There is Sherlock Holmes everywhere — in books, on film and two super popular shows on telly. There is Sherlock from BBC with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in a reboot of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories and there is CBS’s Elementary where Holmes goes to rehab, moves to New York and gets himself a sober companion/roommate — Dr. Joan Watson. The gender bending doesn’t stop there as the woman, Irene Adler, is also Jamie Moriarty, Holmes' nemesis. Lucy Liu, who plays Watson, spoke about her character arc, her clothes and reboots. Excerpts.
How do you see your character transitioning from Season 2 to Season 3?
In Season 2, Joan Watson started to find a real comfort in her partnership with Sherlock. She did feel like she needed personal space from him because when she got involved in a relationship finally, and it unfortunately was with Holmes’ brother, he wasn’t supportive of that. He kind of chased him away and there was a distance between them towards the end of Season 2 because of that. When you come into Season 3 you see that Holmes takes off to London for eight months. He leaves her a note, and it just says, “I’m out of here. I’m not going to work with you anymore. I’m dissolving our partnership.” In Season 3, you see her relationship with Andrew, who’s being played by Raza Jaffrey.
This is the first time that we’re going to see the Watson character grow apart from Sherlock. What’s your opinion about that?
I think it’s great that there is going to be a distance between them. I think that always gives it a little bit of a dramatic pause for the audience, and also for us. I think that if everything is always so hunky-dory it doesn’t make it very interesting to tune in every week. Their relationship has a great deal of chemistry, but I think that Sherlock is a type of person who does things without taking responsibility oftentimes, and I think it’s good to see that the character is in a place where he needs to take responsibility because she’s forcing him to. I think that if you enable someone continually to behave the way that they do, they’ll never really look at themselves. So, that tension between them I think is going to add to the third season.
It’s unusual for male and female characters to not have any kind of romantic entanglement at some point, and how important is it that it hasn’t happened?
I think that Rob Doherty, who is the executive producer and the creator, feels very strongly about the literature. We’ve gone off the literature in a lot of ways, but the fact that we are kind of sticking to the relationship between Sherlock and Watson is incredibly important. What I noticed about the literature is there are many cases and they’re all very interesting. And the way they solve them is even more interesting but what really keeps you coming back for more is Sherlock and Watson’s friendship, the depth of their friendship and how it continues to grow.
Do you work with the costume designer to choose Joan’s clothes?
The one thing we wanted to avoid when we first started this show was making Watson too pinned up. So, I try to make Watson a little bit wrinkled, a little bit loose. And we wanted her to look kind of rumpled. I think it’s important for her to look like she is comfortable at all times, and comfortable in her own skin.
That was very important. Rebecca Hofherr who is the costume designer is wonderful, and she really understood that. One thing we do have about Watson is she doesn’t often wear pants. She wears lots of dresses and skirts and things like that, so we try to keep her feminine as well.
Do you ever think that playing a female Watson character is a risky decision?
Oh yes, it is risky, but I have to say that if I didn’t take risks I would still be working as a secretary or selling T-shirts on the street in Soho. My life has been about a giant risk. If I didn’t take risks, I wouldn’t be on Ally McBeal . I would not have done Charlie’s Angels because it is perfect Americana — there are three Caucasian women.
What goes into a successful reboot?
I wish I had the answer to that. I think it just depends on who’s behind the scenes and who’s writing it, and what the audience is. I think a lot of people expected Charlie’s Angels to fail because it was a reboot. But because it was very colourful, condensed and action-packed, it was sort of the beginning of seeing girl power again. I think maybe what could have possibly happened in other iterations of the show was it might not have had the kind of budget that Sony was willing to give it to make it sparkle every week.
I think doing something as a one-off is a big task, but having something come on for 22 or 24 episodes, every week, is a much bigger task.
Elementary airs on Fridays at 10 pm on AXN
The writer was in Los Angeles at the invitation of AXN India, the talent interviews were coordinated by CBS Studios LA
