UPDATED: Cumberbatch has reached out to The Hollywood Reporter to clarify what he characterizes as a “misquote.”
The statement:
“I am both bemused and upset at this misquote. I never said that Johnny took the job for the paycheck nor did I ask him not to do it. What I said is I would have preferred not to be in the situation where we will again be compared because we are friends. I know for a fact his motivations were to do with the quality of the script and the challenges of this exceptional role.
“It is baffling because I have only been supportive of an incredibly talented actor who I am proud to call a friend taking a job I know he is going to enjoy immensely and be wonderful in.
“Over 70 actors have played this exceptional character before us. To say that there can be only one Holmes would be ludicrous. We’re both thrilled to get the opportunity to play him in a modern context. The world of Sherlock Holmes and the world that we live in now is big enough to take more than one interpretation. As a genuine Sherlock Holmes fan I am greatly looking forward to his series.”
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/benedict-cumberbatch-jonny-lee-miller-elementary-sherlock-366932

Also let’s hear what he said in this video.
Go to 22:18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MltF5YNPac

“Jonny is a friend and as we already know, with the RDJ movie franchise, there’s room enough for two. So why not three? It’s fine. It’ll be different and I don’t think it’s gonna take away the love for ours and there’s no reason to be churlish or bitter about them.”

If that’s not enough, here’s another one,
go to 0:43 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCDrWy_MFrs

source: cumberbatchweb

Still from Parade's End part 2

source: cumberbatchweb

source: twitpic.com

Scans of the original Shortlist article. This is rapidly becoming my favorite interview of Benedict!

source: cumberbatchweb

source: deareje

source: cumberbuddy

source: cumberbuddy

Benedict Cumberbatch is in fine form in this interview, a must read!!!

Benedict Cumberbatch in the latest Shortlist magazine.

Benedict Cumberbatch[x]

To the visible dismay of a nearby hotel employee, Benedict Cumberbatch has climbed on to the sofa while ShortList helplessly looks on. It’s not an elaborate Tom Cruise impression. Instead, he’s waging war on a bluebottle that had been buzzing by his ear, and now, with the third precise swing of a cushion, he’s whacked it against the window and sent it tumbling to the floor.

