not expect every minute to bring wild excitement, ’cause it just doesn’t. It doesn’t on films, anyway.”
― Martin Freeman
“We all know that people who’ve never been on a film set think it’s way more glamorous than the people who work on them.”
― Martin Freeman
“I love the smaller scenes. I love the smaller, slightly more theatrical scenes.”
― Martin Freeman
“Acting is reacting, and it’s always easier to react when someone is doing a good job.”
― Martin Freeman
“I have played nasty people, but not everyone has seen that stuff. Before ‘The Office,’ I mainly got cast as little toe-rags.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m not a writer, director or producer.”
― Martin Freeman
“I work in public.”
― Martin Freeman
“I could say, ‘I want to play a French-African humpback,’ but I probably won’t get that role.”
― Martin Freeman
“I did a play once where a reviewer said, ‘Martin Freeman’s too nice to play a bad guy.’ And I thought: ‘Well, bad guys aren’t always bad guys, you know?’ When I see someone play the obvious villain, I know it’s false.”
― Martin Freeman
“You’re not fully you until life has booted you in the behind.”
― Martin Freeman
“There are always challenges to green screen.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve not been called on to do a lot of accent work.”
― Martin Freeman
“My first engagement with any art was music.”
― Martin Freeman
“As an actor, you know there are things you get asked to do that you do quite well, with less effort.”
― Martin Freeman
“Although there’s an inherent light-heartedness to ‘Sherlock,’ I slightly err towards not doing the comedy.”
― Martin Freeman
“Please God, I’ll never be in a war zone, but everything I sort of know about people who come back is that it’s a hard transition to make. I mean, even if you’ve not been in a war, even if you’ve just been in the Forces, you come back and probably have more fights in civilian life.”
― Martin Freeman
“On the surface, you think you wouldn’t have to think at all about being asked to play Bilbo in ‘The Hobbit.’ It’s not prison; it’s a good gig. But you know it’s going to take a long time, and it does. There are times when you thought: ‘Gee, I’ve not seen my house for months.’”
― Martin Freeman
“It’s more fun playing someone who isn’t just a bad guy.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve tried not to treat Shakespeare as a marble giant.”
― Martin Freeman
“What makes Shakespeare eternal is his grasp of psychology. He knew how to nail stuff about us as human beings.”
― Martin Freeman
“You don’t want your children to look at you like you are anything special other than their dad.”
― Martin Freeman
“In my life, the strongest evidence of any fandom is ‘Sherlock’ – ‘Hobbit’ fans are positively restrained.”
― Martin Freeman
“I value being able to go into a record shop and people leaving me alone.”
― Martin Freeman
“Humour is – how do I say this without sounding pompous – it’s a huge part of my life.”
― Martin Freeman
“Your slippers last a lot longer in your bedroom. On a film set, they do get very scuffed up.”
― Martin Freeman
“I read ‘Animal Farm’ when I was 11, and it remained my favorite book, really.”
― Martin Freeman
“It’s a funny thing, ‘The Office,’ because millions and millions and millions and millions of people didn’t watch it. But culturally, it is more of a phenomenon than almost anything else I can remember as far as British television is concerned.”
― Martin Freeman
“I have never been in, nor have I had any strong particular desire to be in, what is termed a costume drama, but I keep forgetting to think of ‘Charles II’ as a costume drama.”
― Martin Freeman
“Fans want to see a story with characters, and they want to see a story.”
― Martin Freeman
“As soon as you get two actors in a room and they’re locking eyes, they’re doing a scene.”
― Martin Freeman
“Actors are people who are doing a job they want to do, which isn’t the case for many of the people who watch what we do.”
― Martin Freeman
“Organised religion, organised anything, requires commitment and requires an engagement with something. A lot of the time, we don’t want to commit.”
― Martin Freeman
“There was very little drama and performance at my school, so I’ve never forgotten the people who did encourage me and I’ve thought whether it would be a good idea to even get in touch with them and just say thanks, because they really opened a door for me mentally and emotionally – that’s really important.”
― Martin Freeman
“I know very few people who have literally improvised a film from start to finish.”
― Martin Freeman
“I think I’m less gloomy than I used to be – I’ve got a very supportive other half.”
― Martin Freeman
“My relationship with my belief has never been easy.”
― Martin Freeman
“My default state is wariness.”
― Martin Freeman
“All my life, I’ve felt people are looking at me. So, when I became known, it was like, ‘I’m not imagining this any more. People genuinely are staring at me. Oh, Christ, now they’re coming over!’”
