《神探夏洛克》主創(chuàng)談夏洛克

A Conversation With Steven Moffat, a ‘Sherlock’ Co-Creator

《神探夏洛克》主創(chuàng)談夏洛克

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熱門電視連續(xù)劇《神探夏洛克》的主創(chuàng)人員之一，也是英國經(jīng)典科幻劇《神秘博士》的首席編劇和執(zhí)行制片人?！渡衩夭┦俊返闹鹘鞘且晃荒茏鰰r間旅行的外星人，該劇于去年11月慶祝了開播50周年。莫法特在2000年創(chuàng)作出了《冤家成雙對》(Coupling)。該劇是一部大膽俏皮的情景喜劇，松散地基于莫法特自己和電視制片人蘇·維特(Sue Vertue)的婚姻生活，講述了幾對30多歲倫敦人運氣不佳的性經(jīng)歷。這些履歷使這位52歲的蘇格蘭人成為英國電視業(yè)最有影響力的人物。他也是千萬粉絲的關(guān)注對象。這些粉絲在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上熱烈討論關(guān)于福爾摩斯如何假裝自殺的各種猜測，或者是否應該由一位女性出演下一位神秘博士。“我要涉足社交媒體的話還真得多加小心，”莫法特在倫敦接受電話采訪時說。

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》的第三季在英國已上映，并于1月19日在美國公共電視網(wǎng)上首播。(該劇已經(jīng)能夠在英國的iTunes上購買觀看，并將很快向全球用戶開放。)在下面經(jīng)過編輯的采訪中，莫法特談了他對該劇的未來計劃，為什么一些電視劇會在國外更受歡迎，以及為什么不應該用“冒險”這個詞來描述電視編劇。

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.”

問：有大概880萬的英國人——也就是全英國人口的三分之一——觀看了《神探夏洛克》第三季的最后一集。這種程度的成功一定使你非常吃驚，尤其是我們知道在你最初構(gòu)想這個劇的時候，它不過是一個“滿足虛榮心的項目”。

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：當然，只有冷血精神變態(tài)才不會對《神探夏洛克》取得的巨大成功感到吃驚。但是你說的對，最初的時候，沒有人覺得《夏洛克》能取得巨大收視成功。我們只希望一些跟我們品味相當?shù)挠^眾能欣賞它——大概也就是二三百萬吧，然后有一些正面的評論，這樣我們就已經(jīng)很滿意了。

Q. How do you account for the show’s popularity?

問：那你怎么解釋這個劇為什么如此受歡迎?

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：我們在本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇(Benedict Cumberbatch)剛要大紅大紫前簽定了他。還有馬丁·弗里曼(Martin Freeman)，在英國他因為在《辦公室》(The Office)里的角色，已經(jīng)是一個非常受觀眾喜愛的演員了。但是，一夜之間，他和本尼迪克特的名氣達到了一個新的高度。有一陣，我和馬克·蓋提斯(Mark Gatiss，《夏洛克》的另一位主創(chuàng)者)在街頭逛蕩，會有一輛大巴從我們身邊駛過，車身上印有馬丁·弗里曼在《霍比特人》(The Hobbit)里造型的廣告。而大巴車站里則貼著本尼迪克特在《星際迷航》(Star Trek)里的海報。我們不禁想到：“這兩位可是我們劇里的明星啊。”

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?

問：你的第一部電視連續(xù)劇《少年報社》(Press Gang)是給青少年看的，講的是一份校報的故事。在涉足電視業(yè)前，你本人也真的當過學校老師。這段教學經(jīng)歷對你以后的工作有什么啟發(fā)嗎?

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：教學對我的寫作生涯有很大的啟迪——這段經(jīng)歷使我知道自己不想再當教師而是成為一個作家。

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?

問：《夏洛克》在美國大獲成功，而《神秘博士》盡管在英國已經(jīng)連續(xù)播出了很多年，在美國卻不那么受歡迎。你認為這是為什么?為什么一些電視劇比另一些更能吸引海外觀眾?

