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
My dad read The Hobbit to me originally when I was young. So, it was the first imaginary landscape I ever had in my head from the written word. It gave me a passion for reading, thanks to my dad's performance of the book.
I've been reading the books. It's the origination, it's the primary source. You should always go back to the books.
I'm very excited about all the offers and interest and support pouring in through crowd-funding, and about having a lovely gap coming up when I'll finally be able to sit down with books and scripts and talk to my partners about how we take the company [SunnyMarch] forward.
Being in front of an audience makes me feel alive. Being with friends makes me feel alive. I’ve done some crazy stuff in my time and yet I can feel infinitely alive curled up on a sofa reading a book. So, what makes me feel alive? I guess it’s realizing I am part of the world around me.
I just increasingly enjoy the quiet moments when I can be on my own with my friends and family, or with a book, having a live experience. That's really what I crave, and I always have done.
I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.
I've been very lucky at what's happened in my career to date, but playing something as far from me as possible is an ambition of mine - anything from a mutated baddy in a comic book action thriller, to a detective. If anything, I'd like Gary Oldman's career: he's the perfect example of it. I've love to have a really broad sweep of characters - to be able to do something edgy, surprising and unfashionable.
I think the characters are supposed to be an open book, blank canvas.
Even in cerebral roles that are seemingly intelligent and nothing else, I think it's so important to wrap your characterization in a physical form as well.
You can perfect genius because genius is not perfection. On his level and his practice and his methodology, it's almost inhuman. So, that's been a fantastic arc to play, and boy does it go somewhere in this series [of Sherlock Holmes].
[ Sherlock Holmes] has moved from being someone who was sociopathic, work-obsessed and slightly amoral, into being someone who has a certain degree of a private life, which is very, very private, with The Woman, or Irene Adler.
[Sherlock Holmes] has to understand the world. That's very much John's [Watson] influence on him. But like a lot of the friendships and relationships in that world, it's born out of necessity. It makes him better. There's a pragmatism to it. It's not whimsical or sentimental. It's born out of necessity.
I'm not an overnight success. I've been doing it for 12 years. It's been lovely and varied so far.
It's great for the people who supported me early on to see the success I'm enjoying.