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BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
IS SET TO PLAY
THE ROLE OF MARVEL SUPERHERO DOCTOR
STRANGE. THE FILM IS DUE OUT IN
NOVEMBER 2016.
“My health, the health of my
family and the opportunities
inmy working life. Those are
three strong bases. It’s a bit of a
goldenmoment for me”
TEXT BY RUBEN V. NEPALES; PHOTOS BY GETTY IMAGES
But I didn’t need to really do
that because like I said, they
are very intuitive and a self-
correcting and smart brunch.
So they’ve taken all sorts of
different names now. As long
as they’re enjoying my work
and who I am as a person,
that’s all that matters. So
whatever the fans want to call
themselves is fine.
What are you grateful for
these days?
The love that is in my life
at the moment, naturally.
It’s an amazing thing to find
somebody you love, let alone
somebody who loves you back
in the same way and to the
same degree. Not everyone
is so lucky. It’s a minor miracle,
considering how busy we both
are (laughs) that we met in this
way. So, Sophie is someone I’m
incredibly grateful for and very
excited about.
That was a nice
traditional touch in the
way you announced your
engagement [via UK
newspaper
The Times
]
.
It’s a standard way of doing
it in England. Maybe it’s
old-fashioned but I would still
have done it that way even
if I weren’t in this strange,
heightened position, being
a famous actor. I just tried to
normalize something that was
deeply personal to me.
I knew the world would find
out, obviously. But I didn’t
want to publicize it beyond
what I initially wanted to
publicize it as, which was an
announcement to my friends
and family. Because, believe
me, although I told as many
people after the moment, I had
to go back to playing Richard
III [in
The Hollow Crown,
a TV
mini-series]. I couldn’t spend all
the time on the phone. It was a
way of announcing it to friends
and family and I suppose a
quiet way for the world to find
out about it.
What else are you thankful
for?
For my health and the health
of my family and for the fact
I’m still here chugging away.
And for the opportunities in
my working life. Those are the
three strong bases. It’s a bit of
a golden moment for me and
I’m loving it. I’m having a great
time and I’m very happy.
Well, touch wood (knocks
on the table), I have given
up smoking so that helps. I
shouldn’t say that because if
I ever have a cigarette again,
it will be in the papers. “Oh,
he lied.” I haven’t smoked for
a month now. I’m dying for a
cigarette right now. No, I’m
joking. I’m fine.
I try to eat healthy. I try not
to eat too much late at night. I
try to do some exercise every
day for at least half an hour.
Crikey! What other secrets?
A few supplements are very
handy. And I try to sleep. I’m
struggling at the moment
because my clock is all over the
place… but I get a lot of help, a
lot of great people around me.
How do you stay centered
amid all this attention and
the busy schedule?
Even if it’s a 10-minute break to
just meditate and see what the
hell is going on in here (points
to his head) after all of this.
Because so much of what I am
at the moment is about talking,
communicating and everything
is externalized.
To take care of the inner
traffic — and it’s very easy
to forget about that in these
heightened environments — I
do that [meditate]. I read
novels or nonfiction. It’s healthy
to keep up with your hobbies
as well, but God knows I was
better at learning a bit of
French every day, a piece of
poetry or all the other things
I promised myself in the few
moments I could grasp.
Recently, it seems you’ve
done one movie after
another. Are you the type
who doesn’t like to see
blank spaces in your work
calendar?
No, it just looks that way.
But I’m getting to the stage
where it’s been such an
embarrassment of riches. The
kind of work I’ve been offered,
it’s been very hard to turn down
and say, “No, I need more
breathing space”.
It’s like what one of the
characters that I play, Sherlock,
says, “A change of work is as
good as a holiday.” That’s a
paraphrase and, pretty much,
it’s true. Different engines give
you the feeling that you’re
doing something so different
that it requires a different
energy and isn’t exhausting.
I don’t suffer from being
a workaholic. At heart, I’m
incredibly lazy. I love nothing
better than to kick back, see
friends and family and just go
on a few more holidays. I did
actually have quite a lot of
time at the beginning of last
year. I was going to be doing
a film,
The Lost City of Z
with
[director] James Gray. That
was put on hold because of
problems with the location.
Hopefully, it will start this year.
As if you aren’t busy
enough, you also narrate
audio books.
I love doing audio books
because you can create an
entire world, which is full of
pitfalls. You get to page 80
and it says, “She announced
in her rasping octogenarian
Hungarian accent…” and you
go, “Oh no, I’ve been playing
her as a 20-year-old ingénue!”
I still manage to do other
things. I go to grands prix. I go
to Oz Comic-Con in Australia.
But, around that period, [early
last year], I had a lot of free
time and adventures.
