Steven Moffat interview

AFG: How did you choose Benedict for Sherlock Holmes? We all know he’s said to bear the physical resemblance to Holmes, but he’s also so effective at playing the character.

SM: I would say he does bear a reasonable physical resemblance to Sherlock Holmes. He doesn’t quite have the nose, but other than that, he’s tall and thin and dashingly handsome in a way that Doyle never ever thought Sherlock Holmes should be but all the Sherlocks who have succeeded have been. And so, belonging to that broad type, he was sort of the coming man—everyone was saying that he was going to be a big star when he got the role. We auditioned him and he is such a fine actor—a brilliant actor—that we didn’t need to audition anybody else. It was obviously going to be him, and obviously that’s worked out for us rather well.