'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' – Martin Freeman interview

Time Out chats with the actor about playing one of modern fiction's most popular characters.

Apr 28 2005

Having made a name for himself as Tim in 'The Office', Martin Freeman makes the leap from small screen to big screen in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'.

Time Out caught up with him to find out what it's like to play Arthur Dent, one of the most popular characters in modern literature.

How did you become involved in 'Hitchhiker's'?

I was sent the script and asked to come along and audition. So I prepared a few scenes and met Garth [Jennings, the director] and Nick [Goldsmith, the producer], who took me through their 'vision' for it. They showed me some storyboards, and a few models… prototypes of aliens and sets and spaceships. I read for them, they liked what I did and I was left hanging for a bit. I think there were some people the studio preferred because they were bankable stars or whatever, but then it transpired that I'd got it.

You were described by Sam Rockwell as a 'pie and pint' Arthur Dent rather than 'cricket and tea'. What do you think that meant?

I suppose he means I'm slightly more common than Simon Jones's [the original Arthur Dent from the TV series] character. I could pretend to be posh, but I didn't think there was any point really. I thought, for 2005, for what Hitchhiker's should mean, maybe having the last surviving person surviving from earth being very upper-middle class – probably a Cambridge graduate – wouldn't be as accessible as someone who isn't all that stuff. So in that sense I'm sure Sam means it as a compliment because he thinks we've hit it on the head.

Were you a fan of the TV show, the radio show and the book?

I was familiar with it all really, though the radio series was a little bit before my time. But I remember the television series and I was in and out of the books when I was growing up too.

Did you re-watch the TV series to see how Simon Jones played the role?

I didn't because I remembered how he'd done it and, for me, he was Arthur Dent. And I think for many people he still will be, so that cast rather a long shadow and was one of the reasons I didn't think I was really right for it because I'm not very Simon Jones-like. So I didn't think it would be a help for me to go and look at it again because I had to play it my way. It's more likely that I'd look back at it now, out of interest, as a reference, but I didn't look at it for pointers.

Do you think 'Hitchhiker's' is the movie that is going to 'Mackenzie Crook' you and take you into Hollywood?

No. Nothing's going to take me to Hollywood, rest assured of that. I don't equate it with being a meritocracy in that way. It's like when people say 'It's a compliment; you're famous.' That's not a fucking compliment – Himmler was famous as well. I think it's just a fact of life – people have either heard of you or they haven't and that's not interesting. My interesting journey is to try to be good in good things. And Mackenzie is an absolutely delightful and very talented person, but he's got his tastes and I've got mine and they're not necessarily the same. So I don't particularly just want to do film to validate myself as an actor.

What's it like working on a really big production like this compared with working on smaller TV comedies?

You have a sense that there's more money around because there are loads more people, loads more crew, you get good cars taking you everywhere and there's more choice on the menu. It's just a bigger scale really. There's more down-time too, which means there's more potential for being bored for longer because you're spending eight hours of your day, instead of two hours, sleeping.

Did you have the nicest trailer?

We didn't have trailers, we had lovely dressing rooms. And I think they were all quite similar. It was as nice as any place I've lived in.

Is acting for the big screen very different from television?

Well, I'm not exactly a big-screen actor, so I'm still learning the ropes. As I see it, my job shouldn't change too much because it's still a camera. The big scale of it is taken care of by the production values or the director, so you certainly don't act any bigger. If anything you act smaller because the screen is going to be so much bigger and it's very easy to overdo it on the big screen; raising an eyebrow says so much more than on a television screen. But my brief for myself was 'be real and funny' because that's who Arthur Dent is. The stakes are pretty high for Arthur and I wanted to make them real – I didn't want to play it like a nice polite sketch show or as a parody of a stiff-upper-lipped Englishman because he's a man who loses his entire planet in the first ten minutes of the film. That should matter.

Were you self-conscious about all the fan attention when making the film?

No, not when you're at work. I think you feel it more keenly before and after the fact, but I don't use the internet much so I don't pay much attention to that stuff. I have respect for it and I have respect for the fact that we've all been disappointed by adaptations that have ruined things, me included. So I didn't want to be part of something that rained on someone's parade. We wanted to be part of telling the story as truthfully and honestly as possible but while acknowledging you literally cannot please Derek in Scunthorpe and Michael in Kilburn. Everyone's got a subjective idea of how it should look, and this is just our version. And Michael in Kilburn is quite welcome to try to make his own.

What kind of feedback did you get back from Douglas Adams' family about the film?

We got very positive feedback. So as far as doing well with what Douglas gave us, and being truthful to what Douglas gave us, that's good enough for me. I don't want to overplay my part in the film – I was merely a hired hand. But they were very in touch with the producers, the director and the whole creative team during and after. And when I saw them at the premiere, the ones I met were delighted. They were polite people, so I don't think they wanted to say 'You've fucking ruined my brother's legacy!' But if they weren't that happy, I don't think they would have gone so far out on the compliments as they did. I think they were really pleased. So, they're happy and of course we don't know, but we hope Douglas would be happy – we'd like to do him proud. We were working with his script, which he was working on until he died. His changes, not ours. His developments, not ours.

Why do you think the story has so captured the world's imagination?

First and foremost, it's funny, and the film should be funny. If we don't make people laugh or smile it's a failure because it's a comedy. It deals with escape and fantasy, and human beings as a species always dream of being somewhere else – that there is another world out there. So I think it taps into some basic human wants and desires.

Was there much room for improvising in 'Hitchhiker’s'?

There was a tiny bit of room, but it was pretty unnecessary. It's not really that kind of animal. I think you've got to just let the ideas speak for themselves and not get in the way by imposing your character on the film because Douglas is cleverer than you are anyway.

At the end of the movie, Slartibartfast asks Arthur what he'd change about the world. What would you change?

The fact that you could do a film and then not talk about it for five days. It'd be nice to slink away into the woods somewhere and play with my Action Man…and that's not a euphemism.

More 'Hitchhiker's' interviews:

To read a Q&A with Sam Rockwell (Zaphod Beeblebrox) click here
To read a Q&A with Zooey Deshcanel (Trillian) click here
To read a Q&A with Bill Nighy (Slartibartfast) click here

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