Amanda Abbington confirms role in 'Sherlock' 3 – officially…
A familiar face to British television watchers will coming to a telly new near you in 2014…
Amanda Abbington, real-life partner of Martin Freeman, has confirmed that she is to play Mary Morstan in the third series of Sherlock. Abbington, having been spotted in numerous on-location production stills and cell-phone videos, had long been rumored to be portraying Morstan, John Watson’s love interest and eventual wife in the Arthur Conan Doyle books.
Already a familiar face and name to UK and U.S. small screen watchers as DC Louise Munroe, the dour Edinburgh cop in a perpetual love/hate relationship with private eye Jackson Brodie, played by Jason Isaacs, in the haunting BBC One drama, Case Histories, Abbington will also be back behind the counter as the formidable and lovelorn Miss Mardle, head of accessories, in the 2nd series of Mr Selfridge.
Abbington recently told The Scotsman that while she auditioned for the parts in both Case Histories and Mr Selfridge, Sherlock was a slightly different story. It seems that writers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat wrote the part of Mary Morstan, Watson’s love interest, specifically for Abbington.
“We were at Mark Gatiss’s house when ‘The Hounds Of Baskerville’ first came on the telly. Afterwards they went into the kitchen and were sitting talking about the next series. I went in and sat with them. It had been mooted that I would be in it, might have a little part in it. They were talking about who might play Mary and I was like, ‘So, who are you thinking of?’ and they said ‘You’.”
Abbington might just be up against herself on Sundays in the UK as rumor continue to fly that Sherlock 3 will premiere in early 2014 on BBC One while Mr. Selfridge 2 with Jeremy Piven in the title role might just find itself opposite the long-awaited series on ITV1. No confirmed dates for either as of yet in the UK or the States on PBS but look for both in early 2014.
