This week’s penultimate episode of Fargo’s Season 2 was THE BUSINESS. OMG. I came to Season 1 of Fargo late in the game, and I loved binge-watching it after it aired. But for Season 2, I’ve been watching every week, and each episode just keeps getting better and better. Do I miss seeing Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman? Absolutely. But the cast for Season 2 is stellar, and literally every actor on there is doing their best work. So imagine my happiness and surprise when Martin Freeman popped up in a “vocal cameo” in this week’s episode? That was Martin Freeman, using his real English accent, doing narration throughout the episode. It was a beautiful way to give the audience a throwback to Season 1.
Anyway, Freeman has a new interview with the Radio Times (a British publication), and some people think he’s taking a swipe at his Sherlock costar Benedict Cumberbatch. A few months ago, Benedict got on stage after a performance of Hamlet and said “f—k the politicians” in a diatribe about the Syrian refugee crisis. When asked about actors-doing-politics, here’s what Martin Freeman had to say:
“Some people think celebrities pontificating is great. Others say, ‘Are you serious? Shut up and get back to work.’ I used to be very political and still am to an extent. Actors can be pompous and we can overestimate our importance, but it’s not a mistake to have a social conscience. I won’t overdo it, go on Newsnight or Question Time and become a ‘pundit for hire’. It’s deeply annoying to hear someone like me, who doesn’t know everything, bang on – the quickest and most justifiable way for people to hate me. But as a British citizen – sorry, subject of the Queen – it’s my right to have an opinion. The trouble is I’m gobby and my life would be over in five minutes if I went on Twitter or Facebook because there’s no nuance. They’ll say, ‘If you believe this, you must hate that’. No. There are grey areas.”
[From the Radio Times via The Daily Mail]
Freeman is apparently an outspoken Labour Party supporter, which I actually didn’t know until today. I mean, I gathered that Freeman was more liberal than the average bloke, and that he’s more of a working-class hipster than a posh private-school toff. But most of that was just assumption on my part, not based on any particular statements he’s made about political stuff. My interpretation is that Freeman doesn’t think much of “pompous” Benedict saying “f—k the politicians,” but that the endgame of their political views is probably pretty similar.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I didn’t see shade at all. I just thought he was expressing an opinion of actors in general. Just my humble opinion.
I feel the same. For awhile now, there seems to be an aim to portray some sort of friction between MF and BC. I doubt that they were ever as great friends as first implied or as great enemies as now is pitched. Just two actors who work on a show together but who live quite different personal lives.
Agreed. I didn’t see any shade at all. Mostly, he appeared to be saying that actors have a right to an opinion but should be careful lest they drive away fans. I really love his sensible, non Hollywood polluted reality.
Me too. Trying to stir up something that isn’t there. Got us to click, didn’t it? : )
Nah. Mention of Freeman and Cumberbatch did, not any perceived discord.
Agree. I didn’t think he was directly referring to BC.
Me either. No shade. Tempest in a teapot created by media. All it does is prove Freeman’s point.
I didn’t either. I thought what he said sounded very sensible, and I didn’t think he was trying to shade anyone.
And I was ridiculously happy when I realized it was him narrating this week’s episode of “Fargo.”
I sat up with a start while watching the latest episode of Fargo, and thought “hold on a mo, is that the dulcet tones of Martin Freeman”? Sure enough it was! Made the episode even more riveting. I just love this chap, and he can be gobby around me any old time he likes!
I was going to wait a binge watch, but now I don’t know if I can wait. Martin rules!
Oh Good! Because I reread it before going to the comments incase I missed Shade. I found none too.
He’s too adorable to shade.
” I gathered that Freeman was more liberal than the average bloke, and that he’s more of a working-class hipster than a posh private-school toff”
labour is just as posh as conservatives, really not working class at all. conservatives happen to be more elitist, but labour is hardly a working class movement.
btw i don’t think he’s throwing shade to anybody, in the same sentence he’s saying that while it might be annoying for actors who might be ignorant to be too opinionated, it’s still their right to have opinions and share them. he’s talking about himself, imo.
I disagree! You get working class Tories and Posh people who support The Labour Party, but as a general rule POSH = Tory. Me, I am pretty much working class and I would walk in front of a bus before I would vote for the Conservatives. I love Martin Freeman, by the way, Cumberbatch, not so much.
