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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

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.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Crazy Fun Years
It will be obvious to anyone who sees it that he [Doctor Strange] earns that cloak. You think he’s doing all right and then you realise that there’s one massive lesson to learn.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Doctor Lesson 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.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Numbers People Soul
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
What makes a good animated movie is being able to balance adult and knowing in-jokes and also just out and out funny things that make all people laugh. The idea that it’s actually something that will appeal to a family, that’s the trick.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Funny Ideas Knowing Things
Even though my parents experiences were different from mine. I wasn’t a child actor brat; I didn’t travel with them in the circuit. But I got a look into their world, so I did know what I was getting into, to an extent. And they are a constant source of grounding.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Children Different Parents
I’m not very geeky. I’m quite homespun. I would say I’m more modern rustic than gadget-orientated. I like woollen things and log fires and whiskey
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Fire Gadgets Whiskey
Upper class to me means you are either born into wealth or you’re Royalty.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Class Mean Wealth
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
Writing in French is one of my ambitions. I’d like to be able to dream one day in French. Italian and French are the two languages that I’d like to know.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Ambition Dream Writing
I’ve always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Exercise Play Spy
Landing the role of Stephen Hawking was the most positively surprising thing that has happened to me.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Landing Roles Surprising
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
One of the best things about being an actor is that it’s a meritocracy.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Actors Best Meritocracy Things
I remember very clearly someone saying, ‘Don’t shake hands with the cactus,’ and I thought, ‘Well, why not? What could possibly go wrong?’ Shaking hands is a friendly gesture.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Cactus Friendly Hands
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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