Transcript Of Martin Freeman’s Reply To “Has Any Childhood Experience Influenced Your Success As

Transcript of Martin Freeman’s reply to “Has any childhood experience influenced your success as an actor” 19.07.15

Martin Freeman:

I can’t think of one time, but I do... as a kid I was ill, I was small , my parents where divorced, I was the youngest of five.

You know, I don’t wanna paint myself as a Dickens victim, but I was not an Alpha male.

So you have to find other ways to, you know, succeedig I guess. I wasn’t able to beat anyone up at the playground, but I could make people laugh.

And I found that you can... you can get through in other ways. I was in and out of hospital for various things as a kid an I do think it really strenghtened me.

You know, I wouldn’t wish hospital on any child, but when things are difficult, when things aren’t ideal... well the old saying “ what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is very, very true and I think... I dunno wether those things mean... that means I’m successful.

I knew that life wasn’t going to... Even I’ve been lucky, but I knew that life just wasn’t going to give me a free path and everything was gonna fall into my lap. You have to work, but you have to also be sensitive and open and just recognize opportunities and things and people. And which people are good for you and which aren’t good for you.

But I know I always felt that I was a little kid with a dodgy leg and dodgy teeth and my parents where divorced - which wasn’t very common in an English Catholic school .

I kind of... I quite liked beeing a bit outside of all, I quite enjoyed that and I think that might have helped.

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Note: I’m not quite sure about some parts of that answer but I did my best to write down what Martin said :)