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Published: March 27, 2009

Just a few hours ago I participated in a roundtable interview with Rachel McAdams for her new film “State of Play”. While I’ll be posting a full transcript closer to the release date, Rachel told us a few interesting things about “Sherlock Holmes” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife” that I know you’d like to hear now.

Regarding “Sherlock Holmes”, Rachel said the movie is going to be very big and another example of a bromance. She said, “I didn’t realize how big it really was until I stepped on the sets and they were just massive. And it’s in true Guy Ritchie fashion too, it’s lots of fighting and explosions. From what I’ve seen, obviously Robert Downey Jr. is an amazing actor and so is Jude Law and they make a wonderful duo. You know I think some people are probably skeptical about, everybody has their preconceived notions about Watson in particular. Everyone’s very much like, Watson’s supposed to be like this and anyway I just think Jude is a perfect Watson, oddly enough. They’re really perfect together. That’s kind of the love story, actually. I play, supposedly, Sherlock’s love interest, but it’s really Watson.”

The other film she talked about was the much delayed “Time Traveler’s Wife.” While some have wondered what the holdup was all about, Rachel told us one of the reasons was Eric Bana’s role in “Star Trek”. Since Eric had to shave his head for the role, they had to wait for the hair to grow back. She said, “we were waiting on his hair.” Of course that wasn’t the only reason as she said, “we were waiting on the seasons,” as they needed a meadow to grow back to it’s original shape.

Question: You have a pretty big year where you have this film, you finally have ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ coming out and you just wrapped on ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ what’s this year going to be for you?
McAdams: Oh, who knows, it’s going to be busy, that’s for sure. It’s already busy. I don’t know, it’s exciting, I’m really glad that everything’s coming out, I’m glad it’s not all coming out on top of each other. I’m really excited the films are all very different, which is great, and we’ll see what happens.

Question: We’ve been talking about ‘The Time Travelers Wife’ for a long time, what’s the holdup?
McAdams: We wound up doing a reshoot and Eric Bana was the hold up, he had to shave his head for a different role. For ‘Star Trek,’ I think. And so we were waiting on his hair.

Question: What had to be reshot?
McAdams: It wasn’t really reshot, we did an additional scene in the meadow so we were also waiting on the meadow to look the way it did, so we were waiting on the seasons. Basically we were waiting on nature and Eric’s hair [laughs].

Question: Have you seen the final film, because there are a lot of people out there who are very curious about it, like me?
McAdams: I haven’t seen it recently; I saw a cut quite a long time ago, a very, very rough cut. So I haven’t seen it in a while. From what I remember then, it’s quite focused on the relationship. There is time travel in it, obviously, and it’s kind of cool in the way that they deal with it. And his shoes kind of clicked down the stairs and some cool shots with that. But really Robert Schwentke, the director, he really explored the relationship and how you carry on with the love of your life when you have this imposition, to say the least.

Question: What can you tell us about ‘Sherlock Holmes?’ What can you tease us about the sensibility and how it may be different from other ‘Sherlock Holmes’ incarnations?
McAdams: I mean it’s pretty big. I didn’t realize how big it really was until I stepped on the sets and they were just massive. And it’s in true Guy Ritchie fashion too, it’s lots of fighting and explosions. From what I’ve seen, obviously Robert Downey Jr. is an amazing actor and so is Jude Law and they make a wonderful duo. You know I think some people are probably skeptical about, everybody has their preconceived notions about Watson in particular. Everyone’s very much like, Watson’s supposed to be like this and anyway I just think Jude is a perfect Watson, oddly enough. They’re really perfect together. That’s kind of the love story, actually. I play, supposedly, Sherlock’s love interest, but it’s really Watson [laughs].

Question: You said you were surprised, did you expect it to be a British costume parlor drama?
McAdams: Well, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know if it would be kind of a satire of Sherlock Holmes in some ways, or if they really would want to boost up the comedy. It’s a really nice balance of the two, it’s quite serious and quite heart pumping, and at the same time there’s humor and these light moments too. I’ve seen just a little sizzle reel of it and it looks beautiful.

Question: Did you wear any cool costumes?
McAdams: Yeah I did. I get the best of both worlds because Irene goes undercover and she wears men’s clothes, but she also wears these beautiful, really outlandish bussells and she wears hot pink all the time. She’s not afraid to stand out in a crowd.

Question: Does that get you into character?
McAdams: Oh yeah, it’s so helpful.