Freeman does Sherlock because he loves it. He regards Cumberbatch incredibly highly: “He’s sweet and generous in an almost childlike way. He’s very easy to screw over. I could take advantage of him playing cards. Actually, I must take advantage of him playing cards. But as an actor, he’s one of the very few people I’ve worked with whose taste I don’t question. Even subconsciously I’m not going, ‘Well, I wouldn’t have done it like that.’ He commits.”

Cumberbatch pretends to dislike Freeman. “He’s always doing kung fu on me,” he says, mock-peevishly. “We’ll be standing around, and I won’t be paying any attention to him, and then he suddenly goes, ‘HYYYMMNNNN’ and his hand is right next to my windpipe.” He pauses. “On the other hand, before now he’s asked to have jokes for Watson taken out of the script, because he says it’s taking the attention away from me doing Holmes. He’ll be doing some subtle, Mike Leigh thing, and I’ll be… the posh talkative one with the flouncy coat.”