PLP = posh. Labour members = plebs! 😉
i dislike them both, maybe freeman a bit more because he’s quite horrible whereas ben cumb is just annoying.
and i’m not so sure about the posh= tory thing. many people i went to uni with were posh and very well off, and very much involved in the labour party. maybe that general rule applied once, nowadays i think it’s different.
Its not unusual for younger toffs to lean left in university. Call it rebellion or hipster wannabe tendencies. Trust me, the majority “grow out of it”, especially as the prospect of succeeding daddy looms larger.
Naya, absolutely! socialism is a disease of that may strike the younger toff, but they tend to quickly grow out of it. Unless they work in the arts, in which case they become liberals and completely fail to recognize how ridiculously privileged they are as they ‘suffer’ for their art.
True socialism is not the disease, it’s the cure.
Nice click bait headline.
Nothing reported indicates he was referencing BC at all.
Thats all she does these – there is probably a job for her at the Daily Mail should she want it – though its possible even they would think she is a hack.
No shade on BC in my opinion, but hasn’t Freeman expressed some awful opinions of his own about women?
he did. he’s really not a nice person in the slightest.
Which always struck me as weird because Amanda Abbington does not come across like someone who’d put up with that shizz for a second! :/
she doesn’t seem very nice either, tbf. i don’t know of anyone who think highly of them in the uk tbh. they’re good actors so they’re fairly popular, but most certainly not as nice people. especially not him.
When he was on the cover of Entertainment Weekly for The Hobbit and Fargo, he said right in the article that he wasn’t a very nice person. That was the first I’d heard of it–and he plays such nice characters a lot that it seemed he must be like that. 🙂
Freeman has also made comments against multi-culturalism. He says it’s ruining Britain. So I’m sure the refugee crisis chaps his ass.
Little man syndrome.
Freeman has a very dark sense of humour. I think his words often get interpreted as truth when they were meant as a joke.
lmao no. the excuse “but it was a joke!” to say all sorts of horrible things is a poor one at best. some of the things he says are clearly not jokes, but just incredibly offensive stuff he masks as “jokes”.
I love that dark, sarcastic sense of humour, it is very British. I read an interview with him a few years back and it was so funny because there was no way he was anything but English. It was all about the rhythm of his speech, the sarcasm and his preoccupation with tea. Which reminds me, it must be at least 2 hours since I had a cuppa.
I can tell they’re jokes. They don’t offend me. To each their own.
I’m having a hard time imagining Martin Freeman saying something bad about women. I can clearly imagine him saying something that might come across like that.
This has to be about this rape joke he made. Or the one about Lucy Lui. He has this way of making jokes that are funny because he thinks the absolute opposite. When written down out of context the joke, of course, magically disappears. Not getting it, does say something about someone’s character judging abilities.
Martin Freeman an awful person? No, just no.
http://www.ew.com/article/2014/05/01/martin-freeman-does-not-want-be-your-friend
“Spend a little time around Freeman and you can pick up an electric undercurrent of anger humming inside him. He is perfectly aware that it’s there. ”There’s quite a deep well of it,” he says. ”It alarms me sometimes.” Asked what kinds of things make him angry, he answers, ”F—ing name it. Some of it is a sort of lighthearted anger that I know will pass, but some of it is pretty deep-seated and a fundamental part of me that I think people often don’t understand.” ”
Sounds like a lovely guy.
http://yourfaveisproblematic.tumblr.com/post/45883559709/martin-freeman
http://i.imgur.com/o2Nm6iS.jpg
The latter especially… if this was supposed to be a JOKE? He must be out of his mind.
Never heard that. Do you recall what he said?
really? He never struck me as sexist. What exactly did he say about women?
Martin Freeman had a steady career going before he ever paired off with Cumberbatch in Sherlock and has done quite few interesting things without him since. It must drive him batty that whatever he says or does, the media drags Cumberbatch into it.
ITA. I imagine it drives most people who co-star with people on Benedict’s level nuts that their comments can be over-analyzed to death.
Give me Freeman any day over Benny.Freeman is the much better actor and has a wider more interesting CV as do many actors but the press just keep pushing Cumberbatch-The telegraph in their yearly drama review put him forward as the most high profile actor of the year which considering it is the press and his constant publicity gambits which put him there is ridiculous.
Just glad Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis are up for a Globes in Wolfe Hall and getting some prestige attention as opposed to fan worship
As for shade -it was put foward in the UK papers as support -it really is all about preception
I don’t think he’s throwing shade at all. He’s just discussing actors and politics in general.
