Is Benedict Cumberbatch too big to fail?



BY STUART MCGURK

When I meet Benedict Cumberbatch, he raises his arms in front of himself, a good few feet out, giving the unmistakable sign that what we are about to do is hug.

“Stuart!”

This is both worrying, as I hug like a panicked passenger executing a talk-down landing of a plane, and welcome. At least I have time to prepare.

We pat solidly on backs, ask how the other is, and generally inspect each other for damage. The hug isn’t overly familiar, exactly: we’ve met before, but no more than that, yet he greets me like a long-lost friend, which is perhaps one of the politest things you can do to someone who isn’t.

Specifically, we met for the other time Cumberbatch featured on the cover of this magazine, a little more than three years ago, back when he was single, when he was about to appear in a third season of Sherlock (he’s now about to appear in a fourth), and had spent the year dividing his time between scene-stealing bit-parts in big films (the villain Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness; the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug) and lead roles in smaller ones (Julian Assange inThe Fifth Estate; Alan Turing in The Imitation Game).

We’ve bumped into each other since, off and on - at a charity auction; at the 2014GQ Men Of The Year awards, an event where he took to the stage less than sober (“I’m here with motor-drivers… motor-drivers? What century am I from? Someone auditioning for Downton Abbeyor some such shit… Not that Downton Abbey is shit!”); and, finally, at the afterparty, where I found him quizzing a sommelier in the way one might question a recently landed alien who could, say, smell headaches. Not just intense interest in the details, but a sort of semi-baffled glee that such a thing could exist in the first place. I think he was asking about a Shiraz.

In fact, if I had to pick, semi-baffled-glee-that-such-things-exist-in-the-first-place would probably be my takeaway character trait from that first encounter with Cumberbatch. It spanned three hours and saw him semi-baffled (with glee) at such things as: our burgers, the wine (of course), this magazine, coffee (flat whites, and just how do you make flat whites? And what makes a flat white not a flat white?), my bike, and everything in between.

It was pretty fun. He’s earnest and enthusiastic and guileless in a way that’s rare and refreshing. But I also understood Martin Freeman’s assertion that, “He’s sweet and generous in an almost childlike way. I could take advantage of him playing cards.”

I felt I could take advantage of him playing cards.

Most crucially, since we last met, he’s upgraded to playing big parts in big films - notably, the reason we’re here, which is his lead as Doctor Strange, the latest from the Marvel superhero factory, which to go by the trailer is Inception crossed withThe Matrix and then some (“I would advise people not to take any drugs before watching”). He plays a surgeon who gains mystic powers, and it’s a role that could do for him what Iron Man did for Robert Downey Jr.

Put another way: if you thought Cumberbatch was famous before, just wait.

And yet, he’s a curious kind of famous. Or, rather, he’s all of the kinds.

Some actors are suburb-famous (these are either Hollywood megastars or in TV shows); some are award-famous (these are the ones who star in biopics and get earnestly interviewed by weekend supplements; they are often not actually famous); some are internet-famous (these are the ones who spawn memes and hashtags and Tumblr accounts and see devoted teenage fans guard them jealously from the rest of the internet). But it’s only Cumberbatch who is all of these, only he who lands the straight flush.

People love him more, but get infuriated with him more, too. He’s a lightning rod, a meme generator, a conversation starter, a Rorschach test in human form.

Since we last met, he’s been nominated for an Oscar, for his standout role as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, but also had an otter named after him in a zoo (it was put to the public vote and the internet did what the internet does). He’s starred in Hamlet at the Barbican, in what was the most in-demand London theatre production in history (it sold out within minutes, a year in advance), but also had a fan-made play produced about him (Benedict Cumberbatch Must Die) in which a “sex-crazed celebrity obsessive” and a “socially phobic fan-fiction writer” get together and… let’s leave it there.

Just how many people, you have to ask yourself, have had life-size statues of themselves made out of both wax (Madame Tussauds), and chocolate? The latter was a stunt for UKTV; when it was put on display at a shopping centre, people starting eating him, which is a crude metaphor about fame if you want it.

We sit down in the garden of his local pub, just below Hampstead Heath in north London (it’s just past 9am, and it has opened especially for us), and I ask about a year in which he’s recently turned 40.

Did it affect him? No, he says, he’s not bothered by the number. Before, he admits, he might have been. He ignored his 30th birthday entirely - “You know, for some reason, clinging on to the idea that I didn’t want to be 30” - and used to obsess about having kids by 32 (that was when, he had decided, he would be a “full adult”). Now, not so much.

“I think I would have been bothered if it hadn’t been for the more important things of my life. You know, the clock ticking over into another decade, maybe I’d be going, ‘Oh, I’m missing something in my life. I should have done that by now.’ But I feel so complete. I feel so lucky.”

