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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

Sherlock [Holmes] is on the side of the angels, but don’t think he’s one of them. He uses similar means, but it seems to be for a better purpose, one would hope.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Angel Mean 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
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 got live tweeted once by someone who was opposite my home in some rented accommodation. He was actually describing on twitter what I was doing. ‘I took a shirt off, I went to the window, I put a shirt back on… ‘ And I’ve got blinds in my flat!
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Home Opposite Window
Maybe it’s because I was an only child, but I’ve always wanted kids.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Children Kids Only Child
Looking for happiness is a sure way to sadness, I think. You have to take each moment as it comes.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Come Sadness Thinking Way
Talking about class terrifies me. There is no way of winning.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Class Talking Winning
Doctor Strange is an origin story so there’s a certain room for me improving as well as the character improving.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Character Doctors Stories
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 want to be better at staying connected.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Connected Staying Want
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
I think playing any iconic role when you’re stepping into big shoes, into the shadow of people who have come before you and you can’t process that.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

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

Getting Missing Older Want
I struggle to learn by rote. I’ve had meltdowns on set. Which is embarrassing and shameful.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Embarrassing Meltdowns Struggle
There’s a heroic amount of effort that goes into making him [Doctor Strange] a superhero by the end of the film.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Doctors Effort Superhero
Do I like being thought of as attractive? I don’t know anyone on Earth who doesn’t, but I do find it funny. I look in a mirror and I see all the faults I’ve lived with for 35 years and yet people go kind of nuts for certain things about me. It’s not me being humble. I just think it’s weird.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Humble Mirror Thinking
I don’t live beyond my means. I enjoy luxury and I enjoy the privilege of it, when I can afford it, and I’m in the situation where it’s been given to me, but I’m very conscious of what is wasteful.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Luxury Mean Privilege
I realised quite early on that, although I wasn’t trying to make a career speciality of it, I was playing slightly asexual, sociopathic intellectuals.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Careers Realised Trying
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
It does get strange when you realize people will hang around for hours to get a glimpse of you doing scenes outside.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Glimpse Outside People Realize
Upper class to me means you are either born into wealth or you’re Royalty.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Class Mean Wealth
I want to be able to play trailer-bound fatties in a Judd Apatow comedy.
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Able Play Want

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benedict Cumberbatch Quotes