Hero Fiennes Tiffin: "I would love to play James Bond”

He’s a mystery, is Hero Fiennes Tiffin. He’s a brainteaser, a head-scratcher – an enigma wrapped in one of acting’s most lip-tripping names. But that’s to be expected. After all, his first major role was a riddle. But we’ll get to that. First, there’s the case of his latest cryptic character to unravel: the great Sherlock Holmes.

In Guy Ritchie’s Young Sherlock – now afoot on Prime Video – the 28-year-old plays the sleuth fresher-faced and more hopped-up on hormones than we’ve ever seen him. Plucked from jail (for pick-pocketing), the teenage not-yet-detective lands at Oxford University, where in the first of eight intricately plotted, 1870s-set episodes, a kindly professor remarks: “Sherlock? That’s an unusual name.” 

For Hero Fiennes Tiffin, it’s one line he’s heard plenty of times before. “Oh, hundreds of times,” laughs the actor. “My brother is called Titan, my sister Mercy, and we’ve all wondered why our parents thought naming their kids was a chance to demonstrate their own creativity. But we never got that much stick and, as you grow up – especially in this industry – it becomes a bit of an icebreaker. It’s memorable. People say: ‘You’re called Hero? Those are some big shoes to fill.’ I’ve grown to like it.” 

‘Hero,’ of course, is the least of it – it’s the ‘Fiennes’ of the matter that really laces up those size fourteens. Raised in South London by director Martha Fiennes and cinematographer George Tiffin, the actor grew up bouncing between BAFTAs, bestsellers and film festivals. And yet he drops no clues of this high-achieving upbringing: there’s no brash confidence, no brushing-off of the big breaks.

Instead, as he embarks on a two-week press tour – from a “seriously baltic” Manhattan, through Los Angeles and Mexico, back home to London – Fiennes Tiffin is as modest and self-effacing as someone new to show business. It’s been a whirlwind, he says, and not just because of those frosty New York gales. Rather because he’s suddenly shouldering more than just a heavy family name; he’s carrying one of the most recognised characters in Western literary tradition.

As you’d expect, the Fiennes clan has tangled with literary legends before. Shakespeare, Dickens – iconic characters from Heathcliff to Odysseus, Magwitch to Merlin. Uncle Ralph once played Holmes’ methodical, mathematical nemesis, Professor James Moriarty. But Hero? Against all odds, he’s the first Fiennes Sherlock.

Young Sherlock, however, remains very much a family affair. One of the series’ most canny bits of casting – alongside turns from Colin Firth and Natascha McElhone – is Joseph Fiennes (another uncle) as Sherlock’s wily father, Silas. 

“Our showrunner, Matthew Parkhill, came to me one day,” says Fiennes Tiffin, “and told me they’d reached out to Joe. He was checking I was alright with it, and said he was sorry he didn’t tell me sooner – as he hadn’t made the connection. I call bullshit on that! He knew exactly what he was doing. But still, it’s great casting.”

With acting in the blood, Fiennes Tiffin had long hoped to share the screen with a relative. “But I’d wanted it to come about in a natural way,” he adds, “when I’d earned the right to work alongside them. This feels like a good point in my career to have it happen – and it’s quite nice to say that Joe’s got a role because of me, and not the other way around!”

But to brand Fiennes Tiffin a ‘nepo baby’ at all would be a lazy deduction. That now-infamous 2022 article in New York Magazine listed more than 100 of the industry’s shiniest silver-spoon stars, and your latest Sherlock wasn’t anywhere to be seen. For good reason. The Fiennes name is less about string-pulling, more about getting a foot in the door. There’s no double-barrel bombast or entitlement lurking within the actor’s albeit slightly unsolvable syllables. In fact, you’d need the most heavy-duty Holmes magnifying glass to spot an ego on Hero. His family name, if anything, seems to have hindered his progress – setting expectations to a level he often worries he can’t match.

