Young Sherlock Holmes actor to reprise the role… sort of

Readers of a certain age may remember Nicholas Rowe as Sherlock Holmes in Chris Columbus’ great little 1985 movie Young Sherlock Holmes – come on, the stain-glass knight was great! – and they may be surprised to heat that 3o years later he will reprise the role...

The upcoming Ian McKellan Sherlock Holmes movie (here), Bill Condon’s The Story of Mr Holmes, based on Mitch Cullin’s novel A Slight Trick Of The Mind “takes place in 1947 when Holmes is 93, long retired to his Sussex beekeeping and frustrated by his diminishing power of recollection. Within this world, Holmes is as famous as you’d expect, and has had movies made of his life. It’s in one of these films, as watched in Mr Holmes by Ian McKellen’s character, that Nicholas Rowe will appear as Sherlock Holmes. Fictionally. Within a fiction. About a fictional character’s life.”

So, Rowe will play Holmes again in a movie within a movie about Sherlock Holmes. Wow, post-modern.

Talking to Empire, Rowe said: “I loved playing Sherlock as a young man. The character has been played by so many different and distinctive actors over the decades and clearly his stock is still high and the genre rich. Bill Condon asked me if I’d play the part of Sherlock on screen and I absolutely loved the script and enjoyed talking to Bill about my small part within it and had no doubt that I wanted to be in the film. It’s been great fun to do and I’m in very good company.”

I loved Young Sherlock Holmes and am delighted to hear that Rowe will play the character again, no matter what the context.

No release date for this one yet, folks.