BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH: It was in an exiled Tibetan community, just outside of Darjeeling, on the border. It was a little hill station town. I was one of five teachers who had done a training course. It was extraordinary, but it was quite an isolated experience.

YORKE: How long did you do that?

CUMBERBATCH: It was five months. I spent half a year working odd jobs to build up funds for the airfare and to pay for the course. You’re not paid for the teaching; you’re paid in experience. You’re surrounded by the monks and their lives. It was a small monastery, and the top floor was the temple. I was living on the bottom floor, which was pretty damp and had huge spiders. I think it was just near the end of the rainy season; I can’t remember, but it was cold. And because it was so high up, you would open your window, and the clouds were like dry ice rolling across your desk. Nature was ever present; that was gobsmackingly beautiful, as was the spirit and nature and philosophy and way of life of these monks.

YORKE: It sounds like you absorbed a lot of that, just by being there. You didn’t have to study it.

CUMBERBATCH: Exactly, it just seeped in. The personalities of the monks were louder than any lesson.

YORKE: That’s the ultimate teaching, isn’t it?

CUMBERBATCH: It is. By the end, I was so curious to know what the hell they were chanting, why they were doing what they were doing, and how to do it myself. I was like, “How do I go further into this world?” After the course, I did a two-week retreat with one of the other teachers.

YORKE: You were 19 and signing yourself up to sit on a cushion for how many hours a day?

CUMBERBATCH: Many. And only sleeping about four, and eating, like, porridge and maybe a little stew. That part of the retreat was intense. We were with the monks—my god, what discipline they had. It was revelatory. There are these stories and parables and tools with which to channel your focus and meditation and practice, and begin the path to enlightenment. It was a bit cult-y; there were a few nervous, out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye looks between us Westerners. The person who was overseeing us saw that we were really committed, and he also saw that it was just too much. Our busy minds had to be really suppressed. But it was the chance to begin something. I’m so grateful that I had that experience.

YORKE: It surprises me that 19-year-old kids signed up for this stuff. If I had done that at that age, I probably would have run away and found something to drink or smoke. In a way, I’m jealous that you had that experience at that age, because presumably it set you up in a different way for life.