Sherlock's Cumberbatch and Freeman Have a Lot to Say About NSFW Fan Art of Them
Many Sherlock BBC fans were adamant that Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s characters were a raunchy couple, but the actors were not happy with that.
Summary:
- Sherlock BBC fans have always been convinced that the main characters were a couple.
- Benedict Cumberbatch found NSFW art “flattering” and “cool.”
- Martin Freeman was discontent with fans’ intense reactions to Sherlock and John not being together.
Back in the day, Sherlock BBC was one of the world’s biggest TV shows that had millions of people in their grip. The adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in the modern age turned out to be way more than a proof of concept as for many years, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman were superstars just for this show.
However, the show’s popularity came with quite a few cons for the actors themselves, too. One of them was the fan community ’s reaction to their characters’ chemistry: way too many people were adamant that Sherlock and John were secret but immensely passionate lovers and kept portraying them in peculiar scenarios.
What Did Benedict Cumberbatch Say About Sherlock Fan Art?
Out of the two fellow stars, Benedict Cumberbatch was the most innocent when it came to the NSFW arts and fan fiction. He had no clue fans were imagining him and Martin Freeman going at it until the latter came back from The Hobbit set and shared some Tumblr revelations with his colleague. Cumberbatch was…surprised.
"[In these arts,] I'm ripped, doing something I wouldn't normally do with my body, or having done to it, involving Watson. So that's as far as I'll hit about that one, but it's all there on the web if you want to find it. I was amazed at the level of artistry; people have spent hours doing it. And there's some really weird cross-breeding stuff that goes on,” the actor told MTV when asked about the explicit fan art.
Apart from being utterly shocked, Cumberbatch didn’t seem to mind the pictures: he even called his bodily proportions in them “flattering,” and the arts themselves “cool.”
What Does Martin Freeman Think About Sherlock Fan Art?
Martin Freeman didn’t address the raunchy arts in particular, but he was rather concerned with fans’ attitude toward his and his co-star's characters. While in general, the actor loved their fan base, he admitted that some fans’ reaction to the fact that Holmes and Watson were never shown to be gay…“challenging.”
“By the time we filmed the last [seasons,] there were some fans who were so adamant that John and Sherlock were gay, they ‘knew’ it. And they ‘knew’ that [Sherlock’s creators] were going to write an episode where we held hands off into the sunset together. So when that didn’t happen, there was a chunk of people going, ‘This is betrayal!’” Freeman shared with The Guardian.
The actor was openly not happy with these fans’ reaction to the lack of hot action between his and Cumberbatch’s characters but couldn’t do anything about it.
Why Did Fans Think Holmes and Watson Were Together?
To be perfectly honest with you, there are quite a few scenes in Sherlock BBC that either imply a somewhat romantic connection between Sherlock and John or joke about this idea. Even Watson’s wife Mary teases him about it at some point; and Mrs. Hudson, too, was rather convinced that her tenants were a couple.
Many fans were adamant that at some point, the show would reveal the much-anticipated truth about Sherlock and John’s relationship, and they were devastated when the series wrapped up without ever confirming that the two were together. The fans’ reaction was rather intense, as Martin Freeman pointed out.
And honestly? It was deserved considering all the years Sherlock BBC spent teasing such a revelation. But, as Benedict Cumberbatch came to realize, there’s a plethora of fan art and fan fiction that fixes this “oversight” from the show’s creators.
Sources: MTV, The Guardian