And it’s true, he does look absurdly happy. Those important things in his life are his marriage, last year, to 38-year-old theatre director Sophie Hunter, and the birth of a son, Christopher, now one, not long after.

On the sunny summer morning we meet, he’s just come off 12 months working back to back, from Hamlet in London to Doctor Strange in LA to Sherlock in Wales. He only finished the last last night, and, in a few hours’ time, he’s flying off to LA again for a final week of shooting Doctor Strange. But, after that, he says, he’s done. He’s taking two months off. He’s finally laying plans to move into the family house he’s bought, on a tree-lined road a few doors down from Ed Miliband in Dartmouth Park (“As a neighbour, I’ll say hello”), and which is currently being refurbished (“We just haven’t had the time”). He’s planning, he says, on a big, belated party for his 40th, perhaps making up for the one he swerved a decade earlier.

“You know, people joke with me that I never stop, and I really haven’t this year. It’s been insane. To the point where I’ve got a two-month break after this. And my smile just gets bigger and bigger.”

And, generally, things are going to change.

“I want to get to the stage where I do a couple of big projects, then I’m taking a break, then maybe three or one, then another break. You know, other people are involved [now]. Sophie is working. And there’s the kid’s education.”

Mostly, though, this means that the next Sherlock, the role that made him so Coca-Cola famous and such an opinion-piece generator in the first place, will be the last.

Cumberbatch doesn’t so much throw himself into each role as get sucked into them. It’s a follow-through of his hyper-enthusiastic nature: not so much dedication as helplessness.

He had several questions, he says, for the director Scott Derrickson before he decided to take on the Doctor Strange role. Not least because, like every lead in the Marvel superhero stable, it requires him to sign up to the inevitable sequels andAvengers crossover films (“He’s coming into existence to bring lots of other things into existence in the Marvel Universe, and to forward the story of theAvengers, and then another film for him…”).

Yet, when I ask what they discussed, it elicits an answer that runs to over 1,000 words - roughly four pages of a book - and takes in the following: occultism, origin stories, eastern mysticism meeting western logic, the word polaristic (“I don’t even know if that’s a word”), DNA, Cern, the standing of a neurosurgeon in the Seventies (“He was the go-to guy for logic”), the salary of a neurosurgeon in the Seventies, quantum mechanics, string theory, alternative universes (“Or multiple potential corresponding universes to our own”), the point at which science and belief meet (“Where you have to take a leap”), our understanding of the brain (“It’s still hugely uncharted territory”), our understanding of the Wand of Watoomb (don’t ask), threats from other dimensions, threats from Isis, Charles Manson, Waco, cults in general, the humour in Marvel films, Iron Man (“Robert Downey Jr created the studio with that performance”), self-discovery, a car crash, special effects, and redemption… in general.

To which a cynic could add: and the paycheque too? But I think that would misunderstand Cumberbatch. He becomes - in the best possible way - a fanboy for everything he does. No wonder the internet loves him.

We meet when fanboy conspiracy theories are swirling that critics are being paid to write negative reviews of DC comic book films (Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad), and positive reviews of Marvel comic book films (everything else). Cumberbatch is happy to tease - “Guys, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Look, can we just keep this machine oiled, please? It’s true. People are paid to review films well. That’s exactly how it works” - but is at pains to point out that Comic-Con “was just utter positivity, utter enjoyment… there is so much cynicism in the world.”

It’s also no shock to me that when he speaks about going to the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (he’s a fan), he says: “I’ve never been in a kind of punch-the-air atmosphere at the beginning of the film before. When those titles started it was… 'Yeah!’” And he actually punches the air. They even gave him, he adds with trademark glee, a lightsaber.

And, as he adds of Doctor Strange: “When you get your complete ensemble on for the first time, and you see yourself in the mirror… you just get this ridiculous kid’s grin. We’re still playing. It’s a sandbox.”

The plot, as far as we know it, is this: Cumberbatch is Doctor Stephen Strange, the world’s top neurosurgeon, whose career is over after a car accident crushes his hands, only to find himself (handily) recruited by the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who’s nice enough to teach him the mystic arts, and - whatcha know - along with a fellow sorcerer (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) battles an ancient evil (evil rarely being new).

It is, at an estimated $200 million budget, by far the biggest film he’s had on his shoulders.

“I guess when the film comes out I’ll be more concerned by it,” he says. “It’s best not to worry about that. Of course it affects your career, that’s the reality of being a leading man. But I’m sanguine about that, I really am. But you’re right, it’s a new level. There’s no denying that.”

His enthusiasm, though, can have side effects, notably an inability not to talk about the things he says he doesn’t want to talk about, if he actually wants to talk about them.

This becomes clear early on, when he says he mustn’t, under any circumstances, under pain of death, talk about his new family. He then, of course, proceeds to talk quite a lot about his new family.