I think I may be able to shed some light!
Don’t think he was doing a Bendy Bitch. Amanda Abbington has just been in a BBC1 show, Cuffs, and I saw an interview with her promoting it in which she was asked about social media and why is she so active on it while Martin isn’t. So it was probably a topic of discussion between them recently. It’s probably just that.
Freeman is your typically curmudgeonly Brit. If he were on Twitter, you’d be writing a story about the latest furore over some obnoxious thing or other he had said at least twice a week!
He doesn’t seem to have a filter and he seems cranky most of the time.
Honestly, if he was on social media, he would be HATED here. Look at the roastings Daniel Craig gets. Freeman would be much worse because he’s not only curmudgeonly but also plebeian and therefore even more blunt. I really don’t think the cues of what is serious, what isn’t, what is straight, what is satirical, etc, would make it through transatlantic translation. I definitely recommend him to stay well away from Twatter!
Twatter-LOL! Typo or intentional? Funny. But, yeah, I don’t remember the exact details, but when EW did an interview with him to promote Fargo I, he came across as quite crochety.
you’re talking as if brits get his humour, whereas many in britain just cannot stand him. transatlantic translation is really not the issue.
Susanne – intentional. Is Mr Sixer’s name for Twitter!
ell – honestly, everyone I know likes him and just rolls their eyes when he gets on an obnoxious high horse. Same way as they roll their eyes when their mates say arsey things down the pub. I think you are the non-transatlantic minority.
I can’t think of a single person in my family or any of my friends who wouldn’t get or appreciate Freeman’s humour. I would love him to go on Have I got News for You, he would fit right in. Maybe has has already? I know he was a big hit on SNL.
some people like him because he played jim in the office, so they have some remaining affection towards him. i’m the opposite btw, i don’t really know anyone who likes him as a person. as an actor yes, as a person no.
Hes quite popular in the UK has been for a long time. He has been known to b quite sarcastic with no filter in interviews and on the red carpet. And he is a nice guy to his fans – he was known to b very gracious to Hobbit/Sherlock loons/fans who waited at the stage door when he did Richard III last summer.
Although I’m not aware of his anti multi cultural comments. He does seem like someone whose speaks before thnking.
http://jezebel.com/hobbit-star-makes-truly-awful-joke-about-rap-or-wh-1485204329
@Ell- I believe that is the link you’re talking about which also provides a link to a bunch of other dumb S**t he’s said. Sorry, I don’t find him particularly funny or nice either.
@Marty, yes. it annoys me when people can’t tell the difference between dark humour, like charlie brooker’s for instance, and making unfunny rape jokes.
I never watched the Office.
Brit here – I honestly have never seen or heard of anyone disliking him, other than online/in fandom. I mean, he’s not beloved like David Tennant or Mary Berry (and what a supercouple that would make!). I’m sure there are people here who dislike him – in any country with a population of millions, there will be a wide range of opinions – but to say oh he’s disliked in Britain doesn’t ring true.
Cumberbatch is probably more contentious here. Freeman’s just one of those actors who’s been around and in the public eye for such a very long time (US audiences might only know him from Sherlock but he’s been famous here for yonks) that I guess he’s sort of taken for granted?
I think in the UK there are many more people who dislike BC than MF. I come across some who really can’t stand Bendy, but are ok with Martin; rarely the other way round.
@Sixer
As a brit, i can’t say i agree with idea that he is typically curmudgeonly Brit. Most of us aren’t staunchly against multi cultural society….
thank you. he’s just a twat, nothing to do with being a brit.
I’m thinking of general rude curmudgeon, which he is and I don’t object to. However, he’s also lapsed into xenophobic white van man mode, which I do object to. I think two different things? I’m not suggesting the latter is something I smile and pat him on the head for, honest, Leah. But I think we both know that white van man opinion is really not unusual in Britland. I think, if Freeman were on Twatter, he’d get into some deserved trouble, but I also think he would get into some undeserved trouble too, in the vein of Craig, or Emily whatsit, or or or.
Most people in the UK ( at least to my knowledge) accept multi cultural society, in fact most don’t even think about it, its just is what we are accustomed too for many generations now. Many may be against new immigration ( eastern europeans bear the brunt, islamophobia ) but that in itself doesnt make them against the idea of cultures mixing generally, which is the sort of opinion Freeman infamously expressed.
