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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

Even though Doctor Strange is an established character, when you’re doing an origin story there’s a lot of room for manoeuvre.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Character Doctors Stories
My own grandfathers were a submarine commander and a ‘desert rats’ tank operator in the Second World War.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Grandfather Tanks War
I’m not an overnight success. I’ve been doing it for 12 years. It’s been lovely and varied so far.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Lovely Overnight Success Years
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 drive a motorbike, so there is the whiff of the grim reaper round every corner, especially in London.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Country Grim Reaper Motorbike
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
I had a very sparse comic upbringing – not because I was being whipped into reading Chekhov and Dickens, but I read Asterix on holidays when I was a kid, and Tin Tin was featured, I remember, for a few years.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Holiday Kids Reading
Having your adolescence at an all-male boarding school is just crap.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Adolescence Males School
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
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

Fighting Reality War
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
I like to think that we’re revolving on this planet and revolving through the galaxy. I love having context that’s so much bigger than I can fathom. It’s fantastic to realise how insignificant you are.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Bigger Fantastic Thinking
It’s difficult because nothing’s preordained by plan and you can’t control it. That’s one of those joys and thrills and nerve-racking realities of being an actor. A lot has to do with luck, no matter what your talent or contribution can be.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Joy Luck Reality
You’d have to be pretty hard-nosed not to feel some sympathy for the guy [Doctor Strange].
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Doctors Guy Strange
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
I suppose my bodily proportions are quite flattering. I’m ripped, doing something I wouldn’t normally do with my body, or having done to it, involving Watson.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Body Done Proportion
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
I’m excited to see where the Illuminati and whatever else might happen, how that works, and where it ends up.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Ends Excited might
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
We look at science as the ultimate answer for everything yet we are really messy organisms and when the two collide in the upper echelons of medicine you think science will prevail but it’s not always that way.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Medicine Thinking Two
I’ve realised now that the reality of children is you have to be in the right place with the right person.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Children Persons Reality
I understand from those who adore him, he [Julian Assange] has a great sense of humor which rarely gets an airing because he’s dealing with such serious issues.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Humor Issues Sense Serious
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
Metaphorically speaking, it’s easy to bump into one another on the journey from A to B and not even notice. People should take time to notice, enjoy and help each other.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Bump Journey People
I keep myself amused and others confused
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Amused Confused Myself Other
It still makes me giggle that I’m paid to act.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Giggle Paid Stills
[ 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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benedict Cumberbatch Quotes