Moffat: Molly Broke Our First Rule

Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss have been speaking to the press ahead of the New Year's Day premiere of the third season of the fantastic Sherlock.

And their attention, surprisingly, was on breakout star Louise Brealey, who plays Molly on the show.

"She's really interesting, Molly, because she was an absolute one-scene character for the pilot but Loo Brealy was just so fantastic," Moffat said.

"We went against our first decision which was 'We will not add a regular that's not from Doyle'. The first thing we did was add a regular character that's not from Doyle!"

He continued: "I think she's fascinating because over time, certainly by the time you get to the second series, she wins every encounter with Sherlock.

"All the time, always. And by being honest and truthful with him. He's so on the back foot now with Molly, I think it's hilarious.

"In a way that John can never put Sherlock on the back foot, Molly really, really does. She sort of wins every single conversation."

Gatiss added: "It's a fascinating thing because it's a new idea. We were doing the pilot and I said, 'What if she has a boyfriend and Sherlock says he's gay?'.

"That rolled on to the whole thing with Jim and it massively expanded. It's so much to do with Loo's interpretation making it so heartwarming."

Moffat agreed: "It's extraordinary. What you don't get a lot of in the original stories is, 'What do women think of him?'.

"They don't talk much in the original stories. It doesn't happen much. There's Irene Adler who he barely meets in the original. There's Mrs Hudson who just brings tea in.

"It was fun to have that perspective on him, what would a modern young woman make of this vulnerable monster."

Sherlock returns to BBC One and BBC One HD on New Year's Day, and also stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Mark Gatiss, Una Stubbs and Rupert Graves. And it's a good thing it's back. Apparently there was quite the cliffhanger...?