The actor is in danger of becoming Britain’s greatest leading man after nailing Sherlock and his roles in Frankenstein.
This is Benedict Cumberbatch’s moment. He is a one-man explosion of thespian hotness after a confluence of extraordinary performances on stage, screen and television. He has just finished playing Dr Frankenstein and The Creature at the National Theatre to sensational reviews; he is appearing in three new films this year, including Steven Spielberg’s War Horse; and he is up for a Bafta next week for his role as Holmes in the BBC television series Sherlock.
At 34 Cumberbatch is far too young to be a national treasure, but his certificate is in the post. Indeed there is something furtively Colin Firthy about him. His looks are paler and more bookish than most leading men — when we meet his hair is reddish-gold and he strikes me as more Bowie than beefcake — but his acting ability leaves most of his generation languishing behind in the cheap seats.
What Cumberbatch does brilliantly is male comradeship, of the old-fashioned, posh sort. The nuances and niggles of the modern-day Holmes and Watson’s codependent relationship fascinate us: “Two bachelors living together … it’s worth re-examining that in the 21st century,” Cumberbatch tells me. In Frankenstein, the disgust, passion and sympathy raised by The Creature
in his creator took on a schizophrenic complexity as Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller swapped roles every night. They stood fearless and naked in the spotlight, reduced to their basest
selves. In the independent film Third Star, out next week, Cumberbatch takes this male bonding
trope to dangerous psychological extremes.
The movie is a sort of four-go-mad-in-Pembrokeshire tragicomedy, a camping trip that goes from
ballbreaking to heartbreaking. Cumberbatch delivers an agonising performance as James, an ethereal creature with a will of iron, who sports a brown fedora and a sharp tongue. James is 29,
and will not see his 30th birthday, because of an unspecified cancer. Yet this makes for fine
comedy. “It’s very understated, not touchy-feely, not that modern disease of wearing your heart
on your sleeve,” Cumberbatch says crisply, with a Holmes-like radar for hogwash.
Rarely do you watch men in this kind of week-long, profound and funny conversation — except,
say, the The Big Chill. Just because their mate is dying, the lads see no reason not to make fun
of him, and combine tenderness with brutal honesty. “It’s like going for a walk with a sick white
Oprah,” they laugh when he tries to advise them on their lives. “You look like shit,” one adds,
helpfully.
He did. To play James, Cumberbatch wanted to shave off his hair, “but I was slated to play
Sherlock, so I couldn’t”. Instead he became so thin and pale that towards the end of the movie, he
seems to float off. His regime was strict: “I ate healthily, but there was no snacking, no drinking,
no bread, no sugar, no smoking. Afterwards I had a pork belly roast.”
In Third Star his friends are played by the handsome trio of J. J. Feild, Adam Robertson, and Tom
Burke, with a chemistry part acted and partly brought about by the exigencies of the October
shoot — hours spent in frozen water in Barafundle Bay, Pembrokeshire, coupled with grim food
and collapsing tents. “We improvised around the weather, which turned out to be the fifth star of
the film,” says Cumberbatch. “It was stunning; we were really blessed. We wanted to give all of it
an improvised feel, to help the atmosphere, and ad-libbed peripheral moments along the journey.
It’s the banter you’d expect from four friends who have hung out for a long time.”
It is intelligent banter. These are highly educated men in their late twenties, who haven’t quite
grown up. “Yes, it’s not The Hangover,” Cumberbatch says. But the four friends want what James
calls “a Man Thrill”, unavailable in the modern world. Vaughan Sivell, the film’s writer, explains:
“This generation is living longer, not going into the trenches at 18, and the time spent bumming
around lasts and lasts. There’s no reason for them to be heroic; they are the iPod generation
running round Soho and their worst problem is that their laptop won’t sync with their phone. So I
wanted to put pressure on these men, the time pressure that comes with someone dying, and
watch what they did.”