“It’s funny,” he says. “At the beginning of every job, you have impostor syndrome. You don’t trust yourself to bring the character to life. But, obviously, you keep that to yourself – you want to keep your job. Then, you might get some good feedback – and you start feeling more confident in those shoes.”

This, Fiennes Tiffin says, was his experience on Young Sherlock. That is, until he began shooting scenes with his uncle. “When Joe comes in, it all goes out of the window,” he says. “Because, obviously, that’s just uncle Joe. But it’s also Joseph Fiennes, this brilliant actor who I really want to impress. But that’s always the case when you work with actors you look up to.”

Colin Firth is another case in point. Fiennes Tiffin wishes he’d had more scenes with the Oscar-winner, saying he’s “so well-cast” as the imperial Sir Bucephalus Hodge. “You know they say ‘Don’t meet your heroes?’ In my experience, every great actor I’ve been lucky enough to work with has just been lovely. And Colin’s the latest.”

There’ll doubtless be more. While Fiennes Tiffin spent his early career portraying ‘young’ versions of characters – including a young Jack O’Connell in Private Peaceful – young Sherlock is likely the last time he’ll play the prefix. But it brings us back to his first big role: at just 11 years old, an enigmatic (and just slightly sinister) Fiennes Tiffin played an adolescent Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Director David Yates admitted that his resemblance to Ralph Fiennes, who played Voldemort in the series, was a “clincher”, but also cited the young actor’s “dark mood and odd spirit” as reasons he scored the gig. Go watch the scene (in which Fiennes Tiffin goes toe to toe with the late Michael Gambon as Dumbledore) and you’ll see what he meant. It’s shiver-inducing stuff. 

“It’s crazy,” says the actor today. “Because I hadn’t really thought about the ‘young’ thing. I hadn’t made the connection between young Voldemort and young Sherlock, and how they were each my big break in a different way.”

In another fateful twist, Fiennes Tiffin himself has a ‘young’ Sherlock in Young Sherlock, played in flashback sequences by Lucien Guo. “And that’s crazy, too!” adds the actor. “I’ve been saying that he’s a lovely kid, destined for great things, and then I remember when other people – possibly Ralph – were saying those kind words about me. It’s really a full-circle moment, a massive landmark in my career.”

It’s also a landmark in the Holmes canon. The character, a Guinness World Record holder for the “most portrayed human literary character in film and television,” is inescapable. Yet this depiction is different. And it’s not simply his age – Fiennes Tiffin brings a slightly more serrated edge to the sleuth; rougher, his corners yet to be knocked off. He’s ever so slightly slower than we’ve come to expect of Holmes, too, with his investigative instincts needing to be teased out. 

The actor says he’s always been aware of the character, whether through his dad’s retorts of ‘No shit, Sherlock’ or Guy Ritchie’s first crack at the character, in two films starring Robert Downey Jr. “I’ve always been a fan of Guy’s, too,” the actor adds. “So this really feels like I’ve peaked. It’s proper bucket-list stuff!” 

But, just as Ritchie has previously tussled with Holmes, Fiennes Tiffin has also tussled with Ritchie. In 2024, he starred as sailor-cum-soldier Henry Hayes in the director’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, a truth-stretched retelling of WWII’s real-life Operation Postmaster. 

“Guy’s style is naturally heightened,” says Fiennes Tiffin. “From the start, your main characters really feel like they know they’re the main characters. And that might trade in a little bit of the jeopardy, but it’s traded in for fun.” The actor is a fan of Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films, but admits his defining take on the character can be found on the stoop of a different 221B Baker Street. “Cumberbatch,” says the actor. “That’s the Sherlock that really made its mark on me. It might be a generational thing, but Benedict’s BBC version is at the top, with RDJ a very close second.”

Like Cumberbatch’s version, which transplanted the Victorian detective to modern-day London, there are certain contemporary touches at play in Ritchie’s Young Sherlock. Perhaps the most obvious are the needle drops – rock tracks from Miles Kane and Kasabian that punch up the period setting. It feels slightly Tarantino, using time-warped tunes to score carriage chases and brawls beneath the dreaming spires.

