MORIARTY CAST, HOPES DASHED

I love it... Harris is great, and if it was Pitt or some one of his ilk I am afraid the movie would just turn onto a Celebrity Death Match episode.

Ugh... My mom is mildly obsessed with this guy. She has an unhealthy MADMEN fixation and Mr Harris is smack dab in the middle of it. Personally, he's one of my least favorite players on the show

Not only can't I see him as Moriarty, I can't see him as a feature film star. He lacks presence and charisma, IMHO.

It's pretty funny that everyone was hoping for the greatest living thespian (DDL), and instead we got Richard Harris....' son.

He's got the chops to deliver a Hans Gruber calibre villain, if the script is there. I would have loved ddl, but was that ever anything but fanwank?

Harris, Fry, and Noomi Rapace make this look like a proper Holmes film.

Good actor but not who I want playing Moriarty. How far down on the list do you go to get to Jared Harris? 76? 114?

He's pretty damn charismatic as Captain Mike in Button. I like this casting, because i don't know what to expect.

He is great on Mad Men but the first thing I think about when it comes to Jared Harris is Lady in the Water. That's unfortunate.

Dude's a chameleon. Go watch I Shot Andy Warhol or Smoke. Great news.

Here he is as John Lennon. TV movie, but still.

For me the first thing I think of is Lost in Space, which is equally sad.

Hopefully this changes that.

He was in Lost in Space?

Glad DDL didn't bite.

He played the Older Will Robinson in the future bubble/Spider Smith scene.

Fuck you for revealing such a horrid truth to me. Fuck you very much.

I like him for the role. Can't imagine he'd have been on the top of many lists for the role, but thats what makes him interesting. And will mean we're excused the scene of DDL, Pitt or whoever else watching Holmes from the shadows with a fake nose.

This is fantastic news. He's incredible. Watch him in Igby Goes Down for Christ's sake!
Tv has been holding him for way too long. About time he went big screen. He can do wonders with this.

Presuming the sequel will be a trifle, like the first film, DDL stooping to be in it seems like it would have been a sad waste of the man. I'm already mad enough that he did NINE instead of, well, anything else.

And Pitt being Moriarty might have actually kept me from ever seeing the film. That sounds just fucking awful.

Harris certainly doesn't get me excited. Though the movie doesn't get me excited either. I bet he delivers. Good for him. Fine actor.

I'd rather see Moriarty as a calculatingly charismatic villain than an over-the-top scenery chewing one. So this is perfect casting.

My hopes aren't dashed. My hopes are significantly raised. Harris was soooooo good on THE RICHES and FRINGE.

Kind of surprised they didn't go for a more marquee name. Is it a good choice? Probably. Is it going to put asses in seats for a sequel that nobody really cares about? Probably not.

Sherlock Holmes worldwide total: $523 million. They aren't hurting for an audience.

...if you think Jared Harris is the definition of "calculatingly charasmatic" I guess. We couldn't pull Christoph Waltz away from Three Musketeers to do this? I'm sure Harris will be good but I'm surprised to say the least.

"Jared Harris is a perfectly adequate choice."

I mean that his appeal should come from the way his mind works, not from giving towering melodramatic speeches.

On its face, this article kind of veers toward the contrarian cynicism that Devin used to traffic in, which is a bummer. I'm a little surprised that Nick would rather have Brad Pitt in the role, or that he would have ever expected Daniel Day Lewis to do it (although, Daniel Dae Kim would be awesome, man).

I for one am glad that they picked an actor instead of a movie star. Who the hell ever knew who Christoph Waltz was? Or Anthony Hopkins, pre-Silence. Or Richard Moll, pre-Sorcerer... bad example.

The first Sherlock felt to me like the first Harry Potter; a template as opposed to a movie. Get the production design and actors in place, and then hope the franchise pans out so you can do interesting things with it. Here's hoping part two is our Prisoner of Azkaban.

I like towering melodramatic speeches.

So do I. But you've already got Downey as Holmes. It's a smart move to have Moriarty dialed back a bit.

Yeah true true. I'm not disappointed at this casting, more curious to see how it turns out. It certainly signals that Ritchie is taking this a lot more seriously as a set of films than I may have given him credit for.

Stephen Fry cast was the biggest clue of that. This is just icing on the cake.

I think it's a brilliant choice and the first bit of news that has me excited for the sequel to an okay movie. Day Lewis would have been fun, but he'd never agree to do it and he'd probably take it a bit too far over the top. Harris has range, as Phil has pointed out, and if he works out for him it could be a star making performance. No joke.