“Sorry about that,” he says, settling into his chair with a satisfied grin. “It had to be done. But that was pretty brutal. As you can see, Mr Miyagi was my trainer on Star Trek [2].” It won’t please animal welfare groups, but the Sherlock star’s insect-slaying sets the scene for a fiery 45 minutes in his company. As he machine-guns opinions on everything from copycat Holmes drama Elementary and sex scenes to camera phone-wielding fans and cracking Hollywood, it’s clear he’s more determined than ever. So spare a thought for that fly. It never stood a chance…
You’re starring in sweeping new BBC drama Parade’s End. We couldn’t help but notice you’re playing another tortured, hyper-intelligent aristocrat…
[Laughs] Ah, but it’s a fat one this time. That’s the difference. Seriously though, despite people’s opinions, I haven’t played that many aristocrats and landed gentry. Admittedly I do talk fast because I’m a public schoolboy, but I haven’t even done many period dramas. I’ve oscillated between the First World War and the Georgian period. That’s my niche.
What was it that lured you to the role?
Tom [Stoppard] came and had tea with me at the National Theatre, which is always quite seductive. As soon as he asked me if I wanted a biscuit with my tea, I knew what was going on. Rebecca [Hall], who’s a really good friend, sort of talked me around too. But really it’s the book [by Ford Madox Ford]. It’s the first modernist novel and it takes in consumerism, the First World War and the death throes of the upper classes through the prism of this love triangle. It’s incredible.
Did your friendship with Rebecca Hall make the first episode’s sex scene easier?
No, I mean we laughed our arses off – there was a lot of wasted film that day. But [it’s good to] giggle at the silliness rather than get uptight. I’m really good friends with her other half as well, which must have been odd. “How was your day, darling?” “Well, I was just riding Benedict in a train carriage…” [laughs].
Was it a fun shoot generally, then?
We had some fun times when we were filming in Belgium. I was desperately trying to put on weight, so there was a lot of [eating] rubbish food and drinking alcohol without worrying about it. With Sherlock, it’s lots of seeds, juices, swimming and running, but on this I was doing lots of beer, wine, chips and the most f*cking amazing proper steaks and goulashes. I still didn’t put on enough, though. But for Star Trek, I went up about three suit sizes.
Would you ever like to really bulk up for a role like your Tinker Tailor… co-star Tom Hardy did for Warrior?
I actually used Tom’s trainer Patrick [‘P-Nut’ Monroe] for Star Trek. But I’ve always been a bit po-faced about [the idea] that all you need to do to be put in the hallowed halls of method acting with Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro is put on sh*tloads of weight. Come on! I think Tom would discredit it too. The effort involved deserves some credit, but it doesn’t make a performance.
Have you noticed a leap in your fame recently? Do you get noticed more?
A little bit yeah, you just instantly lose that ability to be private in public. If I’m wearing a shirt and a suit I look very Sherlock and highly recognisable, but I try not to consciously downgrade my look. Having said that, as much as I try to resist them, hoodies and baseball caps work a treat. But the only cap I’ve got that fits my weird head has War Horse on it [laughs].
Not the best disguise…
No, it’d look like self-promotion. I think David Tennant has a hat with bits of hair stuck on it. That’s ridiculous, but it does show how odd it can be. People think we just walk from chauffeur driven cars to red carpets and basically have people wiping our arses for us, but sometimes you need to do normal things. So it’s a bit weird when people see you in the frozen pea section and start flipping out.
Do you find all the attention difficult, then?
Yeah, sometimes you want to go, “I actually do mind having a photo taken because it’s one o’clock in the morning and I’m off my face.” Nine times out of 10, I’m absolutely fine with it. But sometimes it’s just really bad timing. Plus, what the f*ck is this need for proof we all have? Why do people need me to ruin the front page of a book with my terrible signature so that they can prove that they’ve met me? Will no one believe them otherwise? It’s f*cking weird, and you don’t question it until it happens to you.
Going back to Star Trek 2, there’s been lots of speculation about your character…
Yep, it’s yet another thing I can’t talk about [laughs]. I’ll tell you this, it’s iconic and it’s exciting. I’m bored of denying that it’s Khan now, because people keep saying it.
Was it fun playing a villain?
Really, really good fun. It’s a great part and it’s really well written. I enjoyed the fights and the stunts, there’s lots of that and it really is proper action movie territory. I went off and did The Hobbit [doing motion-capture and voice work as dragon Smaug and the Necromancer] at the beginning of the job, so I literally came on set, established the look, did a day of filming and then f*cked off to New Zealand for two weeks before coming back. But it’s the stuff of dreams. I know it’s such a well-trodden, clichéd path, ‘Brit actor plays baddie in Hollywood’, but I channelled all of that and just really enjoyed it.
Are you surprised by the stir Sherlock’s ‘death’ caused at the end of the last series?
The level of obsession with it was nuts. When I read that in the script I got the biggest kick of my life. I remember ringing Martin and going, “Oh my f*cking God. Have you read this?”
Will we find out how Holmes did it?
Of course you’ll find out. But not now….
Can we run some theories by you?
You can, but it will be such a waste of your breath.
Right, so was it all to do with Sherlock’s homeless network?
Yes, all the homeless people in London caught me [laughs]. They formed a human mattress and it was lovely. It was like getting the bumps on your birthday, I didn’t feel a thing. Seriously though, I did that jump. I was on a wire and went off the edge of the building. I was jumping off about three metres into a bunch of cardboard boxes with only a railing separating me from the real drop. We did it about two or three times in the rain with people filming opposite, and it was f*cking amazing. I’ve skydived three times and it was nearly as thrilling. I even did a sky dive while I was in New Zealand, which I shouldn’t be telling anyone, but there you go.
Did [Sherlock and The Hobbit] co-star Martin Freeman join you?
Oh God no. Little Martin? Can you imagine that? He wouldn’t be allowed anyway, he’s got to be the grumpy Hobbit. He’d be down on the ground looking all cool and mod-like with his shades, listening to some ska going, “Yeah that looked like fun, you tw*t.” Whereas I’m there jumping around like Tigger.
Another Sherlock moment that came under, erm, intense scrutiny was Lara Pulver’s nude scene…
Yeah, she’s having a whole second wind to her career because of it. Which [I think] is really sh*t because she’s a great actress. But her story keeps changing… I mean, she did have things covering her. I read an article that went, “…and Benedict Cumberbatch was lucky enough to see everything.” I can tell you now, I would remember if that were the case. I’m a professional, goddammit.
Have there been any discussions about the next series of Sherlock?
Yeah, we’ve had a couple of meetings but I don’t think we’re filming until January. I need to have some more talks with [creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss] and tease them about the fact that I do have a career outside of Sherlock now, so they’d better f*cking write something.
What do you make of the new US modern Sherlock Holmes adaptation, Elementary?
Jonny [Lee Miller] asked me if I was all right with him doing it. I said, “What are the similarities?” And he went, “Well it’s modern…” I went, “Oh.” Then he said, “Lucy Liu’s going to play Joan Watson…” And I went, “Oh.” I got hold of the pilot script just to check it out. I don’t know, we’ll see. I think there’s room for us both to coexist. I don’t feel threatened by it and I wish him the best, which is as diplomatic as I can be.
It’s a strange position to be in…
It’s very odd. I did say, “Well, I’d prefer you didn’t do it but you’ve got a kid to feed, a nice house in LA and a wife to keep in good clothes.” When you get used to a certain standard of living and they waft a pay cheque at you, what are you going to do? I think Jonny was like, “Mate, I’ve got the f*cking mountain to climb here [to reach the acclaim of Sherlock], you’ve got nothing to fear.” I wish him the best of luck, but I’m a bit cynical about why they’ve chosen to do it and why they cast him.
Away from that, you’re off to film Steve McQueen and Michael Fassbender’s follow-up to Shame, Twelve Years A Slave. Excited?
It’s a bit frightening because I’m one of about 10 principal cast members. Plus I’m joining Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I feel absolutely right about being in that company. It’s just they’re more experienced, and, obviously, Michael’s very used to working with Steve. It’s a good nervous, and I’m excited about having scenes with Michael.
Right, we’ve saved the big question for last: have you seen the website Otters Who Look Like Benedict Cumberbatch?
Yes! They’re great, but I have to say the people that did it could have matched up the pictures better. Put the effort in guys. There was a fierce blog comment about me once, saying I was “a wooden actor”. Those otter photos prove that, while I may be many things, I’m not wooden. You can’t level that at me.
Parade’s End continues at 9pm on BBC Two, 31 August

