Right now Benedict Cumberbatch’s most precious commodity just might be time.

That would explain the clashing of pans and plates in the background of a phone interview. It was 8 p.m. in London, the actor was at home in the Hampstead neighborhood, and, he admitted, “I’m eating my supper that I just cooked.”

But it didn’t stop the BBC “Sherlock” star from explaining how time and ways to measure it have featured prominently in his life recently.

A broken watch, inscribed “Time will tell how much I love you,” had a key role in Mr. Cumberbatch’s 2016 Marvel film “Doctor Strange.” The title character was “a massive collector, trapped in a gilded cage, alone in all the materialism,” the actor, 41, said. “But he keeps the watch, even though it’s broken, because of what it said.”