Max Irons: Mycroft is a tightly wound, but loving brother in ‘Young Sherlock’newsline24

NEW YORK, March 22 (UPI) — The White Queen, The Host and Miss Austen actor Max Irons says he wasn’t afraid to put his own spin on the well-known literary character Mycroft Holmes in the new series, Young Sherlock.

“I try not to worry about that too much. I go and I watch other people’s interpretations and sometimes you’re intimidated, sometimes you’re in awe and you steal bits and pieces here. You ignore bits and pieces there,” Irons, 40, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.

“But then I think you let it go because these things, I think, can weigh you down and what Guy Ritchie does so fearlessly, irreverently, is come in and just throw everything you think you know about Sherlock and everything you think you know about your character up in the air and he does it with no warning,” the actor explained.

“What it leads to is a re-imagining, a natural, organic, re-imagining of material that people are familiar with and I think he will achieve in attracting a legion of new Sherlock fans who will then go on to enjoy the rest of the material.”

Executive produced and directed by Ritchie, the Prime Video series takes place in 1870s England and follows brilliant, fast-talking, trouble-plagued teen Sherlock Holmes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) as he works as an Oxford University servant following a brief prison sentence for pick-pocketing.

Mycroft, who is a government employee, tries to keep Sherlock in line, while also caring for their mother Cordelia (Natascha McElhone), who was sent to an asylum after the death of her young daughter.

“On the outside, he’s a tightly wound, tightly controlled junior civil servant, working his way up within the system,” Irons said.

“Beneath it, he’s a deeply loving brother,” he added. “Having lost his sister, he’s terrified of losing his brother and also weighed down by the responsibility of shepherding what is undeniably a unique mind and person and, as infuriating as that charge is for him at times, it’s absolutely essential in his heart.”

3 Body Problem alum Zine Tseng, 31, plays Shou’an, a brilliant Chinese princess and Oxford student who becomes entangled in a mystery the Holmes brothers are trying to solve.

“She Is a very experience martial artist and she is also a bit of a solar energy ball and her relationship with Sherlock is that they kind of like be friends with each other, but they kind of be enemies with each other, but they kind of stay away and be in trouble,” Tseng said.

“So, we don’t know how far they go and we’d like to find out,” she laughed.

Tseng underwent extensive physical training to prepare for the show’s action scenes.

“I had the privilege to work with Haruka (Ohshima). She’s my stunt double and she’s also my coach,” the actress said.

“She made me do every piece of my stunt,” she added. “She made me practice weapons and standpoints.”

“We love and trust Zine, implicitly, but we also give her a three-meter perimeter at all times,” Irons quipped.