source: deareje

Telegraph picked up the high ratings story for Parades End

Parade’s End gives BBC2 biggest drama ratings hit in seven years

Parade’s End has taken BBC2’s drama ratings to a seven-year high after the critically acclaimed period piece made its debut on Friday.

Audience figures show the first episode attracted 3.5 million viewers, making it BBC2’s biggest drama in years.

BBC2 trounced BBC1 and ITV’s Friday night prime-time ratings with 15 percent of all viewers, doubling its usual share.

The five-part series marked a return to television for internationally renowned playwright Tom Stoppard after a 35-year hiatus.

Stoppard helped boost the channel to its most impressive ratings since HBO’s historical drama Rome aired in 2005.

Star turns from Benedict Cumberbatch, who enjoys a large global following, and Rebecca Hall, also helped give prominence to the period piece.

Benedict Cumberbatch in a still from Parade’s End episode 2 as Christopher waits for his son Michael.

source: lornasp

Guide Dogs ‏@guidedogs 6h

Hi @cumberbatchweb Our Paralympic Torch Bearers were on the One Show with Benedict. Check out this great photo of them pic.twitter.com/H6ODZBak

New clip from Parade’s End, episode 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbxoQQhA3fc&feature=player_embedded
source: deareje

Benedict Cumberbatch on The One Show

source: cumberlord

Full version of the Reader’s Digest interview

source: ladyt220

Urban Dictionary's definitions of Cumberbatched

 

look up any word:

1. Cumberbatched Pertaining to a certain Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch, the term Cumberbatched refers to; 1. The state of complete awe and fangirl/boying at which it becomes difficult to function normally in the presence of Cumberbatch (even if his presence is merely the organisation of pixels on a screen.) 2. Also refers to a something which sucked before, but, by having an association with him, becomes inherently more awesome. Cumberbitch 1: OMG LOOK IT'S BENNY HE'S SO AMAZING HE IS SO WONDERFUL I WISH I KNEW HIM ASDFGHSDFHKJFDHkfs -mindsplosion- Cumberbitch 2: YOU'VE BEEN CUMBERBATCHED. buy cumberbatched mugs & shirts cumberbitch cumberbatch benedict cumberbatch god cumbersnatched by That cumberbitch Dec 28, 2010 share this add a video 2. Cumberbatched 155 up, 18 down To be overtaken and swooned by the perfection that is the actor Benedict Cumberbatch. Being Cumberbatched will result in the (most likely female) viewer's ovaries exploding and inevitable panty dropping. I watched Sherlock last night and I was Cumberbatched by his smoky baritone voice. buy cumberbatched mugs & shirts benedict cumberbatch hotness sherlock ovaries panties by kaybeelove Dec 28, 2010 share this add a video 3. Cumberbatched 71 up, 30 down To own or pwn someone so completely, it is ridiculous for anyone else to even try to win to the same magnitude! From the actor Benedict Cumberbatch from the British tv show 'Sherlock' "I'm not a psychopath, Anderson, I'm a high-functioning sociopath, do your research." - CUMBERBATCHED! buy cumberbatched mugs & shirts benedict cumberbatch sherlock owned holmes by UkuleleShish Dec 26, 2010 share this add a video

