Benedict Cumberbatch covers the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter. I was going to put this off until tomorrow, just because of the sheer size of the interview and my desire to really dissect every little quote, but you Cumberbitches are already thread-jacking the other post and I’m tired of fighting it. We’ll just have lots of Cumberstories today. You can read the full THR story here – it’s a really long piece and I cut out a lot of stuff. The first part is all about Benedict’s abduction in South Africa in 2005, and while his quotes are interesting, that passage goes on and on. Here are some highlights:
His philosophy/religion: Cumberbatch speaks of being drawn to the “transcendent” and calls himself a Buddhist (at least “philosophically”), but he can just as easily leave all that, become Holmes and “imagine faking my own death.”
Interesting details: He lives in a flat in north London, which he describes as both minimalist and eclectic (“I like light; there’s not a single room in the house that doesn’t have a window”). He watches some television, including Breaking Bad and The Killing, but not much. He professes a deep admiration for Stanley Kubrick, the subject of a dissertation he wrote at university about “how within a diverse subject matter his worldview is still very unified.” He has a fondness for music, particularly Icelandic band Sigur Ros: “It transports me. It gives me a mental landscape that is very inspiring. It gives me a space in my head where I can imagine great emotion and depth.”
He loves books and hates the internet: He seems both part of this world and removed from it, with an old-fashioned liking for books (he lavishes praise on Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End, the basis of an HBO miniseries for which he has received an Emmy nomination) and a contempt for the Internet, where vitriol “is horrific. You can’t win. It’s like a new form of bullying. I find it quite despicable.”
Being given the portraits of himself that fans have drawn: “I’ve kept a couple that are stunning, that are just really beautiful drawings, and the rest I’ve had to give away. And I’ve told fans, ‘Look, I’m very flattered, but what do you expect me to do with it? Think about it. Would you want your room surrounded by drawings of you?’ It’s a bit weird.”
The “Cumberbitches”: “Some of them have now called themselves the Cumbercollective; that’s a slightly less offensive noun….I’m not like Holmes. I don’t have his capacity to compartmentalize. I’m now haunted with, ‘But he did want children, and now he doesn’t? What’s gone wrong? Is he gay? Can’t he commit to relationships?’ All this speculative s-t. There’s a point where I just go, ‘I’ve said all I have to say.’ ”
On Julian Assange: “The thing is this: I have a profound respect for Julian,” he says. “I also have a profound respect for the need of states to have a currency of secrets in order for Western democracy to exist and for fundamentalism to be defeated. And I don’t think Julian is interested in fundamentalism triumphing.”
He studied at a monastery and he meditates: “It was very lonely at times but also inclusive,” he says. “There was this incredible experience of just for the first time properly thinking, ‘Oh my God! There’s so much going on in there.’ ” Cumberbatch still meditates, but “10 minutes every other week, practically. It’s very sporadic. But I do still try.”
Whether he pulled out of Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak because of Star Wars. “Absolutely not. No, no, no, no. That was nothing to do with it at all. [It was] between me and Guillermo, to be honest. It was amicable, and that’s all I’m going to say.”
What? “Sometimes as an actor you’re looking for the infinite,” he says. “If you can hold that, if you can remember that in the chaos, [it will] anchor you and give you grace and ease.”
He reminds the reporter at the end of the interview not to cut out his lengthy discussion about being abducted in South Africa, because it’s important to him to acknowledge that his life was saved by a stranger. So now I feel kind of bad about editing out all the stuff about his abduction, but seriously, just go read the piece. As for what I did include… have we been saying that he’s a commitment-phobe? I haven’t said that. But this is the second interview in a row where he’s been pushing back on that idea. I guess he doesn’t want people to think that he’s just banging every blonde Russian he comes across. Huh.
Photos courtesy of THR.