“Yeah, the music is a massive thing,” nods Fiennes Tiffin. “Look, I’m not an actor who creates playlists as part of his process, but – like anyone – I’m a big music fan. And I really appreciate the impact it has, especially when you’re watching a show, and the music helps the performances along. It just elevates everything. And, thanks to Guy’s stylised nature, every department was allowed to slightly bend the rules in terms of historical accuracy.”

The costume team, too, stretched the seams of Ritchie’s wham-bam, blam-blam world. Some of the suits were cut in a more modern way, and certain prints and patterns – such as a natty navy boating jacket worn by Holmes – skirt a little to the left of historical accuracy. “I’m sure the experts will say they didn’t have this or that back then,” shrugs the actor. “But you can’t tell to the untrained eye.”

With Dónal Finn in Young Sherlock

Fiennes Tiffin’s last period piece, 2022’s The Woman King with Viola Davis, saw his slave trader togged out in tailcoats, waistcoats and cravats. He looked swashbuckling enough, but the historic clothing didn’t lend itself to action sequences. “Costumes can be quite restrictive at times,” he says, “and people underestimate the effect they can have on fight scenes. On Young Sherlock, however, the head of our costume department was a lovely woman called Jany Temime, who was the most experienced I’ve ever worked with. She could probably do the job in her sleep – and everyone looked absolutely amazing.”

Temime, as it happens, also dressed Fiennes Tiffin’s juvenile Voldemort (grey flannel shorts, knee-high socks, everything a budding Dark Lord could wish for in a wardrobe). In fact, she designed the costumes for most of the Harry Potter series – and even dusted off the dinner jackets for a couple of the more recent Bond films. Speaking of the superspy… actually, no. If Voldemort had to wait, so too can 007.

“Jany was quite decisive and authoritative,” says Fiennes Tiffin of Temime’s Young Sherlock work. “But she always wanted to make us feel comfortable. And it was definitely collaborative; the higher you go up the call sheet, the more people seem to ask for your input. On this job, and in other areas too, I really do feel like I’ve grown up a lot. I’m starting to have more ideas and opinions on set, rather than just turning up and saying the lines.”

But this confidence has taken time, says the actor. “I think, because I did a few acting roles when I was quite young, it’s been hard to shake the approach I had to being on set – that I was the youngest and just lucky to be there. It’s obviously good to keep some of that, as it keeps you humble. You don’t want to lose the things that make you turn up on time and do other good stuff. But it’s important, sometimes – and I learnt this from Guy – to not be scared.”

Often, Fiennes Tiffin reveals, Ritchie will pause proceedings to try out a spur-of-the-moment idea. “Even if the clock’s ticking! Or if producers are breathing down his neck.” On the set of Young Sherlock, most of these moments took the form of elaborate, freewheeling dialogue changes – and the actors were encouraged to chip in with their own suggestions. “I’m going to annoy my family so much watching the show,” the actor says. “‘That!’ I’ll be saying – ‘I came up with that!’”

And, as with the costumes, Fiennes Tiffin says they weren’t “stupidly strict” about word choices. “Again, some very smart people may say that certain words weren’t around back then. But Guy’s vocabulary is mental.” In one scene, the actor was given his lines to learn only ten minutes before shooting. In among them was the word ‘verisimilitudinous’. “To this day, I don’t know what that means,” he laughs. “And Guy was pulling those words out of nowhere. Everything Matthew Parkhill had on the page was already brilliant – but somehow Guy managed to elevate and decorate it even more!”

This is another Ritchie hallmark. “If it’s verbal jousting, he’s the man for the job,” says Fiennes Tiffin. “It’s like tennis, but there’s also a musicality to it.” On The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, the director’s inclination for impromptu rewrites gave his cast – which also featured Henry Cavill and Reacher’s Alan Ritchson – their WhatsApp group name: ‘The Scriptless Heroes’. 

