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Interview: Actor Dónal Finn says 'Young Sherlock' series funny, thrilling, witty
Interview: Actor Dónal Finn says 'Young Sherlock' series funny, thrilling, witty
Irish actor Dónal Finn said viewers will find the new series “Young Sherlock” funny, thrilling and witty.
Finn, 30, plays the role of James Moriarty in “Young Sherlock,” which premiered on Prime Video on March 4 and is available in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, including the Philippines.
Directed by Guy Ritchie, “Young Sherlock” focuses on the story of Sherlock before he became the legendary detective.
In the series, the young Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) meets Moriarty and is dragged into a murder investigation that threatens his liberty.
Set in Victorian England and adventuring abroad, “Young Sherlock” will showcase the early antics of Sherlock who is yet to evolve into Baker Street’s most renowned resident.
Finn has appeared in “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” “The Wheel of Time,” “The Uprising,” “SAS: Rogue Heroes” and “The Witcher.”
In an interview with Manila Bulletin, Finn discussed the qualities of the series, how he got the role of Moriarty, and working with Fiennes Tiffin and Ritchie.
He said viewers will love “Young Sherlock” as “it is full of the things that they love about Sherlock, but also from a completely different time in his life.”
“So it's also completely new as well. And that makes it kind of perfect for whether you're a fan of the books or you've never encountered them. And it's very funny, hopefully. It's very thrilling, obviously. And it's very witty and engaging, I guess,” he said.
Audition
Finn said he was invited to audition for the role of Moriarty.
“Well, it kind of came about in the regular kind of process of work, which is that I was invited to do an audition with our cast and director, Rory Okey. And I got up to Spotlight where we had our audition and I met him and we read some of the scenes. And that was an interesting kind of version of events for me because I came with, you know, a lot of ideas and a lot of suggestions, I guess,” he said.
He added, “And at one point I read one of the scenes and I said, I think there's a version of it, you know, where perhaps Moriarty is more, you know, more kind of dismissive of Sherlock or something. And Rory, the casting director said, ‘No, no, no, don't, don't do anything else.’ And with that, I kind of thought. He said, ‘No, I've seen enough,’ I think.”
“And I think there was something in that which kind of made me feel, oh, I think I've made a ball of this and that I've, you know, that was a signal to me that I'd used, shown him my instincts and they weren't very good. But actually just goes to show that sometimes you don't really know what was going on because for him, I think he just said my instincts that I used in the first take were what he wanted and he didn't want to kind of overcomplicate them,” he siad.
After this, he was invited for chemistry reading with Fiennes Tiffin and the creative team.
“And that's when I met Hero. And we read through some of the scenes together. And chemistry reads are an interesting thing because you're not only thinking about how to do the scene, but it's also about how well you get on with this person. And that was my first time meeting Hero,” he said.
Finn added, “And I have to say, he was...it's a nervous place to be, you know, being on the auditioning side of a chemistry read, but he was so encouraging and so light and so supportive, like immediately off the bat that I just came away from the chemistry read feeling really lucky about that experience, you know, never mind kind of being offered the role. And I just thought, oh, I'm pleased that that was my experience of such an important chemistry read and, regardless of what happens, you know, regardless of getting the part.”
Getting the part
In 2024, he was in the musical “Hadestown,” playing Orpheus, at Lyric Theatre in London when he got the call that he got the role of Moriarty.
“I'll be honest, man. I was like... I was doing a musical in London at the time and I got a phone call from our showrunner, Matthew. Great guy. And we'd had a little bit of communication before to kind of talk about the logistics of it. And I wasn't 100 percent sure that at that point, whether it was, the role was for me or whether we were speaking hypothetically and stuff.”
“And then one day he rang me just before I was about to go on stage. And he said, just, you know, it's Friday, the weekend, you're about to have the weekend. I just want to let you know before everything closes up for the weekend, it's good. And we want you. And,I guess some of the people in the company kind of heard, like knew at that point and they all just kind of, they could hear me kind of whooping and cheering and a couple of my mates in the show just came in and gave me a hug and we all went and we got a bit of sushi. That's what we did,” he said.
Preparing for the role
Finn said to prepare for the role of Moriarty, “Well, I did look at what is written about Moriarty in the Arthur Conan Doyle books, but for me, that was kind of like a... I was just at the finish line, whereas I was kind of way, way, way back at the start of the race.”