source: @mug_7

The world of Parade's End, parts 1 & 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh4IvN_m65g&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ3Ht3BwQ3c&feature=player_embedded

source: deareje

Benedict Cumberbatch on The One Show

source: deareje

Promotional still from Parade's End

source: cumberbatchweb

Benedict Cumberbatch on The One Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH4VFNbPXmE&feature=g-all-u
source: deareje

So sorry, I just had to do this! Correction, not sorry at all!!

source: cumberbuddy, heartofsherlock

source: caramelock

source: britlocking

The Sherlock Masterclass at MGEITF 2012 - Full Report

Sue Vertue, Andrew Scott, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss collect the Terrestrial Programme of the Year Award at MGEITF 2012.

August 24 2012 was a hugely successful day at the Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival for Sherlock, seeing a fantastic and informative Masterclass panel, the unveiling of the first hints of possible plotlines for Series Three, and two more awards to add the ever growing collection at Hartswood Films.

Read on for our in-depth write up of the Masterclass panel and the Awards wins, though please note we have summarised much of what was said to avoid any misquoting.

Parade’s End: smitten by Benedict Cumberbatch’s amazing mouth

Rachel Cooke reviews Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of the novels by Ford Madox Ford

People say that Ford Madox Ford is now more studied than read – and who am I to disagree? On the other hand, a friend of mine once asked my husband to remove himself from his dining table when they disagreed about the relative merits of Ford’s 1915 novel, The Good Soldier (and having written that sentence, I will now remove myself directly to Pseuds Corner).
The old boy does have his fans. Tom Stoppard, who has adapted the four-novel cycle Parade’s End for the BBC, has said that it took him only 200 pages to grasp that it was a masterpiece. Not that this stopped him being scared of it. “You have to trot to keep up,” he said recently. “Often you don’t know where you are in the time schemes and you’re off balance about whether you’re sympathising with a character or not.”
Will the series lead to a sales spike for Ford? I doubt it. Parade’s End (Fridays, 9pm) feels unexpectedly weightless on screen. Difficult books – by which I mean those that nod approvingly in the general direction of modernism – tend to be too light on plot for television. The necessity for concision, moreover, means that what is rich on the page sometimes seems only baffling when it tumbles from the mouths of actors. Not the best advertisement, then. I don’t wish to sound ungrateful. For all that I share the suspicion that the BBC will pull pretty much anything off the shelf if it will get actors into spats and plus fours, long gloves and fox furs (how the success of ITV’s awful Downton Abbey – so wet, you could shoot snipe off it – must rankle), I can’t help but love it for going with this one. What other TV company in the world would commission an adaptation of Ford, trail it halfway to death, feed stories about it even to the Sun and screen it at 9pm on a Friday night? Answer: there is none.
“For a gentleman,” says Christopher Tietjens (Benedict Cumberbatch) to his friend Mac - master (Stephen Graham), “there is something … Call it a parade.” Macmaster has just asked him if he will take back his horrid, unfaithful wife, Sylvia (Rebecca Hall) and what Tietjens means is that for men of his class, appearance is all. However, this parade will shortly cease to matter. The war is coming. Even now, change is in the air.
By the end of part one, Tietjens – a Tory Yorkshire squire – was in love with a young suffragette, Valentine Wannop (Adelaide Clemens) and she with him. While Sylvia thinks of her husband as an emotionless plank, Valentine sees him as noble and true. After all, when she ruined his game of golf by shouting “Votes for women” – one of the more pathetic suffragette “outrages”, one feels – he helped her evade the copper his friends had called.
Actually, this was pretty much all that happened in episode one. Then again, no one, least of all me, is watching Parade’s End for its action. We are tuning in for the silly names – Sylvia has a lover called Potty Perowne – and for the cut-glass vowels. “Ripping!” people say, when they are happy. When they’re unhappy, as Tietjens is when his wife decides to return to him, they says things like: “I shan’t keep a house; anything beyond a flat looks like impudence in a man who can’t keep his wife.”
And we’re watching for the performances, which are mostly great (though the jury’s still out on Hall). Cumberbatch, in particular, is brilliant, which is helpful, since he is the heart of this. The things he can do with his mouth are quite amazing; it seems almost to inflate with emotion, sometimes with the result that he looks like an exotic fish. He has given Tietjens a voice with a “shush” in it – Winston Churchill-lite – and it is perfect. The viewer roots for him instinctively.
I can’t say too much, yet, about Stoppard’s adaptation – only time will tell – but it is already clear that he has resisted the temptation, what with the trenches on the horizon, only to deliver mud and solemnity. There is wit here and breezy lust. When Sylvia told her mother of the “sex vapour” emanating from her set “like the steam coming off the water in the crocodile house at the zoo”, I felt suddenly less at sea. The next few Friday nights, I thought, just might be rather fun.