“There was one scene where Henry had three pages of dialogue,” says Fiennes Tiffin, “and he only got handed them 20 minutes before shooting. We were all on set, thinking: ‘Better him than us!’ I was more than happy to just watch. But, very quickly, it was my turn on Sherlock.”

On the Ministry set, Cavill and Fiennes Tiffin became firm friends, with the older actor calling his co-star “a mega-star in the making”. “He’s so, so lovely,” says Fiennes Tiffin. “Actually, he’s the first and only person, in terms of big actors, that I’ve ever texted and asked for notes. One of the things he said, to help me get into the right frame of mind, was: ‘A man who worries before it’s necessary worries more than necessary’. I can tell you, that’s easier said than done!”

Thankfully, Young Sherlock is a riot – knee-slapping, whip-smart and remarkably fresh given the character’s sometimes-stifling ubiquity. Dónal Finn, who plays Moriarty as an unexpected ally, is a particularly good foil for Fiennes Tiffin’s fledgling detective. 

Another of Sherlock’s regular sparring partners, older brother Mycroft Holmes, is played by Max Irons – he of another British acting dynasty. Did the two scions share dramatic family stories on set? “Max is one of the most lovely, honest, open, humble – but just stupidly talented and good-looking – guys out there,” says Fiennes Tiffin. “And, not in a patronising way, but he was so open and quick to share stories in regard to [us both being from acting families]. I was super grateful to have Max. He really was like a brother on set.”

Family – whether on screen or off – means much to Fiennes Tiffin. “I’m a bit of a homebody,” he admits, “and while I’ve been lucky to travel for work, I always want to spend my spare time at home with friends and family. My family all still live in the same area, and when I do get home, I finally feel like I can recharge.”

Young Sherlock offered a welcome balance, with a largely British shoot – save for a couple of months in Spain. But the actor is no stranger to sunnier European climes, having filmed four instalments of popular young-adult franchise After in destinations ranging from Portugal to Bulgaria. This is another string to the considerably Hero bow: on-screen romance. 

Whether in the After films, 2022’s First Love, or opposite Simone Ashley in recent Picture This, Fiennes Tiffin has become his generation’s foremost heart-breaker – the pulse-racer-in-chief. (The Instagram numbers back this up: more than 6.5 million followers on his personal account. But it’s the fan pages that really prove the point – four dozen on Instagram alone; north of 250 on Facebook.)

He’s a top-class brooder, then; a smoulder to lean on. But Young Sherlock throws up a different flavour of Fiennes Tiffin. This time, he’s a bad boy with a brain – a rebel with a razor-sharp wit. Yet, while he may trade in intellect, he still loves a scuffle. 

“Though my Sherlock’s not good at fighting,” adds the actor. “Which was a shame. There’s a comedic element to my fighting, and when Guy first told me I was like: ‘Oh, man!’ The kid in me wanted to fight! But I quickly learned why we were doing it. There’s no point in making an origin story if the character’s already where they need to be.”

It was the same with stunts. The actor may have managed a little horse-riding, but the penny-farthings were, sadly, off-limits – “I could easily have stacked it, but I did fancy a go,” he says. With all that dropped-in dialogue, he probably had enough on his proverbial anyway. At least, Fiennes Tiffin says, you can always do another take if it’s talking. “That’s why I haven’t done much theatre. I’m definitely a screen guy.

“It’s also difficult when you watch yourself back,” he adds. “But I think I’ve got better at it. You lose that squeamish vanity eventually, and get used to how your voice sounds on camera.” 

Fiennes Tiffin says he has seen the series all the way through once, and watched the opening episodes a handful of times each. With every viewing, he’s enjoying it more and more – an experience he hasn’t had with previous projects. “It’s probably watching the other cast members do such a great job,” he says, “but it’s weird. I’ve really surprised myself how much I’m enjoying watching this one back.”

