The Young Sherlock cast knows they have a long legacy to continue.
After all, the fandom around Sherlock Holmes has defined a certain subset of pop culture for nearly 140 years, since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published the original stories centering the analytical, eccentric detective in 1887. Adaptations of the character, official and unofficial, have created new fans in each generation. Whether your favorite iteration is the Benedict Cumberbatch-led Sherlock, Guy Ritchie's blockbuster starring Robert Downey Jr., Millie Bobby Brown's Enola Holmes, or even the medical drama House, it's clear we can't stop bringing the character to life in new ways.
Young Sherlock is doing a new thing too, adapting Andrew Lane's Young Sherlock Holmes book series into an 8-episode first season that starts with a 19-year-old Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) at Oxford.
Teen Vogue visited the set while the production was filming at Casa di Pilatos in Seville, Spain, and heard all about how this new generation of Sherlockians is shaping the iconic story. Below, meet the cast and characters of Young Sherlock on Prime Video.
Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Young Sherlock
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Hero Fiennes Tiffin, best known for his work in the After movies and a memorable child role in Harry Potter as young Voldemort, takes the lead as the highly intelligent titular detective in the series. Tiffin, a fan of the BBC Sherlock series, knew he had a big legacy to continue, and that the directorial and creative team on Young Sherlock was the perfect team to pull it off.
In Young Sherlock, we meet the character at 19 years old, when he's a janitor at Oxford and listening in on classes. Soon, he sets off on a worldwide adventure, earning the characteristics audiences recognize in the iconic character later in life.
“We've tried to make the most of the fact that he's not a fully-fledged Sherlock. So it maybe feels somewhat like an origin story,” Fiennes Tiffin says. “The kid in me is like, 'Oh, I'm excited for him to solve stuff and win. Find the solution.' But I think in our adaptation, especially in this first season, there's so much that Sherlock has to learn. He's not a detective yet. He's just a curious, intelligent person who just wants to follow leads and work things out. And eventually that will lead to him realizing how that's his strongest trait and that he should look for a profession within that. But I think at the start, a lot of what happens is it happens to him and he ends up having no choice but to somewhat detect and investigate without it being his profession.”
Dónal Finn as James Moriarty
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Irish actor Dónal Finn plays Sherlock's infamous enemy James Moriarty, who in this adaptation started out as a friend and confidant.
“I think that's probably the thing that I find the most compelling about this re-imagining, is that they're known to each other, and essentially they meet each other as peers and [bond] very quickly through a kind of baptism by fire,” Finn tells Teen Vogue. “So much of their lived experience so far is that they don't meet people that are able to operate or work on the same level as them. That makes them feel a little bit isolated, and all of a sudden they kind of maybe feel like they've found their match, but in this moment it's not a match in a competitive way.”
“They see the world pretty similarly as well, so it becomes this kind of Butch and Sundance, kind of like platonic but greatly invested-in friendship.”
Finn previously acted in The Wheel of Time and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.
Zine Tseng as Princess Gulun Shou'an
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“My character's relationship with Sherlock is, I will kill him if I'm not in love with him,” quips Taiwanese actress Zine Tseng, who plays Princess Gulun Shou'an in the show. In episode 1, we see her get kidnapped by bandits, but all the while she maintains her composure. “Cold-ass b*tch face is what Guy [Ritchie] asked me to do,” she reveals.
"I'm a kung fu master and I have the coolest costume," Tseng adds, “[but I want people to know] that I'm very sweet in the end. A sweetheart underneath the assassin.”
Prior to Young Sherlock, Tseng acted in a few episodes of 3 Body Problem.
Max Irons as Mycroft Holmes
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English actor Max Irons, son of the Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons, plays Mycroft Holmes, the elder brother of our hero Sherlock. Irons has been acting for well over a decade, including roles in 2011's Red Riding Hood, 2013's TV series The White Queen, and Lifetime's Flowers in the Attic television adaptation.
Mycroft is a steady presence in his younger brother's life and helps him get out of scrapes; unlike the Holmes parents (more on that below!), Mycroft does appear in several of the original Sherlock Holmes novels.
Holly Cattle as Edie
British actor Holly Cattle, who studied at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Drama Centre London, plays Edie in the series and describes her character as “a badass," noting her intelligence, charm, and chameleonic nature. “She’s a master of manipulation and mimicry and she’ll crush anyone in her way. She’s easily the most intelligent character in the show – but shhh, don’t tell the boys I said that,” Cattle told Country & Town House. To get into character, Cattle prepped with a special playlist, and hints at a “a big transformation” for her character during the series.
Natascha McElhone as Cordelia Holmes
Young Sherlock gives fans a deeper glimpse into Sherlock's family life than prior adaptations and interpretations, and Natascha McElhone plays his mother Cordelia, who is described as "Sherlock's devoted mother, artist, and matriarch of the Holmes clan.”
McElhone starred on TV's Californication for its 2007-2014 run and has also appeared on The Crown, as well as movies like The Truman Show. Sherlock's parents don't appear in the original source material, so it will be fun to see how McElhone and Joseph Fiennes bring them to life.
Joseph Fiennes as Silas Holmes
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Hero Fiennes Tiffin's real-life uncle Joseph Fiennes plays Sherlock's father, Silas Holmes—a “scientist, explorer and self-made businessman.” This is the first time the Shakespeare in Love actor and his nephew have worked together but Fiennes Tiffin said it's something he's ”always wanted" to do.
“I've always looked up to Joe and admired him as an actor. So I think even if we weren't related, I'd still have a sense of excitement to work with him, but that's doubled by the fact that he's my uncle,” Fiennes Tiffin tells Teen Vogue. "And there's some scenes that we did where there's a familiarity that we already have that we feel somewhat makes its way onto screen without us having to find it. It's somewhat already there when we're looking at each other and it's a face that I've looked at, I've recognized all my life. There might be something that I'm not conscious of that happens. So there's that. There's also the fact that because I've looked up to and admired him, when I first started doing scenes of him, there's a part of me that went back to when I first started acting like, 'Oh God, I hope I can impress him.'”
Colin Firth as Sir Bucephalus Hodge
Beloved British actor Colin Firth plays Sir Bucephalus Hodge, a dean at Oxford. He's hosting Princess Gulun Shou'an, which sets the plot in motion as Sherlock and James have to find her stolen scrolls.
Firth is an award-winning actor best known for his roles in The King's Speech, for which he won his Oscar; the Bridget Jones movies; and his work as Mr. Darcy in the fan-favorite 1995 Pride & Prejudice. (He also appeared with Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love.)
Ravi Aujla as Professor Kishore Malik
Ravi Aujla plays Professor Kishore Mailk, an Oxford professor. Aujla has appeared in a variety of projects, including the Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon, Netflix's Black Mirror, and the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses. He also has an extensive background in the theater, including several productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
