11 Actors Who Took on the Role of Watson, With or Without Sherlock Holmes
Choosing a favorite Dr. Watson is anything but elementary, since many film and TV stars have played Sherlock Holmes’ companion and crime-solving colleague so memorably over the decades.
And now we have a new contender: Rosewood and The Resident alum Morris Chestnut will play the Arthur Conan Doyle character in a new CBS series, as you’ll read below.
Scroll down to see some of the actors who played Watson before him (and be sure to check out our gallery of Sherlock Holmes actors, too).
Nigel Bruce
This actor (left), also known for his work in Hitchcock films, played Watson in more than a dozen films opposite Basil Rathbone as Holmes, starting with 1939’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and ending with 1946’s Dressed to Kill.
James Mason
Mason (right), a three-time Oscar nominee, portrayed the character in the 1979 film Murder by Decree, which had Watson and Christopher Plummer’s Holmes hunting the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper.
David Burke & Edward Hardwicke
As the British network ITV aired four Sherlock Holmes series between 1984 and 1994, these two actors played Watson, and Jeremy Brett played Holmes. When Burke left the project for a Royal Shakespeare Company gig, he encouraged pal Hardwicke to audition.
Ben Kingsley
After he won an Academy Award for 1982’s Gandhi, Kingsley (right) starred in the 1988 comedy film Without a Clue. In this case, though, Kingsley’s Watson was the real detective, and Michael Caine’s Holmes was just a prop.
Jude Law
Robert Downey Jr. played the titular detective and Law played his sidekick in the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes and the 2011 sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which collectively grossed more than $1 billion worldwide.
Martin Freeman
Freeman (right) won an Emmy costarring with Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock, the BBC’s modern-day remake of Conan Doyle’s stories, airing from 2010 to 2017. (And some viewers believed Holmes and Watson’s relationship wasn’t just professional.)
Lucy Liu
This A-list action star presented a gender-flipped version of the character in CBS’ Elementary — which aired between 2012 and 2019 — with producers asserting that her Joan Watson and Jonny Lee Miller’s Holmes would never have more than a “bromance.”
John C. Reilly
Neither critics nor viewers appreciated 2018’s Holmes & Watson, which had Will Ferrell as Holmes and Reilly (left), his frequent collaborator, as Watson. The parody earned the Razzie for Worst Picture, and Reilly took the “prize” for Worst Supporting Actor.
Himesh Patel
Patel has a mid-credits cameo in 2022’s Enola Holmes 2 — the second Netflix film starring Millie Bobby Brown as the younger sister of Henry Cavill’s Holmes — with his Watson showing up on the doorstep of 221B Baker Street as a new flatmate.
Morris Chestnut
Chestnut has signed up to play the lead role in CBS’ upcoming Watson, a “medical show with a strong investigative spine,” which follows Watson’s medical career and his interactions with the villain Moriarty after the death of Holmes.
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