Cumberbatch’s ease with emotional (and physical) nakedness leaves “Benedict Cumberbatch gay”
riding high on popular Google searches, but in fact he lived in Hampstead with The Thick of It
actress Olivia Poulet for more than a decade until they broke up a few months ago. He has been
spotted out clubbing with the “Cumbergang”, which includes Matt Smith, the Doctor Who actor,
and fellow actors from the forthcoming War Horse film. He likes to swim in the ponds on
Hampstead Heath, and favours Black’s, the private members’ club in Central London. His female
fanclub is growing — on Twitter, the group @Cumberbitches provides information on and
adoration of their idol.
Last week at a gala for the Royal Court there was feverish excitement as gentlemen in black tie
and ladies in silk dug deep into their pockets to “purchase” Cumberbatch himself. I watched as
they craned their necks to glimpse the back of his curly head deep in conversation at the centre
table. After a hard-fought battle the actor was auctioned for £6,000 — or at least a lunch hour
with him, on the set of Sherlock. Later, Cumberbatch leapt up and joined other actors in a table-
prancing comedy about the history of the theatre, parodying Sir Laurence Olivier to riotous
applause. Although Cumberbatch normally rides around London in leathers on a huge motorbike
— to ensure invisibility, he claims — he looked utterly at home in a tuxedo and bow tie, like the
impeccably mannered Harrow school boy he is.
The son of two British television actors, Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, he grew up in
Kensington. He took himself off to the University of Manchester to shake off some of the London
luvviness, but returned for drama school at LAMDA. Only two years after finishing, he turned
heads with his performance as a young Professor Stephen Hawking in the BBC’s Hawking.
Cumberbatch’s consummate Englishness serves him well: he has finished filming for the role of
George Smiley’s protégé Peter Guillam in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, out in cinemas in
September, and he plays Major Stewart in Spielberg’s screen adaptation of War Horse, released
in December. Cumberbatch has a Charge-of-the-Light-Brigade moment, brandishing a sword on
a huge Spanish stallion. His most popular role, however, is as the modern Sherlock, at once
bombastic and brilliant. The first series had an audience of seven million and after we meet he is
heading back to Wales to film the second series. Rather like House, another Sherlockian figure,
this modern detective is infuriating. Yet the audience revels in his superiority and straight talking.
“Holmes is a very attractive character to play,” Cumberbatch says, “because he gets to speak his
mind, he has extraordinary abilities, and it’s just a lot of fun. In the hands of those two scriptwriters
you get a lot of beautifully drawn out character studies and scenarios.”
Vaughan Sivell, the writer of Third Star, says that Cumberbatch’s skill as an actor is in being not
only very intelligent and attentive, but also generous in discussing each part. “He was deeply
aware of the feeling of a man losing his place in the Universe, and wanting to right everything
before he goes. Even in this mundane business of camping, we see it in his face all the time, and
he’s technically brilliant, because you’re not aware he’s doing it.”
Hattie Dalton, the director, shot the movie for £450,000 in a matter of weeks. “Hattie was under
huge pressure,” Cumberbatch says. “Yet she was a life force, so emotionally engaged she’d be in a stream of tears giving direction.” In turn, Dalton thinks that anyone could have played the role of James for sympathy, but Cumberbatch dared to bring arrogance and anger to it. “He thinks just because he’s going to die he can tell everyone how to live their lives. But what I think is beautiful is that he’s the one that learns the most in the end.” Third Star somehow manages to be cathartic, although in the screening I attended everyone simply sat in stunned silence, unmoving, as the credits rolled. “It’s about tricking an audience into just being entertained and then slowly the penny drops. It’s about resonance, isn’t it?” Dalton says. “That’s why a lot of people are walking away not feeling depressed, because James got what he wanted and it was beautiful.”
The film tackles a subject that hangs over us all constantly, but this is not some “C for cancer” comedy. It is more about four men working out how their lives should be lived. “I’ve been very privileged to be around a couple of people who were dying,” Cumberbatch says, “and it’s incredible what affirmation there can be, what clarity of mind there is at the last point.”
It’s this ability to retain humility and sensitivity while his star ascends that shows that Cumberbatch is an old-fashioned sort — and a gentleman.
