Martin Freeman is out and about promoting his new film Ghost Stories – in cinemas April 6th – but the Black Panther and Sherlock star had plenty to say about playing John Watson again.

Martin Freeman last night strenuously denied that he finds playing Holmes’ partner “not fun anymore”, according to reports.

After recently commenting that there weren’t talks ongoing regarding season five of the Moffat/Gatiss take on the classic literary sleuth – or at least “not massively“, to use his unusual turn-of-phrase – he told The Associated Press that: “To clear that up, in that interview I never actually said the words ‘Sherlock isn’t fun anymore’.”

“Sherlock is fun,” he continued, before clarifying that “elements of it, the pressure, the expectation, that is not always fun… I never said Sherlock is not fun, because it’s a f****** delightful job, frankly. But of course fun is what you want to spend your life doing. Fun, thought-provoking things, hopefully, challenging things.”

On his new role in Ghost Stories, he said: “What is important to me is doing films that I like doing. I am lucky enough to get to choose, to a certain extent, what I do and some of those things are big and some are small and I’m very happy just to do things that interest me.”