Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch CBE is an English actor and film producer who has performed in film, television, theatre and radio. The son of actors Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, he graduated from the University of Manchester and continued his training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, obtaining a Master of Arts in Classical Acting. He first performed at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in Shakespearean productions and has portrayed George Tesman in Richard Eyre's revival...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth19 July 1976
CityLondon, England
The armoury of having any academic education does not necessarily set you up for being a good or better actor.
Live a life less ordinary.
I am very flattered. I have also become a verb as in "I have cumberbatched the UK audience" apparently. Who knows, by the end of the year I might become a swear word too! It's crazy and fun and very flattering.
I've seen and swam and climbed and lived and driven and filmed. Should it all end tomorrow, I can definitely say there would be no regrets. I am very lucky, and I know it. I really have lived 5,000 times over.
It's the same thing, I think, whether it's breathing or meditation or yoga. And running is a great way of doing it.
The world of 'Sherlock Holmes' and the world that we live in now is big enough to take more than one interpretation.
I think what I loved in cinema - and what I mean by cinema is not just films, but proper, classical cinema - are the extraordinary moments that can occur on screen. At the same time, I do feel that cinema and theater feed each other. I feel like you can do close-up on stage and you can do something very bold and highly characterized - and, dare I say, theatrical - on camera. I think the cameras and the viewpoints shift depending on the intensity and integrity of your intention and focus on that.
I think with any characterization there's a point where you empathize, no matter how much of a deviance his or her actions may be from your understanding of humanity.
There's no shame in stealing - any actor who says he doesn't is lying. You steal from everything.
When auditioning, I try to imagine that I'm the only person that they [directors] are seeing that day because it can be overwhelming, in the same sense that it could be overwhelming if you try to fulfil everyone's expectations rather than the people closest to you in the creative process, be it your director, or fellow actors and the writers. So, that's kind of it - I try to trick myself into believing that no one has ever gone there before.
Talking about class terrifies me. There is no way of winning.
I know he [Julian Assange] is a man of fierce determination, and now living under the strain of house arrest in the Ecuadorean embassy as a "political exile," as he calls himself.
You have to sometimes just run with the problem rather than trying to solve it with hi-tech wizardry and lots of planning.
I'd shift disciplines, whether it was musical instruments or sports or whatever, and it's the same with that [reading].