Words of praise for Benedict Cumberbatch. I agree with all of it, especially the brilliant & delicious parts!

A marvelous young actor.

Gary Oldman, co-star (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)

Benedict Cumberbatch isn’t a man. He’s a situation that me and most of my friends are all having.

 Megan OKeefe, journalist (The Huffington Post)

Benedict Cumberbatch seemed very nice, very nervous and very humble, considering how extraordinarily talented and brilliant he is.

 Jamie Cullum, musician and laudator (GQ Actor of the Year Award)

Benedict is fantastic. He’s just so good. He’s super talented, and we are more than grateful to have him onboard. Benedict has got this intensity about him, and he’s obviously extremely intelligent and articulate. His vocal quality is something else. (…) I think it’s all going to be love — a mad amount of love.

Chris Pine, co-star (Star Trek: Unnamed sequel, 2013)

He’s a genius. Honestly, he’s just an incredible actor. If you’ve seen his work in Sherlock, he’s just got incredible skills. I just loved his work and thought that he was perfect for what we needed. We were just very lucky.

JJ Abrams, director (Star Trek: Unnamed sequel, 2013)

We found Benedict Cumberbatch fairly early. We needed a very good actor, someone young enough to be believable as an aristocratic, an almost slightly dislikeable character who is an adolescent in terms of his views of the world, his upbringing. But we also needed someone who could hold the screen for four and half hours, in every scene. We needed someone with experience who was not only a very good actor, but also with terrific comic timing. Benedict was the ideal answer to that.

David Attwood, director (To the ends of the earth)

He’s superb. He’s such a good actor.

Ioan Gruffudd, co-star (Amazing Grace)

  

He has class.     

Michael Apted, director (Amazing Grace)

He’s like hot chocolate; you watch him and think, “You’re actually delicious.”

Robert Sheehan, actor 

The most unheralded of the supporting “Tinker” crew, Cumberbatch,  is also the most mesmerizingly good. The “Atonement” star doesn’t have one standout scene in “Tinker”,  he has at least three. These are powerful moments where Cumberbatch makes you feel the insane stress his character, Peter Guillam, feels assisting Gary Oldman’s George Smiley in his clandestine investigation and where he has to throw away his personal life for the greater good of his country. It’s fantastic work that will not be forgotten by the acting branch. (…) Simply, Cumberbatch is one of the few contenders this (Oscars) season that if he doesn’t get in it’s a travesty.

Gregory Elwood, journalist

It was amazing to work with Ben. He’s become a very dear friend of mine and I feel very proud of him from the far, or close distance of being a contemporary of his. He’s having such an incredible moment. I think he’s phenomenally talented. He’s one of the finest actors of our generation and it was a real privilege to work with him.

Tom Hiddleston, co-star (War Horse)

The difference between stars and just great actors is that stars can make parts into them, rather than themselves into parts; they make those people them. They never quite play it like you expect them to, so it becomes very much Benedict’s Sherlock. Look at how Sean Connery owned James Bond.

Steven Moffat, producer and writer (Sherlock)

He’s the best Sherlock on screen.

Steven Spielberg, director 

When the read-through starts, however, this gonky teenager disappears, and he slips, effortlessly, into the stiff-backed, cold-eyed, Pentium 20 brain of Holmes. His delivery can still the room – even in his T-shirt, in this bright summer sunshine. Spielberg was not wrong.

Caitlin Moran, journalist (The Times)

I would like to officialy declare my love for Benedict Cumberbatch. Yes, that’s right. I’m in love with him.

Paul Feig, director (Bridesmaids)

Benedict Cumberbatch elicited peals of joy from the actress. ‘Oh, yes!’ she said. ‘I saw you in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I loved it!’ She meant it. She usually, very politely, manages to wriggle free from people she doesn’t care for.  

About Meryl Streep’s reaction to Cumberbatch at the Golden Globes

Sexy is the world that springs to mind.

Chris Harvey, Journalist (The Telegraph) - when describing Cumberbatch

Even though I am watching him, watching me, watching him and concentrating…and we’ve been doing the scene for a while and I’m standing on a high thing with wobbly walls, trying not to fall off.. even given all of that…when it comes to the close up of Sherlock’s face when he’s playing this sad theme- he looks so forlorn and so deep in his own sorrow that I get overwhelmed with sadness and fill up. That’s good acting that is. -  I tell him afterwards that he made me cry. He beams…. Pfft. Actors. –

The next day and Benedict has asked for a lesson in his trailer before going on set to film a scene where he plays Auld Lang Syne . We never managed to practice this one before as there was so much else to do. Hand positions, bowing straight, stance etc. And he only needs to be able to fake it too- it doesn’t have to be pitch perfect. But it does. Because he’s Benedict.

I am stunned as Ben picks out the tune himself- I give him a starting position and a finger (oh hush)  and sit aghast as he picked out the notes  He had pretty much nailed it in ten minutes having only had three proper lessons- none of which was on the tune. We’re so excited, we spontaneously high five (something which I doubt either of us would normally do) and I decide he is something of a genius.

Eos Chater, violinist and Cumberbatch’s violin teacher for Sherlock

Watching him physically train to play James (He dieted, ran the cliffs and swam in the cold sea), and also delve into the meaning of every line in rehearsals, and then plot the effect of his illness on his body and mind as it would be in each scene (shot in the wrong order), while all the while being a joy to be around was impressive to witness. To see it as one performance in the final cut was remarkable. - He is rare even amongst the acting breed. If the character description says handsome: he is.  If it says Nasty: he is. Older: he is… Younger: he is. For this reason I just can’t wait to see what he will become.

Vaughan Sivell, producer and screen writer („Third Star“)

He has a sensibility and an oddness to him… and a directness  and a fantastic sense of humor … in many many ways we are similar in our approach to work (…) So I respect him on a pretty fundamental  level (…) He’s an actor who has the ability to play  in the outer field of basic acting work (…) He is a very generous,  very sensitive, very thoughtful, focused, disciplined actor and, you know, when you work with somebody like that it’s just like playing… like Ronnie Scotts with B.B. King… it’s just a question of when  or if… you know when someone’s got it and he’s got it. And I’m comfortable with people who’ve got it. (…) Not everybody runs in the Olympics… Benny should be running in the Olympics. I can see an Olympic runner in him.

Tom Hardy , Co-Star in “Stuart: A life backwards” and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” 

The thing with chemistry is, you can’t manufacture it, you can’t make it, it happens or it doesn’t happen… and I think from the moment that Benedict and I got in a room together just to rehearse, or just to read actually, it seemed to work. I’ve always been a big admirer of his work - and I hope it’s reprocicated, I think it was, and … yeah, he is really really good… if ever there was a person born to play that part it’s him… and he’s… you know, when he’s on fire it’s quite a formidable sight to see… you know, I sort of stand back and just watch him when I’m in scenes with him and go ‘Wow, he’s really really good’…

Martin Freeman, co-star (Sherlock)