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I’ve been broody since I was 12, but I can’t just get anyone pregnant. It has got to be the right person.

Benedict Cumberbatch

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
This is an odd profession, and sometimes people get jealous, but I haven’t really experienced any of that. Everyone’s been really happy for me, which is really, really great.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Jealous People Sometimes
[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.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Certain Degrees Obsessed
All the backstories are there but not talked about.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

About People Stories Talk
When you’re a kid, ‘Star Trek’ is a slower burn. It’s funny, it’s entertaining, but it also has a maturity about it – which is its universal appeal, I think.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Kids Maturity Stars
I am shortsighted. I need glasses for watching movies or concerts. It’s not a hipster affectation; I do have poor eyesight. This is how ridiculous my life is: I’ve had the test for contact lenses, but I haven’t found a half-day where I can go to the optician.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Hipster Poor Ridiculous
Even the cerebral characters I play seem to have physical quirks. They’re all “physically inhabited,” for lack off a better expression. For instance, Sherlock Holmes has very particular physical gestures which are drawn out in such detail.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Character Expression Play
Being a posh actor in England you cannot escape the class-typing from whatever side you look at it.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Actor Class Looks
The awful lesson of history is that we too often ignore people, just because they’re foreigners or different from us.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Different Ignore Lesson People
The number of people my age, younger now, a whole generation younger, who are fiercely bright, over-educated, under-employed and who are politicised and purposeless really upsets me. It’s soul-destroying.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Numbers People Soul
I really cannot get over the generosity of our Tibetian teacher. He said, “Don’t punish yourself. You’re going to be a student at a university in the north of England. You need to have your experiences and have your fun, and not judge yourself. Don’t live in guilt and regret.”
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Fun Regret Teacher
My mum and dad had worked incredibly hard to afford me an education.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Dad Hard Mum
When I was young I became kind of a party animal. I had a massive crash. My health suffered. I was just overdoing it. That person could not be further from the one who emerged from that earlier experience. I regressed massively.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Animal Kind Party
I’m always playing characters with intellects profoundly superior to mine. That’s great fun, even though it’s as much a fantasy for me as for the people watching me.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Character Fun People
There’s so much in the 21st century that is stymied by bureaucracy and mediocrity and committee.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Bureaucracy Century Mediocrity
I try to work hard. I’m really proud of what I get to do as a living. I still pinch myself. But I also know it’s a craft, and I can get better at it and learn every time I do it. So I try to work hard no matter what the task is.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Better Get Hard Trying Work
I’ve never been front and centre as an iconic American character [like in Doctor Strange]. Day to day, you know you’re painting on a very big canvas.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Character Doctors Strange
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
I think anyone who works in medicine has superpowers.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Medicine Superpower Thinking
It is a wonderful thing to get married young and become a father.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Father Married Wonderful
Because reading is one of the joys of life, and once you begin, you can’t stop, and you’ve got so many stories to look forward to.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Joy Looks Reading
I’ll always do ‘Sherlock’ – it’s something I’m not going to give up on.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Always Giving Help Support Up
I had a real yearning to make use of the opportunities I had at school. When I heard about the gap year of teaching English at a Tibetan monastery, I knew I had to do something about it really quickly, otherwise it was going to get allocated.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Real School Teaching
The further you get away from yourself, the more challenging it is. Not to be in your comfort zone is great fun.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Challenges Comfort Fun
The armoury of having any academic education does not necessarily set you up for being a good or better actor.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Academic Actors Doe
[Doctor Strange ] is slightly more specialised than Spider-Man or Superman or Batman, but he’s very loved by people who know him.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Doctors Men People
I was very keen to work on the script with Scott Derrickson and [C. Robert] Cargill, and working out the important story beats, changing lines, upping the comedy, changing the pace, all of that was great fun.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Fun Important Out Work

I’ve been broody since I was 12, but I can’t just get anyone pregnant. It has got to be the right person.

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I’ve been broody since I was 12, but I can’t just get anyone pregnant. It has got to be the right person.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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