Seriously i am so surprised most commentators here seem willing to excuse him as a “typical british grump” or “he just has dark humour”, whereas that other grump Stellan Skarsgard was attacked because he said some bad stuff about barbie..and how far behind Sweden the US is in terms of feminism…
Even Cumberbatch was attacked for campaigning for the refugees. Which is sort of less of a political stance then a humanitarian cause in my opinion. I mean you can be a tory, a labour supporter or a liberal democrat and be compelled to help with the humanitarian crisis thats unfolding.
Leah – THAT’S the point I’m making! I didn’t attack Stellan. Or Blunt. Or Craig. Or or or. But a great many people here did. THAT’S exactly what I’m saying. Let Freeman loose, and he’ll get castigated on here every time he opens his mouth.
I’m not saying he has never said anything problematic. He has. And I’m certainly not defending the problematic opinions. Surely you know me better than that by now? But filter that out for a moment. What I’m saying is that he would be hated for all the other stuff too.
Sixer, i should add that the latter part of the comment was not directed specifically at you. I am just surprised at the comments in general, not yours specifically. I only disagreed with a small part of your comment ( the britishness) 🙂
I thought he was fantastic on Fargo, i love his work but lets be honest this guy, is, as Ell says, a twat, nothing to do with his nationality.
Is it really bad that all’s I can think of is the long line of “Twat!” remarks that would comprise the replies to every post he ever put on Twatter?
Freeman: Morning, Twatter. How are you today?
Everyone: Twat!
I love Fargo. I especially love that I didn’t need to see the first season to start the second (I’ll go back to the first eventually). I love Kirsten Dunst. Everyone’s just amazing. Why is this show not a bigger thing?
I missed the first season as well and have just started watching it (on episode 5) and I have to say that I like Season 2 better. The casting for both seasons is stellar, imo. And you’re right, why isn’t it more of a thing?!
Also, I love Martin Freeman and I love the word ‘pontificate’.
Nope, no shade, just Martin expressing a very pertinent truth.
As he says, it’s a fine balance being passionate and vocal about issues without crossing that ‘overbearing and turning people off’ line.
That’s a massive stretch to call that shade! But hey I clicked on the story so I guess it worked. 😉
Freeman’s been heavily criticized for some “political” comments he’s made in the past. No shock he is leery of getting involved.
Freeman is an excellent actor but a bit of a hypocrite. He made that advert for Labour and then it came out that he had let his longtime partner Amanda Abington go bankrupt rather than pay her tax bill, when he had many financial resources.
she was evading taxes. they’re both the worst.
YES. This is my beef with Martin and Amanda: that she evaded taxes, and that he didn’t help her pay them. Obviously he has no legal obligation to help her, because they weren’t married, but does he have a moral or ethical obligation? It would be a drop in the bucket for him, and they could have structured it as a loan.
Even if you believe that he doesn’t have that obligation, she was able to go through bankruptcy with no (or few) consequences as far as her lifestyle was concerned, because Martin’s money was there to support her and their children. That’s not a benefit most people have.
I always wonder if they’re not married partly because they want to keep his finances free of her fuckups. She has redeemed herself a bit recently by directly addressing the bankruptcy issue in a big interview (maybe for the Observer?) In the end, I do like them as actors, but I don’t think they’re necessarily very nice people. It’s a good lesson for why actors shouldn’t be considered role models.
yes, exactly. that’s why the comments about people in the UK liking those 2 as people make me laugh. clearly they don’t hang out with people who read the news.
I don’t think he’s throwing shade but he does bring a good point about going crazy on a political idea and really not knowing all the facts and that applies to everybody not just entertainers. The way I see it for them is damn if you do and damn if you don’t
Can someone explain to me them what party really does represent the working class over there? Seems to me that neither of parties in reference represent the working class but then again it’s the same here in the US for the most part though I can’t even register why someone here will back a Republican these days unless you’re a man, really rich and really white (IMO)
Labour has traditionally positioned itself as the party of the working class (although there have always been lots of poshos involved with it, as someone points out above). UKIP is now trying to establish itself as the party of the working class – it appeals to a similar kind of audience as Donald Trump does. White, working class, very anti-immigration.
back back back in the day, labour started as representing the working class as well and being a socialist movement. since tony blair and nu!labour that went to pot. corbyn has a more leftist feel, yet it’s hard to say they represent working class. truth to be told i don’t believe britain has a real party that represents working class anymore.
