In an interview with BuzzFeed News about the upcoming The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Martin Freeman — who also plays Dr. John Watson on Sherlock — said that more attention needs to be paid on what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri, than what is happening on or behind the scenes of the popular BBC mystery drama.
When responding to a comment about how, during a Twitterstorm, everyone on your Twitter feed seems to become some sort of political expert, Freeman told BuzzFeed News, "I also think so many political experts who find nothing more important to talk about than me and Sherlock, you know what I mean? If you are so massively dedicated to Ferguson, or social justice or whatever, why are you writing about two middle-class white boys again? Do something else with your time."
Last week, Twitter was rife with comments about why a part of Benedict Cumberbatch's shoulder was missing in a new press photo advertising the next episode of Sherlock, at the same time that police were clashing with protesters in Ferguson.
Freeman doesn't understand why the internet's obsession with the show continues amid real-world issues that ought to take precedence on people's minds.
"I know that presentation matters, that publicity matters, that it would be crazy to think that publicity doesn't matter in 2014, it does," he said. "I think in the course of the last few years — in my experience anyway — just being in two things that are really internet frenzy projects, it's gone from being Oh, this is quite fun to being like Oh, this is the most important thing in the world. And I don't quite understand that."
"I don't particularly like being one of the subjects," he continued, "because I know I am not worthy of it."