《神探夏洛克》主创谈夏洛克
《神探夏洛克》主创谈夏洛克
Steven Moffat is the co-creator of the BBC hit “Sherlock” and the lead writer and executive producer of “Doctor Who,” the classic sci-fi series about a time-traveling alien that celebrated its 50th anniversary in November. He also created, in 2000, “Coupling,” a saucy sitcom about the sexual misadventures of 30-something Londoners that was based loosely on his marriage to the television producer Sue Vertue. All this makes the 52-year-old Scotsman one of the most influential figures in British television, and also a target for legions of fans who bombard the Internet with theories about how Holmes could have possibly faked his suicide or whether a woman should play the next Doctor. “It’s very dangerous for me to venture onto social media,” Mr. Moffat said by phone from London.
斯蒂芬·莫法特(Steven Moffat)是BBC热门电视连续剧《神探夏洛克》的主创人员之一，也是英国经典科幻剧《神秘博士》的首席编剧和执行制片人。《神秘博士》的主角是一位能做时间旅行的外星人，该剧于去年11月庆祝了开播50周年。莫法特在2000年创作出了《冤家成双对》(Coupling)。该剧是一部大胆俏皮的情景喜剧，松散地基于莫法特自己和电视制片人苏·维特(Sue Vertue)的婚姻生活，讲述了几对30多岁伦敦人运气不佳的性经历。这些履历使这位52岁的苏格兰人成为英国电视业最有影响力的人物。他也是千万粉丝的关注对象。这些粉丝在互联网上热烈讨论关于福尔摩斯如何假装自杀的各种猜测，或者是否应该由一位女性出演下一位神秘博士。“我要涉足社交媒体的话还真得多加小心，”莫法特在伦敦接受电话采访时说。
The new season of “Sherlock,” which already aired in Britain, makes its American debut this Sunday on PBS. (In most other countries, the show will be broadcast this month as well; check local listings for dates and times. The series is already available on iTunes in Britain and will soon be made available globally on that service.) In the following edited interview, Mr. Moffat talks about the future of the series, why some shows perform better than others abroad and why the word “risk” should never be used to describe television.
《神探夏洛克》的第三季在英国已上映，并于1月19日在美国公共电视网上首播。(该剧已经能够在英国的iTunes上购买观看，并将很快向全球用户开放。)在下面经过编辑的采访中，莫法特谈了他对该剧的未来计划，为什么一些电视剧会在国外更受欢迎，以及为什么不应该用“冒险”这个词来描述电视编剧。
Q. About a third of the national television audience — or about 8.8 million Britons — tuned in to the season finale of “Sherlock.” That level of success must be pretty startling for you, especially for a series you conceived as a “vanity project.”
问：有大概880万的英国人——也就是全英国人口的三分之一——观看了《神探夏洛克》第三季的最后一集。这种程度的成功一定使你非常吃惊，尤其是我们知道在你最初构想这个剧的时候，它不过是一个“满足虚荣心的项目”。
A. In fairness, anyone short of a psychopath would be surprised at this level of success — it’s huge. But yes, “Sherlock” hardly sounded like a formula for a massive ratings success. We expected it would be a snob hit: the audience would be 2 to 3 million, and we’d get some good reviews. And that would have done us fine.
答：当然，只有冷血精神变态才不会对《神探夏洛克》取得的巨大成功感到吃惊。但是你说的对，最初的时候，没有人觉得《夏洛克》能取得巨大收视成功。我们只希望一些跟我们品味相当的观众能欣赏它——大概也就是二三百万吧，然后有一些正面的评论，这样我们就已经很满意了。
Q. How do you account for the show’s popularity?
问：那你怎么解释这个剧为什么如此受欢迎?
A. We got hold of Benedict Cumberbatch just when he was about to catch fire. And then Martin Freeman — he was already an incredibly beloved actor in this country for his work on “The Office” — but, suddenly, he and Benedict were just at a whole different level. There was this point when [the “Sherlock” co-creator] Mark Gatiss and I were wandering along and a bus drew past with Martin Freeman’s face on it from “The Hobbit.” And on the bus shelter was a picture of Benedict in “Star Trek.” And we’re thinking, “Those are the stars of our show.”