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：我還真的不知道。電視觀眾不會在意文化差異。如果我看一部美劇，我希望它有原汁原味的美式風味。我不會希望創(chuàng)作者們?yōu)榱擞衔叶M去幾個英國演員。有段時間，《白宮風云》里出現(xiàn)了一個英國人，那可真是讓人不忍卒睹。所以我們不會在意別人跟我們不一樣。但是從收視率看的話，本土制作確實比進口的節(jié)目要受歡迎些。歸根結(jié)底，我們對自己國家的東西有天生的偏好，這也是很正常的事。

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.

問：你曾經(jīng)嘗試把你給BBC拍的《冤家成雙對》翻拍成美劇。結(jié)果在NBC的黃金時段播出了四集就被取消了。這給了你什么教訓?

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：給我的教訓就是我不能在美國工作。我這么說有點開玩笑。但是，我是英國人，我為什么要去別的國家試圖取得成功呢?再說，難道有誰真的喜歡在洛杉磯那種地方工作嗎?

Q. Unlike some show-runners, you apparently don’t take the opinions of fans into account when writing storylines.

問：跟別的電視劇運作人不同的是，你在構(gòu)思情節(jié)故事的時候顯然不會去考慮觀眾的意見。

A. That’s not how you tell a story. You don’t tell a story by asking the audience to tell it themselves.

答：講故事的人是你而不是觀眾。你不會讓觀眾自己編故事然后再告訴你。

Q. Do you think that there’s a lot of crossover in terms of “Sherlock” and “Downton Abbey” fans?

問：你是否認為許多《夏洛克》的粉絲也同樣會是《唐頓莊園》的粉絲?

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：如果只是在英國，我認為這兩部劇的觀眾很不一樣?！断穆蹇恕肥莻€類型劇—懸疑驚悚—而《唐頓莊園》在某種程度上是個肥皂劇。但是很多迷戀英國的美國觀眾只是被英國口音吸引看這兩部劇，如果加上他們的話，兩部劇的觀眾群會有一些重合。

Q. Do you think storytelling on TV has become more innovative?

問：你是否覺得做電視編劇越來越有新意了?

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：為什么有新意要成為我們追求的目標?莎士比亞把一個別人的劇本—實際上是好幾個不同的劇本——改寫成了《哈姆雷特》。這可沒什么創(chuàng)新，但是《哈姆雷特》卻是一部偉大的戲劇。有的劇本有新意，但是卻一點也不好看。人們說要勇于冒險，可我從來沒有冒過險。如果有人向你提出一個想法卻說：“這要冒很大的風險。”你一定會把他趕出門。如果你在飛機上，駕駛員說：“今天我要飛得冒險一點。”你一定會趕快下飛機。當你有個關(guān)于電視劇的好點子時，到頭來你會發(fā)現(xiàn)你可能錯得離譜—實際上十次有八次你會錯得離譜—但是你不認為你是在冒險。你會想：“這點子可真是太妙了!”

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?

問：你創(chuàng)作的一些早期的電視劇跟你的私生活非常貼近。比如《玩笑之外》(Joking Apart)，是基于你的第一次婚姻和離婚;你有一次說《冤家成雙對》就是由一個醉漢講述的你的個人故事。你之后的作品是不是不那么個人化了?

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：寫作總是一件非常個人化的事。你寫的是你自己想看到的東西。你寫的是你個人的癡迷，希望別人也能分享。我是看著《神秘博士》和福爾摩斯長大的，我是它們的粉絲?，F(xiàn)在我在運作這兩部劇，這當然對我個人意義重大。但是這兩部劇里可沒有多少我的自傳成分—我既不能時間旅行也不是個偵探。

Q. Apparently you’ve already sketched out Seasons 4 and 5 of “Sherlock”?

問：我們都知道你已經(jīng)對《夏洛克》的第四第五季有初步構(gòu)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：我們想好了下一步我們要干什么。但是我們還沒有正式的計劃—我們并沒有開會討論什么的?，F(xiàn)在一切只是我們的熱情。我們是福爾摩斯迷，對劇本下一步將如何進展感到興奮不已。