But everybody knows who Jared Harris is. He's not a total unknown the way that Waltz was. He just screams "meh" to me. Having said that I do actually have faith that Ritchie knows what he's doing so here's hoping for the best.

so glad they didn't go with a star on this. Haven't seen Harris in anything outside of Benjamin Button (which has dramatically faded from my memory to the point that I wouldn't even put it on a Top 20 of 2008), so I don't know if he's a good choice.

Personally, I'd put my faith in Harris before Ritchie.

This is a good fuckin' choice.

I guess after getting beat down on Mad Men this week, Richie wanted to give him a boost.

I must say what works in Holmes really works and thats the Tone and the banter between Law and Downey. And this casting plus Fry has me thinking its definately on the upswing.

I'm actually in favor of this.

And I'm still giddy that Stephen Fry is in this.

I've just cottoned onto the fact Jared Harris is THE Jared Harris - as in son of Richard and the guy that turned up in so many indie flicks through the 90's.

Intrigued am I.

Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes is simply delightful. Fry's just about one of my favorite Brits of the last couple of decades.

I'm gonna have to disagree with Nick on that. Even discounting the fact that he's great and speaking only of criminal masterminds, he played one of sorts in Fringe for a while and was quite effective, indeed.

I like this choice.

I agree.
It can definitely work.

Could it be possible that they've cast solid character actor Harris as Moriarty's on- and off-screen beard, so as to blindside the audience with a bit of uncredited surprise A-listerage once the movie opens?

Not that I have a problem with Harris in the role - he's never less than engaging - but it does seem a little odd.

Yeah, I love the idea of Jared Harris as Moriarty. Even based off his Mad Men work you can see him pulling off Moriarty's 'everyman genius'. Moriarty, in the books, is fiercely intelligent but also rather adept at not overplaying his hand. Harris can definitely bring that subtle intelligence.

FANTASTIC CHOICE. I thought he was awesome in Fringe as the type of guy who could have been an academic genius but instead devoted his ideals to a manifesto that would allow him to unlock the secrets of an alternate universe. He fits this part like a hand in a glove. With Stephen Fry onboard as well, this could be a truly fantastic sequel.

I actually like the fact that they're casting a guy who can really pass for a genius rather than going the obvious A-List star route.

Yeah, I have to disagree with Nick here. Harris is near-perfect casting as far as I'm concerned. He's capable of projecting a quietly-icy sense of intimidation and a fierce arrogance/intelligence. He's also quite good when it comes to selling dry humor. His stints on Fringe and Mad Men have me looking forward to seeing what he'll do with this role.

I'm very much in favor of casting a solid, interesting, less well-known actor over a "name" in these sorts of projects.

I had to stop and think for a second at reading "Jared Harris", and then I had to go forward with the rest of the article to see his notable credentials. Still not ringing that much of a bell, but honestly, I think I like that better. I want Moriarity to be an unknown quantity more than I want him to drink my milkshake, I think.

His participation in NINE bothers me to no end, and I didn't think much of the first SH film. With that said, I did still kind of desire to see DDL play 'The Napoleon of Crime'. I'm sure he would have been great and forced RDJ off auto pilot


I have to agree with you here, Mr Miller. That idea never made sense to me. Pitt is an actor who has managed to surprise me before (his Durden is iconic and his James manages to be the definitive portrayal of the character on screen), but somehow I just don't see the skills required for Moriarty in his bag of tricks I just wanted to return to offer up a sincere mea culpa regarding my initial take on Jared Harris' casting. I was too harsh when I said that Mr Harris was not cut out for feature film work. Since I made that post, other people have gone on to highlight his work in LOST IN SPACE (a movie I watch about once a year or so) as well as his turn as Captain Mike in TCCOBB. He didn't necessarily blow me away me in either of those roles, but his Old Will Robinson was agreeably goofy "Tell me again, Old Monster, what happened to the girls..", and I can't exactly say he's not cut out for feature films if I've enjoyed his work in feature films previously

I wasn't aware of his filmography, so I retract those comments

With that said, he's still very weak on MAD MEN (a show that is unfortunately plagued with weak cast members IMHO), and I don't think he's right for Moriarty (or at least, I can't really see him in the role), but I was overly mean to him and want to make that clear

Hasn't Steven Moffat pretty much stolen all the thunder from Moriarty as a big screen villian?

Me asking "who the fuck is Steven Moffat?" leads me to believe the answer is no.

The BBC Holmes was assloads better than the film, but they didn't quite nail Moriarty. Definitely room for improvement in that area.

100% agreed. Moffat's Moriarty had a clever reveal but he was pathetically miscast. With regard to the BBC series itself, that first episode was 2 hours of some of the best television I've ever seen.

With a solid yet kind of bland actor being chosen for an iconic character, one can't help but be reminded of the initial reaction toward Heath Ledger being cast in TDK. I really hope that Harris does something unexpected & interesting with the role.