答：我们在本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇(Benedict Cumberbatch)刚要大红大紫前签定了他。还有马丁·弗里曼(Martin Freeman)，在英国他因为在《办公室》(The Office)里的角色，已经是一个非常受观众喜爱的演员了。但是，一夜之间，他和本尼迪克特的名气达到了一个新的高度。有一阵，我和马克·盖提斯(Mark Gatiss，《夏洛克》的另一位主创者)在街头逛荡，会有一辆大巴从我们身边驶过，车身上印有马丁·弗里曼在《霍比特人》(The Hobbit)里造型的广告。而大巴车站里则贴着本尼迪克特在《星际迷航》(Star Trek)里的海报。我们不禁想到：“这两位可是我们剧里的明星啊。”
Q. Your first series, “Press Gang,” was a children’s show about a school newspaper. And you had actually worked as a schoolteacher before going into television. How did that inform your work?
问：你的第一部电视连续剧《少年报社》(Press Gang)是给青少年看的，讲的是一份校报的故事。在涉足电视业前，你本人也真的当过学校老师。这段教学经历对你以后的工作有什么启发吗?
A. I think teaching informed my writing career very much in that I was very keen to stop being a teacher and become a writer.
答：教学对我的写作生涯有很大的启迪——这段经历使我知道自己不想再当教师而是成为一个作家。
Q. Why do you think “Sherlock” has become such a sensation in the United States while “Doctor Who,” despite its obvious longevity, is perhaps less appreciated there? Why do some shows travel better than others?
问：《夏洛克》在美国大获成功，而《神秘博士》尽管在英国已经连续播出了很多年，在美国却不那么受欢迎。你认为这是为什么?为什么一些电视剧比另一些更能吸引海外观众?
A. I’m actually not sure. People who watch television don’t mind cultural differences. If I’m going to watch an American TV show, I want it to be American. I don’t want there to be British characters just put in for me. At one point they put a British character onto “The West Wing” and it was cringe-makingly terrible. So we don’t mind other being other. But it is always true, if you look at the ratings, that locally produced stuff outperforms imported stuff. At the end, we do have a pretty hardwired preference for our own produce, which is probably quite sensible.
答：我还真的不知道。电视观众不会在意文化差异。如果我看一部美剧，我希望它有原汁原味的美式风味。我不会希望创作者们为了迎合我而塞进去几个英国演员。有段时间，《白宫风云》里出现了一个英国人，那可真是让人不忍卒睹。所以我们不会在意别人跟我们不一样。但是从收视率看的话，本土制作确实比进口的节目要受欢迎些。归根结底，我们对自己国家的东西有天生的偏好，这也是很正常的事。
Q. What did you learn from the experience of trying to translate your BBC show “Coupling” into an American primetime sitcom for NBC? It was canceled after four episodes.
问：你曾经尝试把你给BBC拍的《冤家成双对》翻拍成美剧。结果在NBC的黄金时段播出了四集就被取消了。这给了你什么教训?
A. I learned not to work in America. I say that slightly facetiously, but, truthfully, I’m British, what is the point of me going to try to make it somewhere else? Does anybody actually like working in that L.A. world?
答：给我的教训就是我不能在美国工作。我这么说有点开玩笑。但是，我是英国人，我为什么要去别的国家试图取得成功呢?再说，难道有谁真的喜欢在洛杉矶那种地方工作吗?
Q. Unlike some show-runners, you apparently don’t take the opinions of fans into account when writing storylines.
问：跟别的电视剧运作人不同的是，你在构思情节故事的时候显然不会去考虑观众的意见。
A. That’s not how you tell a story. You don’t tell a story by asking the audience to tell it themselves.
答：讲故事的人是你而不是观众。你不会让观众自己编故事然后再告诉你。
Q. Do you think that there’s a lot of crossover in terms of “Sherlock” and “Downton Abbey” fans?
问：你是否认为许多《夏洛克》的粉丝也同样会是《唐顿庄园》的粉丝?
