black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We’re living through a time where we are fighting wars fostered by politics, admittedly not on the same scale as the First World War, but with equally tragic realities for our soldiers and their families.

Benedict Cumberbatch

I’ve said for quite a long time I’d like him to have a different haircut. I quite like my hair being short. You know, we’ve been away two years, let’s f*** around with his outfit, let’s f*** around with his haircut, let’s do something different.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Hair Short Two Years
I think I’ve had very knee-jerk emotional reactions to things, and sometimes I’ve said things without thinking. Being overly emotional clouded my judgment.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Emotional Sometimes Thinking
My massive motivation in life is to make parents proud. But even that has to stop at a point.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Motivation Parent Proud
Cumberbatch – it sounds like a fart in a bath, doesn’t it? What a fluffy old name. I can never say it on a Monday morning. When I became an actor, Mum wasn’t keen on me keeping it.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Monday Morning Names
Doctor Strange is selfish but he’s still saving lives.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Doctor Saving Selfish
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 forward.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Book Lovely Support
Anyone who works in the NHS has superpowers. It’s a miracle, it is magic.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Magic Miracle Nhs
Those are more universal things than some of the characters I play, who are slightly sociopathic. I keep reminding people I can do ordinary.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Character People Play
Maybe it’s just getting older, but I don’t want to miss things.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Getting Missing Older Want
I think now with fundamentalists, people who treat belief with a total lack of humor or empathy for any other viewpoint than their own – they, to me, are the enemy. And those people are born out of desperate extremes.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Empathy People Thinking
Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I’m also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Enjoy Journey Others Treating
[ Stephen Strange] is less strange than other characters I’ve played. He’s lost the power to love, which doesn’t make him a nasty person. I just think he’s closed-off.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Character Nasty Thinking
Talking about class terrifies me. There is no way of winning.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Class Talking Winning
Sometimes being away, on location, I feel like I’m away for much of my own life. I want to be better at staying connected.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Location Sometimes Want
Laughing and crying are really similar – what happens to your body. It’s a very similar process in your diaphragm. Like a musician, you have to do your scales once in a while and warm up your voice.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Cry Laughing Musician
Mum did a lot of commercial theatre and farces in the 1980s and ’90s to make sure the school bills were paid.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Farce School Theatre
I wanted to take the audience on a journey where that transition was funny and awkward. It’s the same cynicism that [Strange] has.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Awkward Journey Transition
I never really got obsessed about one thing for long. I was a bit of a butterfly and a magpie.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Butterfly Long Obsessed
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.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Boys Play Practice
An inflated sense of self-importance? Absolutely, but I think it comes from Doctor Strange need to control things and that’s what happens to all surgeons, I think. There’s a huge degree of uncertainty and bafflement.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Doctor Self Thinking
Fame is a weird one. You need to distance yourself from it. People see a value in you that you don’t see yourself.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Distance Needs People
For brain surgeons it’s particularly difficult to deal with failure. It was fascinating to learn about that whole world.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Brain Difficult World
I am a PR disaster because I talk too much.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Disaster Much
We have a lot more unlikely heroes now. It’s not just the guy with guns—it’s the guy with brains.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Brain Gun Guy Hero
I haven’t done period dramas back-to-back, or really anything back-to-back. You get asked to do what you’re most recently famed for, so I’m careful of not repeating myself.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Done Drama Periods
I’m quite sensitive to people noticing me. There are times when I’m relaxed, then others when it does make me self-conscious.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Conscious People Relax Self
My first, big, silly role at school was as Arthur Crocker-Harris in Rattigan’s ‘The Browning Version,’ where my job was to make school-masters’ wives weep with recognition.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Jobs School Silly

We’re living through a time where we are fighting wars fostered by politics, admittedly not on the same scale as the First World War, but with equally tragic realities for our soldiers and their families.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

We’re living through a time where we are fighting wars fostered by politics, admittedly not on the same scale as the First World War, but with equally tragic realities for our soldiers and their families.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benedict Cumberbatch Quotes