Most topics, it turns out, lead to it: from his age (“The only thing about age that hits home is that you are very aware of your own mortality. It’s not about your life or ageing or anything like that, it’s actually about wanting to live long enough to be able to protect that child”), to how sunny it is (“With the baba, I smother him in factor 1,000, and he still gets a tan”), to his up-at-4am workout routine to get ripped for Doctor Strange (“That actually got me through being a first-time father. I say that as if I was always the one getting up. Sophie really was incredible during those first few months”), to working long days on Sherlock (“Getting home to see your family becomes the main thing - I’ll do the overtime, but can I make bath time?”).

It’s more than understandable. After all, take any new father’s unbridled joy, then times it by Cumberbatch, and it’s almost a surprise we talk about anything else.

And yet, as Cumberbatch would be the first to admit, it can land him in hot water, too.

Yes, he says, the night he was doing his customary donation request for Save The Children following a performance ofHamlet, he should not have ended said request with, “F*** the politicians!”

This, in turn, became a news story. In retrospect, he says, he was not surprised.

“In retrospect, no, I wasn’t. Of course I was going to be accused of being a hypocrite, but at the time I just thought, 'We’re going to raise some money for Save The Children.’”

Why a hypocrite? “Because, culturally, you’re perceived as being white, male, upper-class, privileged…”

Isn’t that reason to help?

“Well, that’s what I’ve always thought! Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I think the logic is I have to give away all my… I think if I was walking around in hessian pants, as scary as that would be, and I possessed no material…”

He starts again. “One of the arguments was, when are you going to put a refugee in your house or your flat? And, you know, I do have a house, but it’s empty, it’s gutted, there’s no electricity or water, so that wouldn’t work, and I have a baby in my flat, there are no spare rooms.”

For my money, I don’t think it was about class - at least, not as much as Cumberbatch thinks it was - or the fact Cumberbatch isn’t running a north London refugee camp. It was far simpler, and therefore much more dumb: it was a famous person who swore. News story. Clicks. Comments.

Cumberbatch goes on to talk, for almost half an hour, sailing past several of my flailing attempts to interject, about his thoughts on the migrant crisis.

They’re not controversial views, but, for the record, here’s a brief (ish) summary: he’s raised money in theatres all his life, and so this was nothing new. He wasn’t forcing people, he was asking. He wasn’t claiming to have a long-term solution, but proposing a band-aid. From now on, he plans to simply provide a platform for others to speak, rather than necessarily speaking himself. He plans, in his two months off, to see some of the charity work done on the ground. And, finally: “I wasn’t saying, 'Yes, open the doors to everyone, yes, give them our jobs and our wives,’ and that whole kind of stereotype fear that nationalism has leapt on.”

Finally, he slows and says: “God knows… This isn’t what we’re supposed to be talking about.”

I don’t doubt his earnestness. And yet, the only thing I really want to know is this: he didn’t swear every day, after his speech. So why that night?

“I think it’s because I got so riled up,” he says finally. “Like a lot of parents, over that summer… that picture of that boy” - the three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, pictured drowned and washed up on a beach in Turkey - “a beach we can recognise from family photographs, from holidays that we’ve all had ourselves… it’s not about privilege, it’s about a child dead on a beach because he’s tried to escape a war”.

The fourth season of Sherlock, the show that made Cumberbatch so lightning-rod famous, and which starts at the end of the year, is set to be the last. At least, he adds, the last for quite some time.

“It might be the end of an era. It feels like the end of an era, to be honest. It goes to a place where it will be pretty hard to follow on immediately.”

Still, he’s not ruling out a comeback - but one some years down the line.

“We never say never on the show. I’d love to revisit it, I’d love to keep revisiting it, I stand by that, but in the immediate future we all have things that we want to crack on with and we’ve made something very complete as it is, so I think we’ll just wait and see. The idea of never playing him again is really galling.”

But, of course, it goes without saying, he’s a huge fan of the last series they’ve done.

“Just wait and see. It’s wonderful, it’s very exciting. It’s exceeded all kind of expectations for how we top what we’ve done before, and it’s ramped up the whole thing. It just gets better and better and better.”

More than other series, he says, this one feels more like one story in three parts - with a villain who “comes slamming into the centre” by the end of the first episode, “and carries on into the second and resolves in the end. It’s f***ing ridiculous, it’s so exciting”.

It is, he says, “one of the best pieces of drama I’ve ever had to do, some of the best sequences I’ve ever had to shoot”.

Curiously, he says he never thought he’d even make a good Sherlock. Really?

“No, I never thought I’d make a good Sherlock. That wasn’t my idea, you know what I mean? Maybe I was a bit lazy about that.”

One of the takeaways from filming in Wales, he says, was to be there at the time of the Brexit vote. It upsets him still.