A. Certainly in Britain I would not think they have much of a similar audience. Sherlock is quite genre — mystery, thriller — and “Downton Abbey” is a sort of soap. But when you add, I suppose, American anglophiles just wanting to hear the accents, maybe that changes a bit.
答：如果只是在英国，我认为这两部剧的观众很不一样。《夏洛克》是个类型剧—悬疑惊悚—而《唐顿庄园》在某种程度上是个肥皂剧。但是很多迷恋英国的美国观众只是被英国口音吸引看这两部剧，如果加上他们的话，两部剧的观众群会有一些重合。
Q. Do you think storytelling on TV has become more innovative?
问：你是否觉得做电视编剧越来越有新意了?
A. Why is that the objective? “Hamlet” is a rewrite of a different play, actually several different ones. It’s not very innovative. It is terribly good. You can be innovative and crap. People talk about taking risks, but I can’t think of when I ever have. If someone came to you and pitched something and said, “It’s a terrible risk,” you’d kick him out. If you got on a plane, and the pilot says, “I’m going to fly pretty riskily today,” you’d get off the plane pretty bloody fast. When you got a great idea for a TV series, you might turn out to be humiliatingly wrong — in fact eight times out of 10, you will turn out to be humiliatingly wrong — but you don’t think it’s a risk. You think it’s brilliant!
答：为什么有新意要成为我们追求的目标?莎士比亚把一个别人的剧本—实际上是好几个不同的剧本——改写成了《哈姆雷特》。这可没什么创新，但是《哈姆雷特》却是一部伟大的戏剧。有的剧本有新意，但是却一点也不好看。人们说要勇于冒险，可我从来没有冒过险。如果有人向你提出一个想法却说：“这要冒很大的风险。”你一定会把他赶出门。如果你在飞机上，驾驶员说：“今天我要飞得冒险一点。”你一定会赶快下飞机。当你有个关于电视剧的好点子时，到头来你会发现你可能错得离谱—实际上十次有八次你会错得离谱—但是你不认为你是在冒险。你会想：“这点子可真是太妙了!”
Q. Some of your earlier series — “Joking Apart,” which was based on your first marriage and divorce, and “Coupling,” which you once described as “my life told by a drunk“ — were intensely personal. Has your work become less personal since then?
问：你创作的一些早期的电视剧跟你的私生活非常贴近。比如《玩笑之外》(Joking Apart)，是基于你的第一次婚姻和离婚;你有一次说《冤家成双对》就是由一个醉汉讲述的你的个人故事。你之后的作品是不是不那么个人化了?
A. Writing is always personal. You’re writing what you would want to watch. You are writing your personal obsessions and hoping that people will share them. I grew up as a “Doctor Who” and Sherlock Holmes fan, and I’m now running “Doctor Who” and Sherlock Holmes, so that’s pretty personal, too. But there’s not a lot of autobiography in it because I’m neither a time-traveler nor a detective.
答：写作总是一件非常个人化的事。你写的是你自己想看到的东西。你写的是你个人的痴迷，希望别人也能分享。我是看着《神秘博士》和福尔摩斯长大的，我是它们的粉丝。现在我在运作这两部剧，这当然对我个人意义重大。但是这两部剧里可没有多少我的自传成分—我既不能时间旅行也不是个侦探。
Q. Apparently you’ve already sketched out Seasons 4 and 5 of “Sherlock”?
问：我们都知道你已经对《夏洛克》的第四第五季有初步构想了?
A. We’ve worked out what we want to do. But it wasn’t very professional, we didn’t schedule a meeting or anything. It was just enthusiasm. Like fan boys, we got excited about what we could do next with Sherlock Holmes.
答：我们想好了下一步我们要干什么。但是我们还没有正式的计划—我们并没有开会讨论什么的。现在一切只是我们的热情。我们是福尔摩斯迷，对剧本下一步将如何进展感到兴奋不已。