This is Benedict Cumberbatch’s moment. He is a one-man explosion of thespian hotness after a confluence of extraordinary performances on stage, screen and television. He has just finished playing Dr Frankenstein and The Creature at the National Theatre to sensational reviews; he is appearing in three new films this year, including Steven Spielberg’s War Horse; and he is up for a Bafta next week for his role as Holmes in the BBC television series Sherlock.
At 34 Cumberbatch is far too young to be a national treasure, but his certificate is in the post. Indeed there is something furtively Colin Firthy about him. His looks are paler and more bookish than most leading men — when we meet his hair is reddish-gold and he strikes me as more Bowie than beefcake — but his acting ability leaves most of his generation languishing behind in the cheap seats.
What Cumberbatch does brilliantly is male comradeship, of the old-fashioned, posh sort. The nuances and niggles of the modern-day Holmes and Watson’s codependent relationship fascinate us: “Two bachelors living together … it’s worth re-examining that in the 21st century,” Cumberbatch tells me. In Frankenstein, the disgust, passion and sympathy raised by The Creature
in his creator took on a schizophrenic complexity as Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller swapped roles every night. They stood fearless and naked in the spotlight, reduced to their basest
selves. In the independent film Third Star, out next week, Cumberbatch takes this male bonding
trope to dangerous psychological extremes.
The movie is a sort of four-go-mad-in-Pembrokeshire tragicomedy, a camping trip that goes from
ballbreaking to heartbreaking. Cumberbatch delivers an agonising performance as James, an ethereal creature with a will of iron, who sports a brown fedora and a sharp tongue. James is 29,
and will not see his 30th birthday, because of an unspecified cancer. Yet this makes for fine
comedy. “It’s very understated, not touchy-feely, not that modern disease of wearing your heart
on your sleeve,” Cumberbatch says crisply, with a Holmes-like radar for hogwash.
Rarely do you watch men in this kind of week-long, profound and funny conversation — except,
say, the The Big Chill. Just because their mate is dying, the lads see no reason not to make fun
of him, and combine tenderness with brutal honesty. “It’s like going for a walk with a sick white
Oprah,” they laugh when he tries to advise them on their lives. “You look like shit,” one adds,
helpfully.
He did. To play James, Cumberbatch wanted to shave off his hair, “but I was slated to play
Sherlock, so I couldn’t”. Instead he became so thin and pale that towards the end of the movie, he
seems to float off. His regime was strict: “I ate healthily, but there was no snacking, no drinking,
no bread, no sugar, no smoking. Afterwards I had a pork belly roast.”
In Third Star his friends are played by the handsome trio of J. J. Feild, Adam Robertson, and Tom
Burke, with a chemistry part acted and partly brought about by the exigencies of the October
shoot — hours spent in frozen water in Barafundle Bay, Pembrokeshire, coupled with grim food
and collapsing tents. “We improvised around the weather, which turned out to be the fifth star of
the film,” says Cumberbatch. “It was stunning; we were really blessed. We wanted to give all of it
an improvised feel, to help the atmosphere, and ad-libbed peripheral moments along the journey.
It’s the banter you’d expect from four friends who have hung out for a long time.”
It is intelligent banter. These are highly educated men in their late twenties, who haven’t quite
grown up. “Yes, it’s not The Hangover,” Cumberbatch says. But the four friends want what James
calls “a Man Thrill”, unavailable in the modern world. Vaughan Sivell, the film’s writer, explains:
“This generation is living longer, not going into the trenches at 18, and the time spent bumming
around lasts and lasts. There’s no reason for them to be heroic; they are the iPod generation
running round Soho and their worst problem is that their laptop won’t sync with their phone. So I
wanted to put pressure on these men, the time pressure that comes with someone dying, and
watch what they did.”
