With Enola Holmes 3 officially streaming on Netflix, it felt appropriate to bring it back to the beginning. All the way to the beginning.
That’s right, we uncovered Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge’s chemistry read for the first Enola Holmes, which debuted six years ago. (You can watch their very adorable audition scenes above!)
“I do remember when Louis walked in, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s Tewkesbury. That’s him,’ ” Brown tells Tudum. “He sat down, and he was very nervous, red cheeks, he’d just come from French class, he was still in his school uniform.” From that moment on, the actor adds, she “felt in [her] heart” that Partridge was the Tewkesbury she had always imagined.
Partridge, meanwhile, was feeling all the nerves. “I remember being intimidated, but [director] Harry Bradbeer was just being lovely, and Millie was really friendly,” he says. “It was a bit of a whirlwind, to be honest. I remember exactly where it was, and I remember going with my mom to the audition. It’s really funny — it feels like years ago.”
Looking back on his first audition for Enola, Partridge — who was 15 at the time — found himself relating to the fictional teenager.
“It was the first audition where I really thought, ‘I can actually have fun while I’m doing this,’” he recalls. “It wasn’t a case of, ‘I’m just going to read the lines and say them to my mom,’ who I did all my self-tapes with.”
Partridge continues, “I thought, ‘Oh wow, there’s a bit of me in Tewkesbury.’ I kind of leant into the bits that felt like me and leant out of the bits that didn’t.”
It’s been four years since Partridge and Brown last shared the screen together in Enola Holmes 2, but it didn’t take much for the pair to fall right back into character. “Honestly, as soon as I saw Millie in her period dress, and I’m wearing a waistcoat, it seems to just happen,” Partridge says. “Given that Millie and I have grown up with these characters, it’s kind of like the lines between [us and] them are fairly blurred.”
Adds Brown, “I remember in the first and second film, Enola says, ‘You’re a man when I tell you that you’re a man.’ I can officially say, I think Louis is a man. He’s fantastic. He’s just a really loving and supportive friend who has been such a great co-star in all of this.”
While it’s not clear if there will be a fourth film — as writer Jack Thorne tells Tudum, the ending of Enola Holmes 3 is a “comma” rather than “full stop” — Partridge notes that his affection for Tewkesbury marches on.
“It’s been a big part of my life now — it’s been six years that we’ve been doing this,” he says. “I’ve always, and will always, feel an affinity toward this part.”
