It’s all elementary for Arquette
Actor known for Scream films admits he is odd choice to play Sherlock Holmes on stage
TORONTO — David Arquette has found himself greatly affected by his latest role playing Sherlock Holmes in a touring stage production that’s now in Toronto.
“Right before we started previewing, I literally thought I was losing my mind,” he said in an interview.
“I was like, ‘This is too hard, I don’t think I can deal with it. It’s so much dialogue.’ It’s like two hours of dialogue, so it’s a lot.
“But once we got into a groove, then it really started working. And when you get comfortable with it, then you can have fun with it.”
Arquette admitted he felt he was “an odd choice” to play Holmes.
The British accent and dignified air he puts on — not to mention the top hat, overcoat, magnifying glass and pipe — are a far cry from the moustachioed simpleton Detective Dewey he played in the Scream films.
Then again, Arquette noted that this production of Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales, by late Montreal playwright Greg Kramer, is more comical than usual.
And it features a Holmes who’s an “oddball” and “probably a little lighter than a lot of people play.”
“He laughs a lot, he finds humour in things,” said Arquette. “He’s still the eccentric sort of wild thinker, very quick-minded, but he’s not quite as smart, perhaps, as some of the other Sherlocks.
“He’s not the smartest man in the room, necessarily, but in the play he’s the smartest of all the dumb guys, is what I like to say.”
Kramer’s 2013 adaptation, which is playing at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto through Nov. 8, features a nine-person cast.
Michael Trevino, who played Tyler Lockwood on The Vampire Diaries series, plays Holmes’s faithful associate, Dr. John Watson.
Andrew Shaver of Toronto directs the production, which won five Montreal English Theatre Awards and starred Jay Baruchel as Holmes back in 2013. The show is in Toronto after a six-performance preview in Los Angeles. It will next go on to a multi-city U.S. tour, including stops in Washington, D.C. and Chicago.
Arquette said he wasn’t that familiar with his character before taking on the role but prepared by listening to all of the Sherlock Holmes books on tape. He’s since found himself taking on some of Holmes’s characteristics, such as the habit of surveying everything and everyone when entering a room.
“You really have to lose your mind a little to play him. He’s really out there,” said Arquette, who runs Coquette Productions with ex-wife Courteney Cox.
“I’m letting my eyebrows grow, which are beastly now, but it’s part of the whole thing. You have to get this mad-professor quality. He’s an idiot savant. No, I’m an idiot savant — he was just a savant.”