Yes ITA. I had hopes Corbyn would unite the party but alas he’s allowed it to become more divided and they r eating him alive for it. He’s not a back bench anarchist anymore he has a chance to put the money where his mouth is and make changes. If he wants the party and country to get behind him he needs to get rid of Watson, Burnley and Abbot and move McDonnel into another position. I cringed at his ‘joke’ a few was ago about Chariman Mao, he should have taken the chance to rip Osborn a new one and put forth his ideas for the economy.
Betti – it’s all a bit of a shambles at the moment, isn’t it? Don’t give up hope, though. I think it’s going to take at least a year for them to develop an economic policy and have you seen who is on the policy committee? Piketty, Stiglitz, Mazzucato, Pettiffor, etc. If they can’t produce something worth voting for, I’d be surprised. I think we might be happier this time next year. I hope so, anyway!
Sixer – Yes lets hope they can pull it together but I sometimes fear that they are giving the Tory’s another election win 🙁
Some people from his own party was attacking Corbyn from the moment he became the leader. A lot of the more elitist labour party completely ignored the fact that he won with such a large percentage of the votes and what that should be telling them.
Corbyn won with a large percentage of the people in the Labour Party who voted for him. That’s a very, very small percentage of the public. The Labour elites are quite rightly concerned with Labour’s ability to win a general election under Corbyn.
In what world is Freeman very liberal? He has said some deeply problematic things about women (rape joke) and ethnic minorities ( he “joked” that Lucy Lui is ugly and a dog), hes against multi cultural society and said inflammatory things about muslims. The reason he probably doesnt want to say anything political anymore is that his past comments landed him in so much trouble.
Wow. You really have no sense of humor. The Lucy Liu thing was a joke. He was being asked about Elementary. They both play Watson. He jokingly said she was ugly and he was the better Watson. IN JEST. For Pete’s sake.
No, he didn’t preface the joke with, “btw, this is a joke, i am not being disrespectful to women or ethnic minorities and I don’t really mean this, I’m actually being extremely self deprecating and I love their show hugs kisses smoochy wooches please understand this is a joke wink wink nudge nudge JOKE”.
Is that what we have to do now? Should we even tell jokes? Maybe we should never open our mouths or communicate in grunts like cave people. Oh crap, did I just offend cave people?!? OH THE HORROR!
SloaneY. Instead of attacking me personally (since we don’t know each other i don’t think you are in a position to categorically state that i don’t have a sense of humour 😉 ) could you please explain whats so funny about the majority of his comments?
I referred to a number of comments ( not just the Lui comment, which i will give you) Freeman has made, some of whom where made in the guise of jokes and others clearly were not such as his xenophobic comments.
Sixer
I hear you on Gaza. And thanks for being such a respectful commentator.
Why don’t we just say we have very different opinions on what is humorous. 😉
@SloaneY if someone has to make jokes about rape and minorities they should ask themselves why.
@ Leah
You got things very wrong. SloaneY corrected your very wrong statements about Freeman. And that is perfectly acceptable.
And no, SloaneY didn’t personally attack you. And yes, you do lack a sense of humour if you don’t get that Freeman was joking. And no, such a lack of a sense of humour is not a personal attack but merely stating a fact.
@ ell
I am a woman and I like mysogynist and rape jokes, too. And jokes about minorities. As a matter of fact in my opinion jokes needn’t be politically correct as long as you don’t abuse jokes purposefully and intentionally to make somebody feel bad. They are only problematic in the office. Otherwise they are right to free speech as they are a form of art.
when women start comments with “i’m a woman and i’m ok with that” i roll my eyes to eternity and back. women can be misogynist, too.
also, just for the record, freedom of speech as intended in the states doesn’t exist in the UK.
Pondering thoughts
I have already said i will give the Liu comment to SloaneY ( i remembered it wrongly), so i am not sure why you felt the need to continue down that road?
Now, sense of humour is not an objective thing, it may be that you find rape and minority jokes funny but there are people who don’t for various reason. There may be stuff these people find hysterical that you don’t.
Furthermore this is a discussion about a celebrity its unnecessary to turn the conversation into statements about random commentators personality, There should be other ways for you to get your point across.
