For a 128-year-old character, Sherlock Holmes is doing very well. As we anticipate Benedict Cumberbatch’s turn as the Victorian version of the famous detective in his series’ Christmas Special, and enjoy Sir Ian McKellen’s turn in Bill Condon’s Mr. Holmes, HFPA member Ana Maria Bahiana looks back at Conan Doyle’s very contemporary creation’s presence in movies and TV.

We barely had recovered from our collective gasp of wonder upon seeing the trailer for the Sherlock Christmas Special unleashed during Comic-Con 2015 – Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson in Victorian London! – when a new take on Conan Doyle’s iconic sleuth reached our screens: Bill Condon’s Mr. Holmes, a new iteration of the myth, taking an older Sherlock (Sir Ian McKellen) out of retirement to solve a 50-year-old crime … and to go to the movies and see himself being played on the big screen by Nicholas Rowe, who created the character of Young Sherlock Holmes, in the eponymous 1985 picture …
And if this was not enough to satiate our apparent sherlockmania, a third Sherlock Holmes featurting Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as the original dynamic duo is in the works, and in September Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu resume their duties in the popular series Elementary.
128 years after it first reached our collective minds in Conan Doyle’s novel A Study in Scarlet, Mr. Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street, London continues to capture our imagination, immune to videogames, superheroes or zombies. “He’s a world famous icon”, Sir Ian McKellen told us. “He’s like Buckingham Palace or Wimbledon, you know.”
Why this enduring, global atttraction? Benedict Cumberbatch has an interesting theory: “Holmes has always been a modern man. He was at the forefront in the original stories, in the cutting edge of pathology, chemistry and science. He’s never been old-fashioned. He would be at ease in the 21st century.”
Robert Downey Jr. has a similar explanation: “He was the predecessor to all these procedural shows. I think he’s an archetype. He’s an archetype of the eccentric, devoted expert, a kind of magician but grounded in reality.”
A friend of Benedict Cumberbatch’s – with whom he shared the stage in Danny Boyle’s production of Frankenstein – and a fan of his Sherlock, Jonny Lee Miller has a holistic view of the character’s appeal: “His super intelligence, his passion, his drive, his attention to detail, the fact that he is successful at what he’s trying to do, his friendship with Watson … and the fact that he is not a superhero. He’s wonderful and an extraordinary mind, but he is still attainable.”
A big part of the character’s endurance through the decades is the fact that so many great actors have played him. From William Gillette to James Mason, from Peter Cushing to John Gielgud, Christopher Lee and Basil Rathbone on the big screen, plus Jeremy Brett on the enduring series on the UK’s Granada TV and Hugh Laurie as House (a medical take on Conan Doyle’s character, through and through) on TV, Sherlock has become, according to the Guinness World Records, the most portrayed character on the screen.
Everyone has their favorites, of course, and actors are the same. Jonny Lee Miller likes Benedict Cumberbatch’s. Sir Ian McKellen likes Jeremy Brett’s: “(He
is a) very handsome man, and he delved into Holmes’ the dark side. He’s not a happy man, he’s trying to cope, he seems brilliant, seems all achieving but inside is as frail as the rest of us.”
We would love to hear from you – who is your favorite Sherlock?
Ana Maria Bahiana

Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller as Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes

Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes

Sir Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes

Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes