A biography for Benedict Cumberbatchhasn’t been written yet.
“I had a real yearning to make use of the opportunities I had at school. When I heard about the gap year of teaching English at a Tibetan monastery, I knew I had to do something about it really quickly, otherwise it was going to get allocated.”
“Someone will always hate what I say. There's always going to be somebody spitting blood about my wooden-faced, toffee-named, crappy acting.”
“I love doing impersonations of people.”
“Mum did a lot of commercial theatre and farces in the 1980s and '90s to make sure the school bills were paid.”
“Pull the hair on my head the wrong way, and I would be on my knees begging for mercy. I have very sensitive follicles.”
“I drive a motorbike, so there is the whiff of the grim reaper round every corner, especially in London.”
“New York City is crazy and beautiful and really close to my heart, and I've always had dear friends here - family, actually, I would say.”
“I'll always do 'Sherlock' - it's something I'm not going to give up on.”
“I had the privilege of being able to choose, or at least have the opportunity to work at, being anything but an actor.”
“'Sherlock' fans are, by and large, an intelligent breed, so they've gone through my back catalogue and got what I've done, why and how I've done it. There is some obsessive behaviour, but I worry for them rather than me.”
“If I'd had fame early on, I'd have been able to abuse it in the way that a young man should.”
“It'd be really nice to wake up looking like, I don't know, Jake Gyllenhaal and think, 'Let's try this on for a day and see how it feels.'”
“I'm interested in art for all. I don't want it to be only the sons and daughters of Tory MPs who get to see my plays.”
“Metaphorically speaking, it's easy to bump into one another on the journey from A to B and not even notice. People should take time to notice, enjoy and help each other.”
“I realised quite early on that, although I wasn't trying to make a career speciality of it, I was playing slightly asexual, sociopathic intellectuals.”
“I'm quite sensitive to people noticing me. There are times when I'm relaxed, then others when it does make me self-conscious.”
“Landing the role of Stephen Hawking was the most positively surprising thing that has happened to me.”
“When you see a good horseman, you're unable to tell where the instruction is coming from. It's like telepathy.”
“'Benedict' means 'blessed.' My parents liked the sound of the name and felt slightly blessed because they'd been trying for a child for a very long time.”
“I've seen and swam and climbed and lived and driven and filmed. Should it all end tomorrow, I can definitely say there would be no regrets. I am very lucky, and I know it. I really have lived 5,000 times over.”