Let me know if anyone wants me to delete any of their quotes.

Vhanja wrote:

I can't help thinking, professional or no, how that must feel playing scenes like that when they are a couple in real life. How does it feel to have your actual partner look at you like that? Of course Amanda knows it's acting, but I'm still wondering about how that must feel.

mrshouse wrote:

That is an interesting one. I don't think about that very much, I'm quite sure that both are professional enough to leave that out.
But I think it's not a good sign if you think of the real life couple in scenes like this one. That doesn't make up for the astounding lack of chemistry Martin and Amanda have in this show. A proper casting could have done a world of good.

Vhanja wrote:

Oh, I think they have tons of chemistry on the show!
Edit: I just realise that was an odd thing to write considering I just started a thread asking what chemistry is. What I meant was that I like how they portray their relationship, they feel comfortable around each other.

ancientsgate wrote:

I thought it was odd that TPTB cast her in the Mary role to start with. I really never quite forget that she's Martin's RL SO when I ever see them together on-screen.  It throws me out of the story, every time. And now apparently we're going to be stuck with the Mary character from now until eternity, so I guess I better get used to it.

besleybean wrote:

Really?  I think they act fantastically together and I think their characters are well suited.

mrshouse wrote:

I find them quite boring in this particular setting, but maybe that's just me. I think they could have casted a Mary with whom Martin interacts in a more sparcly way.

nakahara wrote:

One word: NEPOTISM! (of a big kind)
If you want to prove why such thing is bad for a show, don´t look any further.

besleybean wrote:

I think all of the BBC Sherlock actors are talented and perform well in the show.
Amanda was always the obvious choice for Mary.
I always said so and in fact as far as I'm aware, as was one of the first to predict she would be used in that role.

Yitzock wrote:

If it were bad for the show, then they shouldn't have cast Benedict's parents as Sherlock's parents or Louis Moffat as young Sherlock.  But they were good, and I don't think Amanda is bad as Mary either.  Obviously not everyone's going to agree, but I don't think there's anything wrong with her in the role.
Besides, if you don't like Mary, it doesn't matter who's going to play her, you still probably wouldn't like her, I don't think, considering the strength of many people's feelings about Mary.

nakahara wrote:

I was thinking about them too. You can also add Ian Hallard acting as a solicitor in TRF, that weird person who acted as Lord Moran in TEH etc. Even the dog in HLV was cast because it belonged to a member of a cast.
This show is overflowing with nepotism... and I fully believe it would be a thousand times better if this would be avoided by the authors.

Yitzock wrote:

You can't say that they never got the opportunity.  You don't know how many people they auditioned.  Not every single cast member was previously a friend.  And Sherlock isn't the only show out there for those who didn't get chosen.  Maybe there's bias, but everything has bias.

nakahara wrote:

We also don´t know how many talented people got refused because BBC employees wanted to cast their aunts, uncles, brothers, sister, canaries and the like in the show their produced.
Nepotism is definitely bad because it chooses friendly or familiar connections over skills or talent...

ancientsgate wrote:

The world is very small nowadays. With the internet, all the fans know about the stars' families and who's who. So yeah, I think particularly in this day and age, it's a big mistake to use real family members in episodic TV roles. Whether or not it was done strictly because of nepotism in this case, I don't know what TPTB's true intentions were/are, so I couldn't say. I imagine, for casual fans, who wouldn't know AA or Ben's parents if they fell over them in the street, it literally doesn't matter who is cast. Sometimes I think we all know too much, which is why we are sometimes dissatisfied by even minor things.
Thank God Martin isn't Ben's long-lost stepbrother or cousin or something, lol. Or vice versa.

ancientsgate wrote:

Again, I still believe that casual fans would neither know nor care who in hell is cast in the show. I find the nepotism thing kind of bizarre, but we know very well that Mofftiss et al consider themselves clever in the extreme, so they probably thought the nepotism (even a dog!) was hysterically funny, all in good sport, and too cool for school.  Which as we know is quite subjective and always a matter of opinion.

Last edited by ukaunz (February 21, 2016 1:38 am)

Good idea for a thread!

The obvious cons I see is that it might quickly lead to talk of people not getting parts because of who they know (or don't know) instead of their skills. Whether that is true or not I don't know, but such blatant nepotism will lead to that kind of talk, understandably so.

Well said, Yitzock. I didn't know of any of the connections when I first watched the show, and I didn't have a problem with the casting of any of the characters we're talking about. I do think people's feelings for the character of Mary are being transferred to AA, consciously or not.

Last edited by ukaunz (February 21, 2016 2:32 am)

I have no problem with any of the characters or actors.
I had issues with Irene, but they were my issues and I did not impose them on the team.
I think Amanda is great and does a good job, I have no problem separating her form Mary.
They were obviously going to follow canon and marry John off.
When dealing with the wife of one of the leads, it's rather difficult for her not to seem between the leads.
Of course she is, she's married to one and pals with the other.
I see her as a bridge, not a barrier.
I do also think there is some truth in what has already been said: it wouldn't have mattered who played Mary, people just don't like her.
I don't see the nepotism as negative at all: I think we are dealing with a group of lovely people who like working in a close, family atmosphere. Possibly the show works so well, because they do all genuinely like each other and get on.
Dealing with the castings of the main characters:
Yes Mark knew Ben slightly from once having worked with him before. But Steven and he both thought of him independently and didn't want to consider anybody else.
Martin had a really bad first audition(and as far as I'm aware, neither Mark or Steven knew him), but got it after a call back. Benedict after said he wanted him, but Mark and Steven had already made that decision by then.
Even in the most recent interview, we see two men who are deeply committed to this show. real ACD fan boys who want to respect that body of work, which they know so well.
But they also want to make the best TV and for me, since the get go, have gathered around them the best team to fulfill that.
They have never disappointed me.
I doubt they ever will.
They are starting with a good product and have faithfully brought it into the 21st century.
The latest interviews I've seen have both told us that Mark and Steven are in complete tune with each other and they've said previously they collaborate enormously.They write the show for themselves.
I won't ever apologise for them being intelligent, creative and original writers.