Cumberbatch’s ease with emotional (and physical) nakedness leaves “Benedict Cumberbatch gay”
riding high on popular Google searches, but in fact he lived in Hampstead with The Thick of It
actress Olivia Poulet for more than a decade until they broke up a few months ago. He has been
spotted out clubbing with the “Cumbergang”, which includes Matt Smith, the Doctor Who actor,
and fellow actors from the forthcoming War Horse film. He likes to swim in the ponds on
Hampstead Heath, and favours Black’s, the private members’ club in Central London. His female
fanclub is growing — on Twitter, the group @Cumberbitches provides information on and
adoration of their idol.
Last week at a gala for the Royal Court there was feverish excitement as gentlemen in black tie
and ladies in silk dug deep into their pockets to “purchase” Cumberbatch himself. I watched as
they craned their necks to glimpse the back of his curly head deep in conversation at the centre
table. After a hard-fought battle the actor was auctioned for £6,000 — or at least a lunch hour
with him, on the set of Sherlock. Later, Cumberbatch leapt up and joined other actors in a table-
prancing comedy about the history of the theatre, parodying Sir Laurence Olivier to riotous
applause. Although Cumberbatch normally rides around London in leathers on a huge motorbike
— to ensure invisibility, he claims — he looked utterly at home in a tuxedo and bow tie, like the
impeccably mannered Harrow school boy he is.
The son of two British television actors, Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, he grew up in
Kensington. He took himself off to the University of Manchester to shake off some of the London
luvviness, but returned for drama school at LAMDA. Only two years after finishing, he turned
heads with his performance as a young Professor Stephen Hawking in the BBC’s Hawking.
Cumberbatch’s consummate Englishness serves him well: he has finished filming for the role of
George Smiley’s protégé Peter Guillam in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, out in cinemas in
September, and he plays Major Stewart in Spielberg’s screen adaptation of War Horse, released
in December. Cumberbatch has a Charge-of-the-Light-Brigade moment, brandishing a sword on
a huge Spanish stallion. His most popular role, however, is as the modern Sherlock, at once
bombastic and brilliant. The first series had an audience of seven million and after we meet he is
heading back to Wales to film the second series. Rather like House, another Sherlockian figure,
this modern detective is infuriating. Yet the audience revels in his superiority and straight talking.
“Holmes is a very attractive character to play,” Cumberbatch says, “because he gets to speak his
mind, he has extraordinary abilities, and it’s just a lot of fun. In the hands of those two scriptwriters
you get a lot of beautifully drawn out character studies and scenarios.”
Vaughan Sivell, the writer of Third Star, says that Cumberbatch’s skill as an actor is in being not
only very intelligent and attentive, but also generous in discussing each part. “He was deeply
aware of the feeling of a man losing his place in the Universe, and wanting to right everything
before he goes. Even in this mundane business of camping, we see it in his face all the time, and
he’s technically brilliant, because you’re not aware he’s doing it.”
Hattie Dalton, the director, shot the movie for £450,000 in a matter of weeks. “Hattie was under
huge pressure,” Cumberbatch says. “Yet she was a life force, so emotionally engaged she’d be in a stream of tears giving direction.” In turn, Dalton thinks that anyone could have played the role of James for sympathy, but Cumberbatch dared to bring arrogance and anger to it. “He thinks just because he’s going to die he can tell everyone how to live their lives. But what I think is beautiful is that he’s the one that learns the most in the end.” Third Star somehow manages to be cathartic, although in the screening I attended everyone simply sat in stunned silence, unmoving, as the credits rolled. “It’s about tricking an audience into just being entertained and then slowly the penny drops. It’s about resonance, isn’t it?” Dalton says. “That’s why a lot of people are walking away not feeling depressed, because James got what he wanted and it was beautiful.”
The film tackles a subject that hangs over us all constantly, but this is not some “C for cancer” comedy. It is more about four men working out how their lives should be lived. “I’ve been very privileged to be around a couple of people who were dying,” Cumberbatch says, “and it’s incredible what affirmation there can be, what clarity of mind there is at the last point.”
It’s this ability to retain humility and sensitivity while his star ascends that shows that Cumberbatch is an old-fashioned sort — and a gentleman.
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