source: lornasp

The Times - another Parade’s End review

Posted 2 days ago

Imagine a thinking person’s Downton Abbey. Attach the names Stoppard and Cumberbatch and you have this superb series

BBC Two, 9pm
Adapted by Tom Stoppard from four related novels by Ford Madox Ford, this five-part BBC/HBO period drama has quality written all over it, and that’s before you start listing the superlative cast. Benedict Cumberbatch is Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant government statistician from a wealthy landowning family who has a passionate tryst with the capricious Sylvia (Rebecca Hall) on a train. She is already pregnant, but Tietjens does the decent thing and marries her. Sylvia is soon bored. She describes her husband as “a precise sort of imbecile” — he is the kind of man who makes corrections in the margins of the Encyclopedia Britannica. But Cumberbatch’s performance is multi-layered. Tietjens, despite outward appearances, is no emotional cripple. He is a sensitive soul with a depth that his wife can’t get close to. She has a fling, and he falls for a spunky suffragette. Comparisons with Downton Abbey are inevitable — it covers the period up to and through the First World War and deals with subjects of class, wealth and privilege. But the key difference is that Parade’s End, like Tietjens, is intellectually superior. Stoppard’s script is superb. The dialogue is authentic and it soars whereDownton and other period offerings can so often clunk. It is the thinking person’s Downton Abbey.
source: cumberbatchweb

The Times - 5 Star Review of Parade’s End

Posted 2 days ago

Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Parade’s End wasn’t Downton Abbey for grown-ups, but Brideshead Revisited reinvigorated
Parade’s End
Friday, BBC Two

Christopher Tietjens, the hero of Parade’s End, is difficult to like. His wife, Sylvia, finds it impossible. The cleverest young man in London, up and coming and already above himself in Whitehall’s department of statistics, he is a know-all who for recreation pens corrections to the Encyclopaedia Britannia in its margins. He foresees the flaws in the welfare state, knows how much liquorice to feed a horse and can confidently inform his friend, Macmaster, the author of a slim treatise on Rossetti, that his hero’s poetry is congealed bacon. Only his emotions does he leave un-annotated. For guidance on his conduct he relies instead on his knowledge of society mores. A London cuckold, for instance, looks impudent if he lives in anything grander than a flat.
For a cuckold he is. As he tells Macmaster in one of his very few, and typically terse, intimacies, Sylvia has “bitched” him. Having tricked him into marrying him while pregnant with another’s child (the poor thing is only ever called “the child”), she then runs off with another lover only to tire of him and decide she will return to Tietjens, provided she can bring her maid — “there being no one else,” she explains pointedly, “I can bear to have with me when I retire for the night”.
So why should we care about these snobs or Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford’s long-forgotten novel sequence? Well, for a start there is Benedict Cumberbatch as Tietjens. Cumberbatch brings humour and an awkward, adolescent vulnerability to everything he does. To purloin Tietjens’s word, Rebecca Hall is also rather “glorious” as the attention-seeking, sexually voracious Sylvia. Poor her: Tietjens doesn’t even look up when she throws crockery at him.
How could we not care to follow a story as brightly animated as this? Stoppard has delved into Ford’s massively verbose narrative and picked out all the plums of dialogue, placing many of them in different characters’ mouths while making loyal nods to Ford’s fractured time scheme. Above all, he finds the books funny. The scene in which Tietjens and Macmaster (Stephen Graham) visit a deranged vicar (a whey-faced Rufus Sewell) who accuses the Rossetti-fancier of self abuse is as hilarious as the Gielgud-Irons encounters inBrideshead Revisited.
The director, Susanna White, opens with a shot from above a chandelier looking down on a boudoir decorated like a wedding cake, but she never allows herself to fall in love with the Edwardian style, breaking up the architectural vistas with Futurist shots of train wheels, dividing her screen kaleidoscopically. When, finally, Tietjens falls in love, with the suffragette Valentine Wannop (Adelaide Clemens in pristine contrast to the exotic Hall), it is against a simplifying backdrop of white mist.
This is not Downton with a degree. It is Granada’s Brideshead in all its satirical, romantic glory revisited. People won’t watch. They want Merton and Hislop on Friday nights. But what do people know?

