Freeman perfected his dry, slightly morose delivery on numerous U.K. series before "The Office," but its worldwide popularity led to lead and supporting roles in major features like "Love Actually" (2003) and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (2005). In 2010, Freeman was cast by Jackson as the homebody hobbit who traveled the world as an accidental adventurer in the two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic. Whether the high-profile performance would help or hurt his career was the question of the day, but Freeman's body of work had clearly positioned him to become an actor on the rise with or without the help of Tolkien's magical worlds.
Born Martin John C. Freeman in the town of Aldershot, part of the English county of Hampshire, on Sept. 8, 1971, he was the youngest of five children by parents Geoff and Philomena Norris. Raised Roman Catholic, he was educated at Cardinal Newman School in Hersham before attending the private Salesian School for his secondary education. After studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, he began making guest and recurring appearances on British television. Among his notable early turns was on the sketch comedy series "Bruiser" (BBC, 2000), which featured Ricky Gervais among its writers and allowed Freeman to perfect his pained reaction to mortifying situations. He made his feature debut in 2000's "The Low Down," and played Ricky C, the equally clueless gangsta wanna-be pal of Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G in "Ali G Indahouse" (2002).
That same year, Freeman was vaulted to critical and audience attention as paper company sales representative Tim Canterbury in the original U.K. version of "The Office." A likable thirty-something with a knack for self-deprecating humor and pranks, Canterbury also struggled to find some worth in his existence, which largely consisted of his life at home with his parents and his seemingly pointless job. Hope surfaced in the form of a potential romance with company receptionist Dawn Tinsely (Lucy Davis), but Canterbury's reticence prevented them from becoming a couple until the show's second season finale. The show's international popularity, which earned it a Golden Globe and two Emmy nominations in America, thrust Freeman into global waters, where he was able to parlay his fame in several notable productions.
In "Love Actually" (2003), he played an actor's stand-in for a sex scene in a film, and pursued a tentative relationship with his fellow stand-in (Joanna Page). And in the big screen adaptation of the cult favorite "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (2005), he was top-billed as the hapless Arthur Dent, who becomes the sole survivor of Earth's destruction and joins a crew of fellow misfits in defeating an alien race from spreading bureaucracy through the universe. Freeman soon settled into a steady schedule of supporting turns in British features and the occasional American production while taking the lead in several U.K. television series. "In "Hardware" (ITV, 2003-04), he was a sarcastic hardware store employee who spent his days mocking overeager customers, while "The Robinsons" (BBC2, 2005) cast him as a insurance actuary who grew dissatisfied with his career and decided to remake his life. A rare break from comedy came with the miniseries "Charles II: The Power and the Passion" (BBC 1, 2003), which cast him as English politician Lord Shaftesbury.
The year 2007 saw Freeman in no less than seven films, including leads in the comedy "The All Together," as a screenwriter who loathed British gangster films, only to find himself at the mercy of real London mobsters, and Peter Greenaway's "Nightwatching," which cast Freeman as the artist Rembrandt. In 2009, he starred in the miniseries "Boy Meets Girl" (ITV, 2009) as an aimless clerk with socialist leanings who accidentally switched bodies with a glamorous fashion journalist. Freeman's breakout year proved to be 2010. After a more than a decade as an entertainment favorite in the UK and a cult hero in the U.S. and abroad, Freeman broke out when, after seemingly endless debate, he was cast as Bilbo Baggins, the hero of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novel "The Hobbit" (2012) in a film adaptation produced and directed by Peter Jackson, who won an Oscar for his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003).
Freeman was nearly forced to turn down the role due to his duties on "Sherlock" (BBC 1, 2010- ), an updated television adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Freeman played the series' Dr. Watson, a former Army doctor who suffered a debilitating wound while serving in Afghanistan, and found himself aiding the brilliant but highly dysfunctional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch). His performance earned the actor an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. Freeman also appeared as a vicious killer in the British dark comedy "Wild Target" (2010) with his "Hitchhiker" co-star Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt.