Cause for celebration, then – which calls to mind one of the new show’s standout lines. After cracking a case, Dónal Finn’s Moriarty suggests the duo toast their triumph with “an evening of big fat pints”. Is this how Fiennes Tiffin celebrates his real-life wins? “I’d say big fat pints isn’t far off, really. I like a Pravha on tap, as standard. But I recently found a beer called Noam, which only comes bottled. Now that’s a celebration beer right there, definitely my favourite for a special occasion.”

Should a second series of Young Sherlock be commissioned – which is Fiennes Tiffin’s prevailing wish right now – many Noams will be raised no doubt, before being downed. While the actor waits to see how the show is received, he’s taken up golf to pass the time between jobs. He’s also a keen gym-goer and calls staying in shape “a great form of therapy”. “But I really do hope we get a second season,” he repeats. “I’m not going to be young forever. We need to crack the whip and keep going!”

Before Young Sherlock returns, we’ll see Fiennes Tiffin acting alongside yet another British icon: Idris Elba. In survival thriller Above the Below (also co-directed by Elba) the pair are joined by Caitlin FitzGerald, with the trio playing astronauts stranded in a malfunctioning capsule rapidly sinking to the sea floor. 

The film shot more than two years ago in the vast water tanks of Pinewood Studios, and Fiennes Tiffin remembers being summoned to a costume fitting on his 26th birthday. “I got the call and wasn’t happy – I’d been looking forward to a couple of Pravhas. But when Idris calls, you answer. I’m really looking forward to that one seeing the light of day. We all swallowed gallons of water making it. I think I almost drowned about seven times. And lots of cold and damp between takes. So it was a physically testing one, which means we all want to see the fruits of our labour.

“That’s not to say it wasn’t great fun,” he adds. “I really enjoy all that physical acting, and it’s always great to do a role that’s different from the last. And that one was so different. Plus, I love Idris.”

But wait – whispers of Elba and Cavill? Fiennes Tiffin’s proven action-hero charm? And him grabbing a big British icon by the literary lapels (one currently found on Prime Video, no less)? Perhaps that dinner jacket isn’t too far away. You may enter now, Mr Bond, because the 007 question will surely be floated countless times on this press tour. How often does the young actor think he’ll be fielding it?

“Maybe not as often as I’d like, to be honest,” he laughs. “Would that be a bit selfish, though? Would it be unfair to have both Sherlock and James Bond? I wonder whether or not, as a viewer, I’d want that. They’re both massive IPs, big British leading roles that are always being redone, and often at a similar age.

“I mean, it would be a dream,” he continues. “But I do appreciate that people have to believe in the character, and I just wonder if having both would be fair.” 

It’s another wise-beyond-his-years response from Fiennes Tiffin. But, as we’ve established, he’s not the actor you expect. Perhaps this introspection comes from months of playing Holmes, kicking his overthinking into overdrive. After all, Cavill is set to play Sherlock himself for the third time this year (in Netflix’s Enola Holmes franchise), and he was once Superman. 

“That’s true!” says Fiennes Tiffin. “Yeah, what am I doing? My agents are probably listening to this interview and thinking: ‘What are you doing? Just shut up and say yes.’ So yes, I’d love to do it, if it was being offered. Henry would have been great, too. He’s such a quintessential British gentleman. But that’s me off on a tangent. We love Henry Cavill, he’d have been a brilliant Bond. But if it was coming my way? Yes, I would love to play James Bond.”

That tracks – because Bond would be fun. And Fiennes Tiffin, though we began by calling him a mystery, may in fact be more straightforward than that. Whether he’s a wizard, an astronaut, a daring commando or a consulting detective, his career seems to run on fun. Just look at those roles: the stuff of playground daydreams. 

So, while the family name often offers a helping hand, it looks like Fiennes Tiffin is more than happy striking out on his own. And, if Young Sherlock proves anything, it’s that he’s got one thing definitively cracked: making a case for himself. 

Young Sherlock is out now on Prime Video.