― Martin Freeman
“I am a fan of the Coen brothers. I’m not a fanatic. I’m a big admirer. They create unique worlds, and there is a real atmosphere to their films. Not everyone can get that. That’s a massive part of their appeal: you can recognise them. Like all the great directors or artists, you know it when you see it.”
― Martin Freeman
“I think acting is all about the other people. Sounds like a worthy thing to say, but it’s true.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve got a pretty good musical ear, and I can pick things up.”
― Martin Freeman
“Whenever someone says to my mum: ‘How’s your son doing?’ she says: ‘Which one?’ If you’re a parent, you’re not going to go: ‘Oh I’ll concentrate on the famous one.’”
― Martin Freeman
“Half of us are partly German! Half our language and culture, generally, in Anglo-Saxon terms, is German.”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t think anyone looks into their family tree and expects it to come up smelling of roses.”
― Martin Freeman
“’Sherlock’ is beautifully done, if I may say so myself. Even if I wasn’t in it, I would like the show.”
― Martin Freeman
“I always kind of think if The Beatles were still around now, people would’ve lost interest quite a long time ago. Seven years of recording – it’s there forever. I think not outstaying your welcome is a vital ingredient.”
― Martin Freeman
“The design of ‘Love Actually,’ the typeface, the basic line of that poster and that DVD cover has been ripped off so many times.”
― Martin Freeman
“’The Hobbit’ would have been very difficult to pass on, do you know what I mean? It’s not the kind of ship that comes into dock very often.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like anything with my face on it, just from an aesthetic point of view.”
― Martin Freeman
“I think the world needs to see more of my face.”
― Martin Freeman
“I want to inspire children to be obsessed over jewellery.”
― Martin Freeman
“I hope I inspire children to make films.”
― Martin Freeman
“To be honest, if people thought my performance in ‘The Office’ was the same as my performance in ‘The Hobbit,’ it would tell me everything I needed to know about what they know about acting.”
― Martin Freeman
“I enjoy fighting scenes. I like fighting in film. I like pretending to fight in films.”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t have sentimental attachments to characters at all.”
― Martin Freeman
“Most people aren’t these grandstanding heroes.”
― Martin Freeman
“I suppose the real cult things now are independent films made for a million pounds.”
― Martin Freeman
“With superheroes and comics and fantasy and sci-fi being absolutely the popular currency in cinema, it’s like people have said in endless magazines, it’s the revenge of the geeks and all that. There’s some truth in that.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve had several really tangible dreams about UFOs, and they’ve been amazing!”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t write anything off without reading a script, and if it’s a good one, I’ll consider it, whether it’s for $20 or a million dollars.”
― Martin Freeman
“Coming back from doing ‘The Hobbit,’ you think ‘Sherlock’ is realistic, but of course, it’s not that realistic.”
― Martin Freeman
“I have quite catholic taste in music.”
― Martin Freeman
“Like, honest to God, I don’t expect people to be into what I’m into.”
― Martin Freeman
“If everyone’s just saying what they feel and doing whatever they want, there’s no drama in the world. And there’s also no truth to it, ’cause that’s just not the truth.”
― Martin Freeman
“When people bully us, we are complicit in it in some way. We do allow it to happen to some extent.”
― Martin Freeman
“It’s always the case, whenever you’re doing someone real, how much you want to do an impression or a characterisation. If I was doing Churchill, or Gandhi – people know exactly how they talked, walked.”
― Martin Freeman
“I think the hardest part about anything you do for 18 months is just keeping yourself together for 18 months.”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t get cast as the guy who steps off a yacht in a white linen suit with a martini.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve always slightly envied other actors I know who have different reputations. I think, ‘God, you don’t get people coming up to you, going, ‘Hey!’ – because they’re scared of you.’”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve always been attracted to darkness.”
― Martin Freeman
“It would be a shame for me if I were to become ‘Mr. Half-Hour Sitcom.’”
― Martin Freeman
“Even someone as truly dark as Lorne Malvo is still very attractive, and you want to spend time with him because he’s a fun character.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m always interested with other actors in what their process is, and are they still interested in acting, as opposed to being a star.”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t like ‘cool telly.’”
― Martin Freeman
“Being an actor is just like being any other sort of self-employed person – we’re all just happy to have a job in the first place, but we also thrive off the uncertainty of it.”
― Martin Freeman
“I wanted to be an actor because I saw ‘Dog Day Afternoon,’ you know what I mean?”