source: cumberbatchweb

Behind the scenes shot of Benedict Cumberbatch with the little boy who plays his son in Parade’s End.

sourcE: cumberbatchweb

Small Parade’s End photo featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Patrick Kennedy.

source: cumberbatchweb

Christopher and Valentine lost in the fog, Parade's End

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_C0nxdVqIE&feature=youtu.be
source: deareje

Sherlock S3, three words revealed

Benedict Cumberbatch in Talks to Join 'August: Osage County' ›

Benedict Cumberbatch, the Emmy-nominated actor who stars on the BBC America’s Sherlock, is in negotiations to join the cast of August: Osage County, the Weinstein Co.’s adaptation of the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play.

The high-profile project counts Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts among its stars and George Clooney among its producers.

John Wells is directing the movie, which revolves around the women of a family whose lives have splintered in many directions until a crisis bring them back to their childhood home and to the dysfunctional woman (Streep) who raised them.
Cumberbatch will act as the sensitive son of Streep’s sister, Mattie Fay Aiken (Margo Martindale). She castigates and belittles the man, who believes his father is Charlie Aiken (Chris Cooper), but the truth is he’s the product of an affair.
The movie is eyeing a late-September start in Oklahoma

source: cumberbatchweb

One more pic from the Radiotimes photoshoot

source: deareje

Just cause it's Friday, have some gorgeous Benny!

source: cumberbatchweb

Another behing the scenes shot from Parade's End

source: cumberbatchweb

As Parade’s End is airing today have another couple of gorgeous promo shots from the series featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Adelaide Clemens as Christopher Tietjens and Valentine Wannop.

source: cumberbatchweb

Benedict Cumberbatch in Parade's End

source: deareje

The war had made a man of him: Benedict Cumberbatch stars in Parade’s End

Dazzling neckties? A celebration of English romanticism? The occasional rabble-rousing suffragette? No, it’s not Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony but Parade’s End, the BBC’s most eagerly anticipated costume drama of the autumn. Sir Tom Stoppard has adapted the Ford Madox Ford book for a cast that stars sometime consulting detective Benedict Cumberbatch, intellectual pinup Rebecca Hall, ever reliable fop Rupert Everett and Shameless star Anne-Marie Duff. Cumberbatch plays Christopher Tietjens, the last bastion of Toryism in a changing world, a civil servant tied to a faithless wife, Sylvia (played absorbingly by Hall). The situation is complicated by Tietjens affair with a young suffragette Valentine Wannop (a vibrant Adelaide Clemens - Stoppard picking her out as the “blonde one in the cap” in the pilot). Much has already been made ofCumberbatch criticising aspects of rival period dramaDownton Abbey  (context free highlight: “we won’t talk about that series because it was, in my opinion,  f****** atrocious”) but it certainly appears this is a more considered TV than waiting for Maggie Smith to drop another bon mot.
Indeed, Parade’s End’s strength lies not just in the detailed dialogue of  Stoppard’s taught script but also the stunning work by Cumberbatch and Hall - the latter’s captivating beauty makes us in many ways just as enamoured to her as her lover, Major Perowne.Cumberbatch - who apparently had to work on his already distinguished accent to make him seem a believable turn-of-the-century gentleman - also executes the role well. Director Susanna White said that Tietjens is a difficult individual to get right as “he’s such a buttoned-up Englishman who doesn’t show his emotions. Yet you have to fall in love with him and want to follow his journey.” Of course, remember that Cumberbatch might not have even been in the programme. The show has been in development for nearly three years; when parties from both the BBC and HBO met in the Ivy a few years back, the American broadcaster asked “Who is this Benedict Cumberbatch?”
Parade’s End is a must for those of us looking for slightly more in our TV viewing than watching Mel and Sue make jokes about baps. As White says, “people like demanding television: television that makes you think. There is another type of television now, which people revisit on box set, where they really like engaging with something that makes your mind work.” Stoppard says that Cumberbatch’s character “appeals deeply to me, because he says something that is very central. ‘When you live an outmoded code of honour, people take you to be a fool, and I’m coming round to their opinion.’ This is a man who falls in love with a young woman, whose wife has gone off with someone, and he says: ‘It makes no difference. Monogamy, chastity, I’m not talking about it.’ There’s something interesting in a man who describes him that way and tries to live those principles.” Put it this way: such extra-marital drama is the only reason to stay in on Friday night…
 Parade’s End starts this Friday at 9pm on BBC2.