“And so I knew that he would have to end up there, but...given that we meet them at such a different point in time to the actual source material. I didn't and I don't really believe that Moriarty is entirely evil. I don't think it's useful for me to kind of think of him in those terms either. But I think his intellect, his intelligence is...just so evident, you know? So yeah, that was in the writing. So I just prepared by, I guess, coming to terms with the script as much as possible,” he said.
He read Sherlock Holmes books before he was even cast in “Young Sherlock” and before they started filming the series.
“I was just a fan and I spent a summer in Cork (Ireland) reading ‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.’ And then in the evenings when we started filming, I would just listen to the audio book as I kind of went through my tasks, you know, at the end of the day. And it was more just to kind of get into the imagery and the kind of psychology of the Victorian England, and also the descriptions that Arthur Conan Doyle uses of like how they move from step to step in their deductions was just a real, you know, really a very easy route into just like enjoying how clever these men are,” he said.
Working with Hero
Finn described Fiennes Tiffin as someone who is brilliant.
“Yeah, he's a gifted actor and a very, very generous person, very generous spirit. He's a great collaborator and that was really important on a job like this because, you know, if you've seen it, we have to work very closely together and a lot of that is to do with being in time and in kind of communication and in sync with each other,” he said of Hero.
He added, “And I think if you didn't have like such a kind of collaborative and open kind of spirit to new ideas and suggesting things and trying my ideas as well and stuff that I think it would be a very different show. So I'm really grateful that he was my Sherlock Holmes, you know?”
Guy Ritchie
Finn also had an amazing experience working with Ritchie.
He said Ritchie is “one that obviously looks after the little kid in me as well because I would have spent a lot of time in Cork, going to the DVD rental shop in Mallow and taking out three DVDs for 20 quid (20 Euro).”
“And it was often like ‘Lock, Stock, Two Smoking Barrels,’ ‘Snatch’ and ‘RocknRolla.’ And I found those films like really informative to like a style, like an aesthetic. And it was so bold that, you know, it was just a great thrill to be invited to audition for something that he was making, regardless kind of like getting to work with him so personally on our episodes.”
“And, you know, he's a gifted director. I think like he's... He knows...he works with like such immediacy that I think he's like direct, he's directing, his guidance that he gives to an actor is so sharp, so kind of visceral. And I mean that in the sense of like how he describes what he wants is so brilliantly articulated that he gets great stuff out of the actors,” said Finn.
He said, “And then as a creative brain, I've not really worked with anyone who has so quickly elevated a great scene to, like, just a brilliant scene and brought it to another level, whether that's kind of... Whether that's rewriting, you know, certain parts of the dialogue to give it more flow and more rhythm or to allow these two characters to operate in synchronicity to each other, or it's like...or it's developing a whole kind of new idea for the scene, which is like, there are some scenes where he almost kind of reinvented what it should look like, whether that's the mine palace or kind of the deduction scenes. Yeah, he's a gifted director.”
Roles before Moriarty
On how he would compare playing Moriarty to his roles in previous series and films, he said, “I would say...I just think of them all as quite different. And I try not to ask sometimes, like, how is this one... How is this role similar to another role?”
“Although that might be helpful at times. I just think of them all as different people. And I, you know, I think...at least in kind of viewing it, I would say Moriarty is quite different because, you know, for a myriad of reasons, you know, it's like he's in Victorian England. He's an Irishman at that time. He is...there's a huge duality between his internal and his external world, which I think is true for all the characters that I've played and all characters generally, I think, all well-written characters. And yeah, I think it's hard to compare them because each character's journey is so amazingly kind of specific that I don't really pull for comparables,” he said.
Challenges during filming
Finn said one of the challenges during the filming of the series was “the physical energy that's required on quite a long shoot. And I say that with the full knowledge that we have an incredibly, I love my job a lot and I, and we, there's an incredible amount of joy and, and, and I would say it's probably fair to say like privilege as well in, in, in what we do.”
“And that there are far more strenuous ways to spend like a 12 hour or 10 hour working day. But I would say, yeah, just, I think there's a lot of action within the show. There's a lot of stunts, a lot of fighting, a lot of running around,” he said
He added, “The writing is quite brilliant. And so that always required a lot of mental energy to try and reach the kind of... intellectual level that these, uh, these characters speak at and, at the same time, it's quite, you know, filming is always quite fun and quite social and there's a lot of people around. And so your social energy is part of that and was an important part of the process for me because that energy, I think Moriarty is quite a social person and it's important for me to kind of not ignore that while I was working.”
“Young Sherlock” is now streaming on Prime Video.
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Interview: Hero Fiennes Tiffin on playing 'Young Sherlock' in new Prime Video series