“I was in Wales when it happened. And there is such poverty in Wales. There are real problems. Real problems. You know, we used to film in Merthyr Tydfil, one of the most impoverished places in that country, and of course people are angry. Of course people want change. What people are f***ed off about is that they were promised change that won’t happen.”

Cumberbatch put his name to a list of 250 people in the arts - including the likes of Danny Boyle and John le Carré - that backed remaining in the EU. And, lightning rod as ever, it was front page news… that he and Keira Knightley had signed it.

“I mean, come on, look at the other names on that list. It’s so lazy, isn’t it? It’s just who gets the most clickbait. I find it frustrating, because I do have very strong opinions about things, and I do want to say things that matter, and that are important, and I have to wrench myself back. Because it’s so easily framed by the right as 'Booo, who’s he? He’s a hypocrite, he’s an actor, he’s paid shit-tonnes of money, who is he to tell us how to live our lives?’”

He mentions this more than once, so to reiterate: Benedict Cumberbatch is not telling you how to live your life.

“I mean, even the ones you don’t agree with, they’re smart as hell, Farage is an amazing politician, regardless of what he says. Look at the success he’s had. It terrifies me.”

He takes a call on his mobile from Sophie - announcing this in one of the many pitch-perfect impressions that he peppers our conversation with, in this case it’s Borat and, “It’s my wife!” - and when he hangs up it’s like he’s been told off.

“Oh my God, I’ve talked about politics and family, the two things that were completely off the table!” He almost mutters to himself: “Completely off the table…

"It’s just a weird balance between just wanting to f***ing be yourself and thinking, 'To hell with it, this is who I am, this is what I think.’ And another part of you going, there has to be a certain amount that you hold back on.”

I say I don’t really think he’s said anything particularly controversial. But then again, with him, it probably doesn’t matter. Everything he says seems to be a story.

“This whole thing with interviews, it’s about context,” he says. “This conversation, it’s so easy for anyone to tabloid it. And then it becomes a point of view without context, without nuance. It’s all about narrative, as we know in this post-factual time.”

Which, I realise, is the point behind everything we’ve discussed: from Syrian refugees to Brexit to how the papers write about him. It’s the story that’s being told.

“People can - by the lies going on in this political world at the moment - be turned into scapegoats. An entire people. It’s genuinely frightening times, because the parallels, the echoes, in history are so strong. We’re reaching that stage where people forget about the genocide and destruction of the Second World War. We’re moving about the generation that survived that. And there’s a cycle in history, and we’re going into that cycle, and that’s really frightening.”

And so, that’s the reason we’re still talking about it, despite him not wanting to, because actually, he really does want to talk about it.

As he says, finally: “You have to stand tall to your critics a little bit at that time.”

It’s a curious thing to be too famous, but, in many ways, Benedict Cumberbatch just might be it. Accumulating fame is like accumulating gold: it starts as a currency but it ends as a weight. He’s too famous, clearly, to have anything but the most vanilla of opinions about the world around us, less he spawn some form of backlash, and the inevitable backlash to that.

He’s too famous, probably, for the likes of Bond now, though I imagine being out of bookies’ list for that - and the constant questioning it brings - must be a blessed relief.

“Haha, well, I think people are obsessed with other people being Bond at the moment, so the heat’s off me.”

When he played Hamlet, such was the hysteria and the hype, the Times snuck a reviewer in for the first preview, in flagrant disregard for theatre-reviewing etiquette that says you wait until opening night, as until then it’s still considered a work in progress (the initial iteration opened with the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy, but it was later moved back).

“It was disgraceful,” says Cumberbatch. “Literally, she came in with her knives sharpened. Apparently she tweeted the week before that she couldn’t stand the idea of having to see this pile of shit… not pile of shit, but the fact she thought people would be dressed up as Sherlock and screaming Cumberbitches. She was already… you know, like that before the curtain went up, on the first preview, and then she reviewed it… ”

Before we go, we talk briefly about how, now, he tries to keep a semblance of a normal life. He says some days he’s really recognisable, some days not so much, “but I can’t go through my daily life in public without being recognised at some point. Or at every point, sometimes”.

And yet, he’ll make sure he still takes his son to the swings and slides, because what else can one do? “Build your own playground? And I don’t ever want to do that, it’s a way to have a screwed-up kid, without a shadow of a doubt.”

But something else stayed with me. He mentioned an experience of being at a celebrity event - in fact, “I think it was one of your dos” - and, as he was about to leave, Matt Smith was just in front of him, and so all the press followed Smith instead, leaving him blissfully alone.

“It was excellent. It was the perfect decoy. It was like, f***ing hell, that’s the storm cloud that normally follows me. I wear that lightly some days. And some days it’s a bit harder. Because,” he adds, “it’s not about me any more.”

Doctor Strange is out 25 October. Sherlock will air this winter on BBC One.