― Martin Freeman
“I think when see you a character on the screen who is actually being touched by the world, and the stuff is actually landing on him, it makes you empathize.”
― Martin Freeman
“Are there many Tims in America? I don’t know if I can think of many American Tims.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve been well-known in Britain for a long time.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’ve always liked clothes, since I was a kid.”
― Martin Freeman
“It’s hard talking about acting, in a way, because it’s like explaining a joke: I do think it loses something in the telling.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m just a sucker for a good script.”
― Martin Freeman
“I love watching Billy Bob, just as a punter anyway. I like his work. But working with him is really easy and really straight-forward. He’s immediately good. He doesn’t have to work up to it. He doesn’t make your life difficult. He listens. He’s a very good listener, in terms of his acting.”
― Martin Freeman
“I have less than no interest in trying to replicate another brilliant actor’s work, thank you very much.”
― Martin Freeman
“We can all look on the Internet and go, ‘He hates me! Oh, but she loves me. Oh, but he hates me,’ you know. And that way, madness lies.”
― Martin Freeman
“I have no opinion on 48 frames a second at all. I’d be completely unsuitable to talk about that.”
― Martin Freeman
“I was on record before I did ‘The Hobbit,’ saying I don’t care at all about 3D. And I suppose I should now say I care a lot about 3D. I’ve always loved 3D, I think everything should be 3D, and I think it’s just a shame ‘The Godfather’ wasn’t in 3D.”
― Martin Freeman
“I love eating. I mean, I really, really love eating.”
― Martin Freeman
“’Sherlock’ is one of the biggest things I will do, ever – we could never have predicted that level of insanity around the series.”
― Martin Freeman
“My job as an actor is for you, so why should my private life be for you, too? That’s not fair.”
― Martin Freeman
“There are about 20 people in my life that I want to love me, and none of them are the ‘Daily Mail.’”
― Martin Freeman
“My main priority in any job is when is the soonest I can get back to the three people I love most in the world.”
― Martin Freeman
“I wasn’t like a Fifties dad.”
― Martin Freeman
“I’m quite a disciplinarian: I can be a shouter. But I can be a very demonstrative kisser and hugger.”
― Martin Freeman
“If it were purely up to me, my kids would probably be vegetarian Catholic Marxists.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like life to surprise me.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like the idea of not everything happening between two human beings to be everyone’s property.”
― Martin Freeman
“I can live without endless television programmes and films just centered around computers. I can sort of live without that.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like uncertainty in roles, and I like uncertainty in art, really.”
― Martin Freeman
“Without sounding overly pompous about it, I don’t really trust certainty in anything, actually. Especially as I get older. Except love. I’m certain of love, I guess.”
― Martin Freeman
“There’s a difference between the parts that I play and who I am and who people think I am. There’s quite a big discrepancy sometimes between those things.”
― Martin Freeman
“I hadn’t grown up with ‘The Hobbit;’ I hadn’t grown up with ‘Lord of The Rings,’ anything like that.”
― Martin Freeman
“You absorb 2,000 years of history just by being near the Thames.”
― Martin Freeman
“I like being called ‘Mr. Freeman’ occasionally.”
― Martin Freeman
“I grew up in the suburbs, so I remember arriving at Waterloo and seeing Big Ben and the coloured lights on top of the Southbank Centre and thinking, ‘Wow!’”
― Martin Freeman
“Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay and Al Pacino made me want to act. I’ve always been interested in men with a vulnerable side.”
― Martin Freeman
“The best of American television is thought-provoking, original, brilliant, exciting – from ‘The Sopranos’ on, whether it’s ‘The Wire’ or ‘Breaking Bad’ or ‘House of Cards,’ they’re fantastic pieces of art.”
― Martin Freeman
“Television is where the great movies that used to exist have gone.”
― Martin Freeman
“’The Hobbit’s a big gig. It’s a huge circus that you become a part of.”
― Martin Freeman
“If you’re alive for more than five minutes, you’re going to be disappointed.”
― Martin Freeman
“If you want your film to be instantly green-lit, your first approach is not to go to a relatively unknown English actor. They’re not going to throw millions of dollars at you for that.”
― Martin Freeman
“I don’t want to be poor, of course. But I try not to make that the guiding force behind whether I choose to do something or not.”
― Martin Freeman
“We all know the films that have affected us from the age of nine onwards, that mean so much to us.”
― Martin Freeman
“I think the only directing I’d be any good at is theatre directing. It’s the only thing I can see myself doing.”
― Martin Freeman
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