2002

REG can be heard doing the voiceover for the magazine, “James Bond Specials”. The voice is unmistakingly REG – especially at the end of the ad where he says “For your eyes only!”

REG voices the producer

Richard has given voice to the Homepride Sauces “producer” in the recent television advertisements showing in Britain.

To view the commercial online just click the image below.

UK Vogue Magazine – November, 2002

Richard E. Grant, Matt Day, Geraldine James, Richard Roxburgh, Ian Hart and Neve McIntosh.

It may be Sherlock Holmes, but don’t expect traditional deerstalkers in this Christmas’ BBC adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic thriller The Hound of the Baskervilles. Instead, the mystery of Dartmoor’s legendary hell-hound will involve new fangled animatronics and a younger, more athletic looking Holmes and Watson. The former is played by the smouldering Richard Roxburgh, best known for his role as the evil Duke in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, and the latter by Ian Hart. Richard E. Grant is the archeologist Stapleton; Matt Day, Sir Henry Baskerville. A regal Geraldine plays Mrs Mortimer, and newcomer Neve McIntosh bewitches with her cool beauty as Miss Stapleton.

From far left: Richard and Mat wear wool suit, from £850. Cotton shirt, from £95. Both at Dunhill. Leather shoes, from £150, at Russell & Bromley. Geraldine wears silk sweater, £159. Wool skirt, £149. Both at Nicole Farht. Leather shoes, £325, at Manolo Blahnik. Richard and Ian wear wool suit, from £850. Cotton shirt, from £95. Both at Dunhill. Leather shoes, from £150, at Russell & Bromley. Neve wears velvet jacket, by Ann Demeulemeester, from £724, at Harrods and Selfridges. Leather shoes, £165, at Russell & Bromley. Top and skirt, her own.

BBC Press Release Interview For “The Hound Of The Baskervilles” – November 2002

Richard E Grant confesses to never having seen The Hound Of The Baskervilles before.

“What I was curious about is the fact that there are no stock iconic symbols like the deerstalker hat or pipe that have been in other films,” he says. “So if mine is unlike any previous interpretation of Stapleton, and Richard Roxburgh’s is unlike any Holmes that has gone before, we’ll probably be sued by the Sherlock Holmes Society – I’ll avoid Baker Street for the next year!” he quips.

For the 44-year-old actor, whose numerous credits include Gosford Park, Jack And Sarah and Withnail And I, Stapleton is clearly the equal of Sherlock Holmes.

“Stapleton is an archaeologist and anthropologist. He has a very scientific mind and a genuine job on the Grimpen Mire exhuming bodies and skeletons for historical interest,” he explains. “He sees the fastidious and intellectually driven nature of Holmes as being somehow equal. Just like Hannibal Lecter, he finds someone who is worthy of his crimes.”

Stapleton is defined by his interest in anthropology, relics and digging for bones, says Grant. “It’s intended in the story for his nature to come across as macabre. What for Stapleton is perfectly normal – to obsessively examine a human being’s head and to identify what shape it is – is bonkers to anyone else.

“When Stapleton first meets Holmes and Watson, he is genuinely star-struck at their status, they are such celebrated detectives,” says Grant. This contrasts with Stapleton’s life “in the middle of nowhere, in a very isolated and run-down farmhouse. It’s the equivalent of Poirot coming down; he is thrilled that they are there. Holmes being a celebrity only adds to the charge of it. It means that for Stapleton, there’s more of a sense of triumph by the end.”

Stapleton has a menacing authority over Miss Stapleton.

“For so many of the scenes he has to appear cheerful and normal, but because of what is known about Stapleton, hopefully this is seen as subterfuge and cover-up,” says Grant. “This gives an extra charge to his relationship with Miss Stapleton, which has to be sexual. It’s an intriguing relationship. The power-play between them is very uncomfortable.”

Stapleton is a Darwinian, a rationalist who is bent on revenge, explains Grant. “He has a sense of complete intellectual superiority over the provincials around him, and he utterly dismisses their superstition and belief in supernatural powers.”

Secretly, however, he sets out to exploit their gullibility. “On the one hand he says the myth of the hound is rubbish – it’s just strange sounds you can hear on the moor – but on the other hand, he fastidiously works out a way to make the myth real. He indicates to Watson that he thinks it’s a load of hogwash, but underneath it all he’s trying to perpetuate the myth of the hound of the Baskervilles.

And he’s prepared to wait as long as it takes. His fatal error is to believe that he’s invincible and is the intellectual superior of all around him – including Holmes.”

Richard as Stapleton

To read more from the BBC Press Release check out the files below.

