It is rare to meet two co-stars whose chemistry is obvious before the interview has even begun but before I ask Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge a single question, they are already laughing together.
As they return for Enola Holmes 3, they say that off-screen friendship has helped them bring more ease and affection to Enola and Tewkesbury’s developing relationship.
“We realised we don’t do much prep for some of the scenes – we learn our lines and rehearse and it’s not that we don’t take it seriously but we’re really able to be in it,” Partridge says.
Brown laughs as she jumps in, turning to Partridge with the kind of mock-seriousness that suggests this is a familiar routine between them.
She says they bring out each other’s sillier side and they spend most of their time on set “belly laughing about the most random things”.
“People will say to me, ‘I just met Louis Partridge and I had a really interesting conversation, he’s a really smart guy. I’m like, who? Louis Partridge is a smart guy? When?” We definitely regress into our younger selves.”
Partridge, 23, smiles at this and tells me there is something almost sibling-like about their dynamic, which may explain why they are so comfortable teasing each other.
“We were just remarking that we look like brother and sister,” he says. “There’s definitely a bit of that relationship between us.”
The third film takes Enola, the teenage sister of Sherlock Holmes, to Malta, where her future with Tewkesbury is interrupted by a dangerous new case involving Sherlock’s disappearance.
This chapter pushes the franchise into darker, more grown-up territory which was part of the appeal for new director Philip Barantini, best known for Adolescence and Boiling Point.
“My nine-year-old daughter can’t watch anything I’ve ever done,” he says. “She’s a big fan of Enola, and I wanted to make something we could watch together and challenge myself to do something different.”
His job was made easier by the fact that Brown – who has been a producer on the franchise from the start – was already thinking along similar lines about the direction of the film.
“When I pitched my idea, she was already thinking about incorporating some of the darkness so it made my job easy because we were so aligned.”
The film also gives Himesh Patel a proper introduction as Dr Watson, after a brief cameo at the end of the second film.
“I was just waiting on news for a third movie and it took longer than expected so for a while I was thinking I was going to be the briefest Watson in history, but thankfully that didn’t happen,” he laughs.
Patel says Brown “cares so much about this franchise, the characters and this world” and is not afraid of “creative friction”.
“It’s not an argument, but she puts her opinion forward and wants to have that discussion,” he says.
‘No problem speaking up’
When I ask Brown how she manages to feel so self-assured so young, she laughs before answering.
“I have no problem speaking up, that’s probably my red flag.”
Her confidence seems to come from a deep sense of ownership over Enola – she read the book series, pitched the idea, sold it and helped bring it to Netflix.
“It feels like a part of my heart forever and I have my heart and hands all over this project, and in so many ways it feels like mine.
“I am protective, so I’m making sure we’re bringing it to life in the best way possible.”
But she says she is careful not to tell other actors what to do and never gives them notes.
“I’ve been on the other end of it and I don’t want to be that annoying producer but I think about it a lot when I go home and write everything down.”
Enola stays with her so much that Brown’s husband, Jake Bongiovi, who also worked on the film, says she sometimes takes the character home with her.
Brown agrees that Enola definitely stays with her and jokes that the teen detective’s high standards can also follow her home.
“Enola is high maintenance and sometimes I go home and I’m like, ‘Why does the bed look like that?’ Then I’m like, Millie, chill, you do not need to speak like that.”
What she is most protective of, she says, is Enola’s intelligence.
Partridge remembers filming once stopping “for five hours” because Brown felt Enola would have worked something out sooner.
“She was like, no, no, no, Enola would know that flag is from this country and she would have worked that out.”
Brown cuts in, laughing. “Oh please, it was not five hours,” she says. Partridge revises it to three, but Brown is still not having it.
“He’s such a liar, it was not three hours,” she says.
She insists she is usually “the biggest girl on getting things done quickly”, but says this mattered.
“Like those fans who critique absolutely everything, I want to make sure I’m bringing to life a plot that makes sense and characters that people can believe in.”
Brown is keen to draw a distinction between caring about detail and picking a film apart for the sake of it.
After first-look images from the film were released, some fans questioned whether Enola’s nails looked too modern for the period setting.
“How bleak and boring of the internet, I love a good manicure and so does Enola.”
She sees it as part of a wider habit of people picking things apart online.
“I wasn’t disappointed but I was like, oh OK, that’s what the articles are about. But then again, the internet does not surprise me these days.
“I’ve been through it on the internet.”
Barantini was more amused by the reaction and says he doesn’t think “small things like that matter”.
“Maybe they do for some people but it made me laugh. We just live in a world where everyone is hyper-aware and they find something to zone in on, and it becomes a huge thing.”
“Hopefully in years to come that will change and we can uplift boys and girls,” Brown says.
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11 April 2023
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