Yeah, I’ve always wondered whether this was really shot with BC or just one of his stand-ins. I’m not sure that his body proportions are just right—camera angle makes it hard to tell, but they usually work that to give Sherlock more height and presence than he has here, shot almost downward instead of up). The static nature of his stance with, as you note, an unmoving coat and possibly heel-elevated positioning, doesn’t look right either. BC almost never stands toe-out and he holds his arms away from his body and turned backwards a lot of the time. Most tellingly, though, is that the trousers don’t fall correctly at his ankles: Sherlock always wears his with a substantial break and these are notably too short. I have thought every time I watched it that only the shots about the birthday video really used BC.
Heh, @recentlyfolded I think you’re right! I bow to your extensive expertise on BenC’s body! 😉 I wasn’t even thinking about whether it was him, just laughing about the toe-standing and wondering about the coat. Makes sense logistically, too; why wait for him to be not-busy enough to stand in a backlit hallway? Just get someone to, uh… stand in… the hallway for him.
This is additional evidence that Benedict Cumberbatch is genetically more model than human. He can stand still with more swagger than an arbitrary actor specifically trying to imitate him, and we can easily observe the difference. That’s talent.
Anyway I deleted the BenC tag but I still enjoy the aesthetic~ so I’ll keep the edit.
Well, I’ve kind of watched how he moves and stands because I’m curious as to the mechanics of just how he created the Sherlock swagger/physical persona. I mean, grabbing the coat by its pockets and making sure it swirls and opens is one thing and it’s clearly something he’s sold in other roles. But his backing into things or holding his eyes on something while moving away is an interesting technique and builds the impression of hyper-focus. Plus, it’s obvious he’s studied both dance and yoga: remember how he lowers himself into chataranga in 221C to look at the sneakers (TGG) without touching them? Great form!
It’s the more interesting because he clearly gives people the impression of being tall (as the script plays on, of course), as Sherlock, when he’s only 6′ tall—an average sort of height today for a man. Of course, that’s helped out by them shooting up rather more than down at him, not to mention playing against MF so much. In reality, he’s got very much a swimmer’s body with narrow shoulders, even though his suits make more of them with their cut (there’s a rear view of him sitting at the pink lady’s laptop at the desk in SIP that is very dramatic in showing this). And despite all of the fanfic about his “endless” legs, he actually has rather short legs for his body length and a proportionately long trunk. Again, the suits are wonderful for disguising this. The Sherlock body comes together as a very professional work of physical acting and costume design, and how carefully-crafted it is really shows up by contrast in TAB where he is more stiff and still, in keeping with, as he said, the costumes of that period.
Maybe this sounds as though it’s just an infatuation with the actor, but in reality, I’m interested in how an ordinary lanky guy manages to create such a character. I know BC said that he watched Brett and based a lot of his physical mannerisms on Brett’s Holmes, and for me, this all makes a great deal of difference to the vivid nature of the character he’s created. And that guy up there in the MHR photo (as well as whoever is acting his hands in the monastery and German trial scenes…and the teapot scene in TRF) just doesn’t have that part of the job down.
Sherlock Fandom Archive 