Max Irons is portraying Mycroft Holmes in the new Amazon Prime Video series, Young Sherlock, a role he approached with a deliberate balance of respect for established interpretations and a willingness to embrace director Guy Ritchie’s unconventional vision.
Irons, known for his roles in The White Queen, The Host, and Miss Austen, described his process of preparing for the part in a recent interview with UPI. “I attempt not to worry about that too much. I travel and I watch other people’s interpretations and sometimes you’re intimidated, sometimes you’re in awe and you steal bits and pieces here. You ignore bits and pieces there,” he said. He acknowledged the potential for established portrayals to be “intimidating,” but ultimately emphasized the importance of allowing Ritchie’s approach to guide the series.
“But then I think you let it go because these things, I think, can weigh you down and what Guy Ritchie does so fearlessly, irreverently, is come in and just throw everything you think you understand about Sherlock and everything you think you know about your character up in the air and he does it with no warning,” Irons explained. “What it leads to is a re-imagining, a natural, organic, re-imagining of material that people are familiar with and I think he will achieve in attracting a legion of new Sherlock fans who will then go on to enjoy the rest of the material.”
Young Sherlock, which premiered on March 4, 2026, is set in 1870s England and follows a teenage Sherlock Holmes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) navigating life as an Oxford University servant after a brief imprisonment for pickpocketing. The series, executive produced and directed by Ritchie, draws inspiration from Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes book series and the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Irons’ Mycroft Holmes is depicted as a government employee tasked with maintaining order and supporting his brother, while also grappling with the responsibility of caring for their mother, Cordelia (Natascha McElhone), who is residing in an asylum following the death of their sister, according to the series’ narrative.
Irons characterized Mycroft as outwardly “a tightly wound, tightly controlled junior civil servant, working his way up within the system,” but possessing a deeper emotional core. “Beneath it, he’s a deeply loving brother,” Irons said. “Having lost his sister, he’s terrified of losing his brother and also weighed down by the responsibility of shepherding what is undeniably a unique mind and person and, as infuriating as that charge is for him at times, it’s absolutely essential in his heart.”
Zine Tseng, who previously appeared in 3 Body Problem, plays Princess Gulun Shou’an, a Chinese student at Oxford who becomes involved in the unfolding mystery. Tseng described her character’s dynamic with Sherlock as complex and shifting. “She is a very experience martial artist and she is also a bit of a solar energy ball and her relationship with Sherlock is that they kind of like be friends with each other, but they kind of be enemies with each other, but they kind of stay away and be in trouble,” Tseng said. She added that the nature of their connection remains open-ended. Tseng underwent extensive stunt training for the role, working with Haruka Ohshima as her stunt double and coach, practicing weapons and fight choreography.
Irons jokingly noted the level of care taken to ensure Tseng’s safety on set: “We love and trust Zine, implicitly, but we also grant her a three-meter perimeter at all times.”
The series also stars Dónal Finn as James Moriarty and Joseph Fiennes as Silas Holmes.