Last edited by besleybean (February 21, 2016 8:48 am)

ukaunz wrote:

........... I didn't know of any of the connections when I first watched the show..............

When did the (alleged) nepotism start? Most of us were hooked on Sherlock, and (for me anyway) BC and MF and the Sherlock-John relationship, well before Mary was introduced.

I knew the gal with the jade hair pin was BC's RL GF at the time, but she was such a minor character!  What did she have, like 5 minutes of dialogue and screen time?  Not much, whatever it was, and we never saw her again.  But sorry, when they take a major recurring, multi-season character like Mary, and not only make her John's wife but also get her with child, ensuring that she'll be there in some way or another for *forever*, to me, that's MAJOR nepotism, the kind that hardly anyone would not notice.

After all, hair pin! gal and Irish setter! dog and BC's real life! parents?  We barely saw them, just for a few minutes altogether. But with the casting of AA, TPTB made an executive decision that nepotism be damned, they were going with it, and if no one liked it, well....  they could go watch something else.
 

Whatever the reasoning was, I don't really think it's the worst thing they could have done.  Like you have mentioned acientsgate, there are other things we like about the show.  I don't think that the casting choices are a dealbreaker.  For me, I didn't know until after I had seen the entire show that anybody was someone's real life partner or child or parent or what have you.  And when I did find out, it was more of a fun bit of trivia than anything else, and it doesn't bother me upon rewatching any of the episodes or watching new episodes.  I'm watching the characters and the story, not the people in it.  I didn't really know any of these actors well (and I hadn't even seen Benedict in more than two movies at that point) when I started the show, and even after I did become more familiar with them, they were characters when I watch the show.  I don't think about who they are in real life when I'm watching it.  I think they do a good job for me to forget that there's any other relationships off-screen.
And of course, the playing field, I would say, is levelled now between any previously-known people and those who weren't before the show got started because they're all friends now anyway.  Maybe it could have made a difference in the beginning, though I certainly did not notice anything that I didn't like, but since the show has been going on for years now, they are all friends.

I don't know how strong this next thing I'm going to say will be, but it just crossed my mind: any show that goes on for a longer period of time...everyone becomes friends, the people who knew each other before and who didn't know each other before (generally speaking, obviously there have been times when actors didn't get along off-screen, but a lot of casts of shows do end up becoming very comfortable around each other, you can see it in interviews).  If it were so bad to work with people you became friends with, then the quality of all shows' acting would have gone down after a few seasons. But that doesn't happen, does it? Not generally speaking, I would say.
Now, I know we're talking about the initial casting here, but if it were a problem to know people off-screen that you're working with, wouldn't people stop acting well after a while? 
Don't know how well that one holds up, that was kind of a tangent.

Going back to Benedict and Martin - as ukaunz already said, they were not simply chosen because they knew each other.  Martin auditioned and happened to have excellent chemistry with Benedict and things worked out.  Mark may have known of Benedict before, but if Steven thought of him as well then obviously he was the choice they would go with.  Also remember he wasn't as well-known and popular at the time.  And if Martin wasn't as good the firsts time he auditioned as when he read with Benedict, then obviously they still saw something in him (something in somebody they didn't know well), that made them want to give him another go before choosing someone else.  
So I don't think we can say that they necessarily only wanted to cast people they knew and would totally reject anyone they don't know.

And do we even know how they chose Una Stubbs, Louise Brealey, or Rupert Graves? 
If they didn't already know them very well beforehand, then it's only a small part of the main cast that was actually friends and family being cast.  Is it really that big of a deal?

Sorry if the post was kind of long, I kept thinking of things as I was writing.

Una and Benedict were already acquainted too, although I don't suppose that's why they cast her (I suspect they cast her because she's wonderful, and a household name).   Apparently, they changed the show and made her more motherly because she and Benedict already had that kind of a relationship (I can't remember where I got this information from - probably one of the commentaries).

Oh, and I'm sure I've heard Mark mention that he had a crush on Rupert when he was younger (didn't we all?).  Again, no source, and my memory may be playing tricks on me!

Last edited by Liberty (February 21, 2016 3:32 pm)

Some cons of nepotism:

- three authors, not two, worked at Sherlock at the beginning. But poor Thompson, although he wrote one of the most successful episode (TRF), was almost never featured in any promotional work nor interview and at the end he was discreetly sent away or left without even being mentioned. Because he is not "part of the family". It´s a pity and a bit ungrateful that TPTB mutely omitted him and took all the acolades themselves.

- it´s allright when you promise yor friends that you will feature them for a few minutes in your work. It becomes the problem when you do that in the series which has only three episodes every three years. Instead of plotting the brilliant action in an episode, you are suddenly forced to write lengthy scenes for the parents of one actor, the partner of the second actor, some unknown person who asked you to be cast as a villain of the piece, you also write long smug scene for yourself... and suddenly you are at the end of an episode and must help yourself with a bomb off-switch to give the episode some ending....

- casting of a real life couple as a fictional couple in your series makes any discussion of the said fictional couple problematic. If one of the fictional spouses does the nasty thing (like shooting the main character dead), you can´t even point this out - because for some, suddenly it´s the real couple you are criticising...

And yet it´s insinuated that people who criticise Mary subconsciously transfer their dislike of a character to a real life AA...

Well we all have our crosses to bear... if we don't believe in Johnlock, it's insinuated we are homophobes.