Laura Davis catches up with the stars of the new Sherlock Holmes film, partially shot at Liverpool’s docks

IN PORTRAYING the world’s greatest consulting detective, Robert Downey Jr will not be cutting a dash in a deerstalker nor exclaiming “Elementary” on even a single occasion.

Instead, he is adding the brawn to Sherlock Holmes’ brains in a film that is set to divide Conan Doyle fans in a way that hasn’t been seen since the famous Baker Street resident was brought back from the grave.

In 1891, readers wore black armbands to mark Holmes’s dramatic demise. Those watching British director Guy Ritchie’s blockbuster version, partially shot in Liverpool, will have to find a more modern way to demonstrate their support.

For, while Downey Jr’s Holmes demonstrates all the mental acuity of earlier film and TV incarnations, he’s also quite the action hero.

“He’s an archetype,” explains the 44-year-old Hollywood actor.

“There’s something so monastic about him – his intentions are so pure and his moral code is strengthened by his resolve and his actions.

“When he feels he’s not inspired or motivated by some creative charge, he’ll fall into a state where he barely speaks a word for three days, and when he’s engaged he has incredible amounts of energy, super-human energy.”

Not all of Holmes’s character traits could be described as monastic, however, but in the movie there is no obvious reference to his greatest foible – his use of cocaine, also known as “7% solution”.

“I love the 7% solution – it was never a high enough percentage for me,” jokes Downey Jr, referring to his former drug addiction that saw him in and out of rehab in the late-90s.

“But if you go back to the source material, Holmes is never described as being some strung-out weirdo.”

Ritchie’s adventure is a brand- new story – with a dastardly original villain, Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) – but draws heavily on the original four novels and 56 short stories.

A scene where the detective fights bare-chested in a pit is not as unauthentic as it may seem – Conan Doyle described him as being an expert with a sword, a formidable knucklefighter and schooled in a form of Japanese martial arts.

Dr Watson, too, has been given a bit of polish.