Ill leave you with Freemans comments about multicultural society since you seem to have ignored that part of my comment in favour of the Liu comment, which really wasn’t the main point. My point was that a man who comes out with the statement below is not a liberal (as this post states) – Liberal as in you know.. tolerant, unprejudiced, unbigoted, broad-minded, open-minded…)
“Multiculturalism hasn’t and doesn’t help, because rightly or wrongly it polarises people so much,” he continues.
“Racism is one thing, and I don’t agree with that in any form, but noticing that there are differences is normal and fine and to be encouraged.
“We’ve reached a state now where it’s, ‘You shouldn’t notice. Why are you noticing he’s got a bomb and has a beard and is Muslim and wants to kill your family?”
“There is no country in the world like this. If all of a sudden all the traffic wardens in Ghana were Welsh, they’d really notice and might not love it? We give ourselves a hard time in this country in a sort of mea culpa way. But if we were that racist, people wouldn’t come. Very simple.”
http://jezebel.com/hobbit-star-makes-truly-awful-joke-about-rape-or-wh-1485204329
Leah – the multicultural comments were AWFUL. He thoroughly deserved all the stick he got. Mind you, to set against that – he fronted the DEC appeal video for Gaza reconstruction, which was not a popular gig, given the BBC had even refused to screen the one before that. I tend to concur with Sloane about Liu.
No shade, in my opinion.
“It’s deeply annoying to hear someone like me, who doesn’t know everything, bang on ”
Smart man! As an aside, I watched Love Actually the other night (a Christmas tradition) and I got two shocks. The first was that the pudgy porn film stand in was Martin Freeman, and the second was that Andrew Lincoln is a Brit!
Oooooh you didn’t know about Andrew Lincoln! He has the best voice and his accent really is good. But if you remember back to the episode where he was hallucinating and hearing a ‘voice’ on the radio–the English voice? That was actually him usuing his real voice–sort of an inside joke. But I love when he’s on Talking Dead. Lauren Cohan (Maggie) and Lennie James (Morgan) are also British.
Lennie James has a very long and amazing body of work. He is a national treasure, and can play any part, with any accent required. Some of his early BBC work especially Prime Suspect, is revelatory, and worth catching up with.
I have been madly in love with Andrew Lincoln since Love Actually. I know nothing about the man. I rarely watch his other work. But his portrayal of that character completely slayed me
I love Love Actually. Just thought I’d throw that in.
I don’t know what it is ,but after Fargo I find him all kinds of sexy.
He is growing on me, too.
Of course you can read backhanded compliments into Freeman’s statement. But that is very very very far fetched. Freeman is totally right that private citizens often get a good kicking for statements which are largely okay and often positive but some detail is somewhat off or offensive. This one offensive detail is then used as a reason to declare war on that citizen. Then the whole internet trashes this person without considering that the original statement wasn’t entirely bad but merely that one detail.
It happened to Cumberbatch.
I would really support a less hateful approach. Not everybody can hold a Phd about all those things one wants to talk about. So one should execute more mild judgement if somebody just gets some minor details wrong. The question should always be: To which degree is the message offensive? Trashing people for getting details wrong does say a lot about those keyboard knights in virtual reality.
There must be a difference in the treatment of an outspoken racist and of people like Cumberbatch who used an outdated expression but delivered a decent message otherwise.
Freeman doesn’t do any political statements because he fears that he might get something not entirely right and then the hate would start. Nevertheless he doesn’t seem to mind that one knows that he is liberal and a Labour supporter.
Cumberbatch does make political statements and his statements are usually quite good. Sometimes he gets some details wrong or some phrasing causes offence but that didn’t stop him so far.
Both have a different approach but I doubt either would throw shade at the other one.
Pondering Thoughts —
“Freeman doesn’t do any political statements because he fears that he might get something not entirely right”
Nope. Sorry. Freeman is very political. He did a PSA for the Labour Party this year. He led a PETA campaign against animals appearing in circus acts. He’s used his fame to lobby KFC to change their policies. He also advocated for aid people in Gaza. He is political. Buy maybe he regrets being so very political for so long.
I agree with Zavi. Freeman is very political, or was until he realised that if you are famous, the media will find out anything you have done that is contradictory to what you say. See also Jimmy Carr.
Famous people, like Freeman, Carr and Adele, are particularly susceptible to this. They’re generally uneducated and are taxed very differently from the rest of us. We have PAYE, where our taxes are deducted each month so we don’t see them going out of our bank accounts. They are paid everything and are supposed to keep an amount aside to pay the taxman. They either don’t do that, or have dodgy advisors, or want to join dodgy schemes to avoid tax (or some combination of the three).