source: sporadic-random-thoughts:

Stills from Parade's End

source: mammothscreenbbc

Time for today’s exclusive #Parade’sEnd still.A lovely shot of Christopher taking Valentine home.

source: cumberbatchweb

Benedict Cumberbatch to appear live on The One Show

The Sherlock and Parade’s End star will be talking to Alex Jones and Chris Evans about his latest projects on Friday’s programme

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Written By

Radio Times staff

12:27 PM, 23 August 2012

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Good news Cumberbatch fans!  You won’t have to wait for Parade’s End at 9pm to see Benedict on TV tomorrow because he’ll be making a live appearance on The One Show from 7pm to 7:30pm on BBC1.
The Sherlock star will be stopping in to White City to share the famous sofa with Alex Jones and Chris Evans as they chat about his new period drama Parade’s End, in which Cumberbatch stars as part of a stellar cast including Rebecca Hall, Adelaide Clemens, Rupert Everett and Miranda Richardson, to name but a few.
Cumberbatch plays Christopher Tietjens, the “cleverest man in London”, in Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford’s tetralogy of novels.
But can he use his great intellect to stop himself falling in love with beautiful suffragette Valentine (Adelaide Clemens) and keep his marriage to Sylvia (Rebecca Hall) alive?
Tune in to The One Show at 7pm for more on the show, before the main event at 9pm on BBC2 as the 5-part BBC/HBO coproduction gets underway.
source: radiotimes.com

"In Parade’s End, my dad plays a character called Lord Westershire. We were filming together on his 72nd birthday in the middle of the Yorkshire Moors. It was a ludicrous Victorian picnic scene and it was blowing a gale. So food was flying into our faces. It was a hysterically funny day.“

 

—	Benedict Cumberbatch on filming Parade’s End with his father. [x] (via deareje)

I came across this little post, written by someone on tumblr that I thought was quite brilliant and had to share. Too many people seem to put Benedict Cumberbatch on a pedestal and get angry when he falls off. They forget he is a human being just like the rest of us. A brilliant, talented, articulate, kind human, but human nonetheless.

My favorite thing about Benedict Cumberbatch…

phunkyvanspam:

Before all this Downton Abbey drama, many fans would say that Benedict has this natural, magical charisma. That he seems to have the right thing to say about everything. This may be true sometimes (especially on stage or when he’s talking about acting) but honestly? My favorite thing about him is the times he isn’t like that. He’s extremely intelligent, incredibly sweet and polite but let’s face it here: Benedict can sometimes be pretty socially awkward and neurotic.
Here’s a few examples.
My girlfriend had a good laugh when she found out I was [playing Steven Ezard from the Last Enemy] because although I’m not OCD, I have been known to check my temperature and worry too much about symptoms. And I do have threshold anxiety. I have this thing where I have to check the gas is off two or three times.” Usefully for this part, he has always felt something of an outsider. His grandmother paid for him to go to Harrow school, where rather endearingly, he “fell in with a nice bunch of teachers”. [x]
I wander over to Cumberbatch’s trailer. He’s dressed as Sherlock, and looks a bit bored.
“Is my eye spasming?” he says. “I can feel it spasming. Is it spasming? Look! Look! It’s doing it now.”
I can see nothing.
“I’ve never been this near a power station before,” he frets.
“It’s been decommissioned since 1983,” I remind him. [x]
And who can forget how, during dinner at a restaurant, he stared at Patrick Stewart for a very long time and then decided to walk up to him going “I need to talk to you NOW” without any greetings or anything, because he wanted to ask PATRICK STEWART if starring in a Star Trek film would ruin his career? [x]
Or when one interviewer on the red carpet said “I AM BLINDED by your star quality!” and Benedict offered her his sunglasses? Or his failure to realize that his sarcastic, self deprecating humor does not translate well in print and he should really think before he says some problematic things?
Or even what Gatiss had to say about him in this video (:35-1:35)?