The Hound of the Baskervilles press pack is available only in PDF format. You may require Adobe Acrobat Software to read PDF files which can be obtained here. Click on the links to download the files.

Cast and production details & Introduction (390 KB)
Cast Interviews (743 KB)
Behind the Scenes (1.1 MB)
Synopsis (183 KB)

BBC Online Press Release – November 2002

Richard Roxburgh, who played the Duke in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, leads a star-studded cast as Sherlock Holmes, opposite Ian Hart as Dr Watson, in a major new version of The Hound Of The Baskervilles from Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC ONE this Christmas.

The film also stars Richard E Grant as Stapleton and John Nettles as the Dartmoor physician, Mortimer.

Directed by David Attwood (Shot Through The Heart, Moll Flanders) and produced by Christopher Hall (The Lost World, Other People’s Children), the film is written by Allan Cubitt (Prime Suspect II, Anna Karenina).

It portrays Holmes and Watson as young and athletic men in their mid-thirties, much closer to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original vision, in contrast to the mature and paternalistic figures of previous versions of the story.

The ancient legend of the Baskervilles has persisted in the family history for generations. It is Sir Charles’ mysterious death in the grounds of Baskerville Hall that brings Holmes and Watson to the scene of one of their most famous and intriguing cases – the mystery of the legendary hellhound of Dartmoor.

The hound itself will be produced for the first time using state of the art animatronics and computer generated images (CGI).

Richard Roxburgh, as well as appearing in Moulin Rouge, was also seen in Mission Impossible II.

Ian Hart is best known for his roles as Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, as the father in Stephen Frears’ Liam, and as a young revolutionary in Ken Loach’s Land And Freedom.

Matt Day plays Sir Henry Baskerville, heir to Sir Charles; Neve McIntosh is Miss Stapleton; Geraldine James plays Mrs Mortimer; Ron Cook is Barrymore, the butler; and Liza Tarbuck is his wife.

Jane Tranter, BBC Controller of Drama Commissioning, said: “Allan Cubitt’s visceral adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless classic is an atmospheric thriller for a 21st-century audience.”

“Intended for an adult audience, it features a hound which has been created with the latest special effects technology, and follows in the footsteps of The Lost World broadcast last Christmas.”

“The film is set when it was written in 1901, in a time of great flux and change. London is welcoming in a new age of electric light and the internal combustion engine, whilst the moorland of Dartmoor is like the Wild West – bleak, inhospitable and lawless.”

The Hound Of The Baskervilles is developed and produced by Tiger Aspect Productions, one of the UK’s leading independent production companies.

It reunites the same animatronics and visual effects teams – Crawley Creatures and FrameStore – which were behind BBC ONE’s The Lost World (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s adventure about an epic search for an undiscovered world inhabited by prehistoric beasts, starring Bob Hoskins), as well as Walking With Dinosaurs and Walking With Beasts.

The Hound Of The Baskervilles, shot earlier this year on location in the Isle of Man, Liverpool and Cumbria, is a Tiger Aspect Production for BBC ONE in association with WGBH and The Isle of Man Film Commission.

The executive producers are Greg Brenman (Tiger Aspect), Gareth Neame and Sally Woodward Gentle (BBC), and Rebecca Eaton (WGBH).

Tiger Aspect’s other recent credits include Murphy’s Law, Murder, Bodily Harm, Teachers, Births Marriages And Deaths and Kid In The Corner.

The Hound Of The Baskervilles – A Filmography

• The BBC’s last adaptation of The Hound Of The Baskervilles was a four-part serialisation in 1982 starring Tom Baker as Sherlock Holmes and Terence Rigby as Dr Watson.

• In 1968, Peter Cushing and Nigel Stock played the famous detective and his companion in a two-part story for the BBC.

• In the cinema, Basil Rathbone made his first appearance as Sherlock Holmes with Nigel Bruce as Watson in 1939 for 20th Century Fox, in a studio-based film written by Ernest Pascal and directed by Sidney Lanfield.

• In 1959, a Hammer re-make starred Peter Cushing as Holmes and Andre Morell as Watson, in a version written by Peter Bryan and directed by Terence Fisher.

• Most recently, Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke played Holmes and Watson on ITV in 1988.

To read Richard’s interview from the Press Release, click here.

To read more from the BBC Press Release check out the files below.

The Hound of the Baskervilles press pack is available only in pdf format. You may require Adobe Acrobat Software to read PDF files which can be obtained here. Click on the links to download the files.

Cast and production details & Introduction (390 KB)
Cast Interviews (743 KB)
Behind the Scenes (1.1 MB)
Synopsis (183 KB)