@ Tina
“I agree with Zavi. Freeman is very political, or was until he realised that if you are famous, the media will find out anything you have done that is contradictory to what you say. See also Jimmy Carr.”
That is precisely what I described. If you don’t get a statement perfectly right then you will be torn to pieces for some minor inprecisions or little imperfections. The general message is always ignored by the media.
You do the same: demonstrating the same attitude as the media with regard to my comment.
@Pondering thoughts, these are not “minor imprecisions or little imperfections”. You make the same error as the celebs, assuming that taxes don’t count. Taxes are very important.
Freeman is political. Just he isn’t so openly political in interviews and his own public statements. And that is the difference to Cumberbatch who is openly political in interviews and his own public statements.
The danger is that Cumberbatch sometimes doesn’t get something perfectly right. And Freeman wants to avoid that.
@ Zavi
I differentiate between making your own political statements and joining political campaigns. Freeman doesn’t do the first but the latter.
You comment is a perfect example for that nitpicking attitude in the media that Freeman criticises.
Paying your taxes isn’t nitpicking. Normal people go to jail if they don’t pay them.
Martin Freeman’s been far more politically vocal than Benedict Cumberbatch (he’s actively campaigned for a political party, whereas Cumberbatch has only really spoken about refugees which is a humanitarian issue rather than a political one) so he’s probably thinking about himself and his own experiences.
I strongly doubt he’s intentionally throwing shade or even thinking about Cumberbatch. They don’t appear to have particularly ever been close friends. Probably Cumberbatch is just another actor out of dozens he’s worked with, someone he gets on fine with, but probably rarely thinks about when they’re not working together. Like most co-workers, basically.
Freeman is a classic limousine liberal. Wants working class values to be implemented…. for everyone else. The type who has climbed the ladder and now wants the ladder to be pulled up to stop the rest of the world succeeding because he’s decided that money isn’t the route to happiness.
From memory, he lives in very nice houses and his kid goes to private school. In direct contradictions of his ‘for the workers’ shtick that he rolls out from time to time.
So you are saying that anyone who’s “made good” shouldn’t stay a liberal and become – as if by osmosis – a conservative?
There’s a difference between sending your kids to a good school and believing that only kids with money have a right to good education. Fighting to prevent the latter should be the goal for every human being, but it’s isn’t in the UK with the Tories in power.
Freeman made good and does still support the bottom half of the population. That is something one should congratulate him for.
Just because somebody is rich that doesn’t mean that this person isn’t allowed to support a common goal like good free education for all.
I agree with hermia.
Just because you send your children to a private school that doesn’t mean that you can’t support good free education for all.
I love Freeman.
People only seem to be ok with it when an actor/singer/musician voices political opinions that they personally share. Otherwise, they’ll say things like “Who gives a sh*t what this idiot thinks? Why can’t actors just shut up and act?”
People here seem to confuse Martin Freeman the person, with the likeable characters he plays. I don’t find him likeable or intelligent at all. He’s a good actor and that’s it.
I love him soooo much. Can’t wait to watch that episode of Fargo he’s featured in in Ssn 2. I tuned in to Fargo coz of him (thanks for the intro Sherlock + The Hibbit, where he has been an absolute thrill to watch and has turned me into a fan) and season 2 has been equally if not even more delirious (and delicious) than season 1. And Lord knows I love me some British accent so that’s a double dose of pleasure for sure (though Benedict Cumberbatch’s combo of a deep sexy voice and a british accent is now my go-to audio book set standard, i’d still take an audio book by Mr. Freeman anyday 🙂 ) He is honestly so very exciting to me in his work. Offscreen, he tends to speak his mind and say a whole lot of crazy things as though forgetting that he is addressing the man-eating media and not a personal friend. I kinda like that, i appreciate honesty in celebs. But i feel for him when the backlash comes back to bite him. Here, i feel he measured his words, which is nice, yet remained true to himself. I dont see any “shade”. I do think they curse a lot when they do manage to hang out with Benedict. In some of their interviews, they are both very raw and unedited and i love that. I love too that they are both very passionate abt matters politics because as much as we’d love to ignore it, politics shape our tomorrow and our children’s children’s tomorrow and that’s something thats at the core of humanity, survival into the future.