There are so many more examples I can list here too, and you know what? All these little things I’ve mentioned aren’t bad at all.
I’m not saying he’s some worry wart that stays cooped up in a room biting his fingernails when he’s not seen in public. God knows the man has a ton of friends and likes to have a bit of fun every once in a while. What I’m trying to say is… He’s one of the greatest actors in recent years, and I believe he’s also one of the most human as well.
He’s honest with his feelings and insecurities, honest when he says he’s absolutely terrified of doing a seemingly simple task such as going on the runway, honest when he says he has such a really hard time doing the deduction lines in Sherlock, etc etc. Being a performer, all these little things make me believe that “if Benedict can do this sort of thing so can I.”
And THAT is more important than some delusion that he’s a god of absolute perfection. Because that doesn’t exist.

Time Out article on Parade's End

Interview: Benedict Cumberbatch for 'Parade's End'

The ‘Sherlock’ tells Gabriel Tate about his new drama, typecasting and dealing with the fans.

 

Rebecca Hall and Benedict Cumberbatch as Sylvia and Christopher Tietjens in 'Parade's End'

Benedict  Cumberbatch looks spent. He’s perched on a sofa in a London hotel, having barely drawn breath for 40 minutes of talking about ‘Parade’s End’, Tom Stoppard’s five-part adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s quartet of novels. These works trace the collapse of Edwardian society through the eyes of tormented aristo Christopher Tietjens. Overflowing with enthusiasm and insight, Cumberbatch’s ebullience is justified – ‘Parade’s End’ has all the hallmarks of a slow-burn masterpiece.

Who is Christopher?

‘Christopher is the most adorable, long- suffering, virtuous character I’ve played. There are very modern aspects of his integrity and honour which really appealed to me: that we’re raping the soil beyond its means – we’re reaping the dividends of that now. And it’s admirable, his feudal ideal that value is something tangible rather than to do with money markets and greed. And that there’s a duty to those above and below your station. All those principles are so fucking grey now – lost to instant satisfaction and consumerism.’

And he’s involved in a love triangle.

‘His wife Sylvia [Rebecca Hall] is out of time. She’s from the Jazz Age – high living and let the world go to shit. She’s bipolar and it’s a terrible mismatch. They come together as a result of mutual sexual attraction, but he sees her as damaged goods. He’s trying to do right by her, but he’s killing her with kindness. Then Valentine [Adelaide Clemens] comes along, who’s younger than him but has a very old soul. They can talk to each other on the same level. She promises a real future for him, but she’s forbidden fruit because he’s allied himself to the principles of marriage and doesn’t want to create a scandal.’

What do you get with a Tom Stoppard script?
‘Tom and Ford have a view into the eccentricities and idiocies of the class system, as well as a delight in English language. Tom has an extraordinary turn of phrase, an incredible exactness and a great, highly sexualised humour. He can handle complex ideas with a dramatic context: it’s a wonderful, beautiful, erudite simplification of four complex novels.’

Why is the Edwardian era so attractive for dramatists?
‘We’re living 100 years from when it all began, so it’s natural for storytellers to re-examine the era now there’s nobody alive to tell us those stories any more. I fell in love with Ford’s view of this absurd world imploding as a result of mechanised war. It outlines why a war could have sacrificed eight million people for the death of two.’

What research did you do?

‘A lot of research I did for “War Horse” fed in to this. I read a book called “The Great War and Modern Memory” – how culture has shaped views of the war. How the Home Front was painting a picture of the front to keep morale up, so they didn’t know about the hot lead tearing into people’s faces, the rats, the cholera, the cold... Society is reshaped by this complete denigration of the value of life. Christopher speaks out about the absurdities and ends up on the Front because of it.’

How was filming at the Front?

‘It really got under my skin. I was shocked at how flat Belgium was, then how with a tin hat on your horizon shrinks to a letter box. I had about five different script ideas, from the Chinese coolies who dug the trenches then dug out the bodies at the end, to the Wipers Weekly, produced out of this old printing press for the troops, which was like the birth of Private Eye.’

What’s your take on ‘Downton Abbey’?

‘The second series did fall off a bit, but ask half of the cast and they’ll say the same thing! What Julian [Fellowes] does is great: incredibly palatable multi-storylines, good Sunday night telly. What we’re doing isn’t supposed to be a comparison, it just happens to be set in a similar era.’

How have you dealt with the added attention since ‘Sherlock’?
‘“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. Any privacy in public now is odd to negotiate. The only thing is people surreptitiously trying to take a photo. That fucks me off. Why not just ask?’

Do you worry about typecasting?
‘You do get asked to do what you’re most recently famed for. I’ve got a long face, I look a bit weird, I suit period costumes, but that’s about it. In the book Christopher is a fat, blond Yorkshireman. I would have gone further with a fatsuit, but there were discussions about, “Oh, we can’t lose his ‘matinee good looks’, we need something for the viewers to hang on to in this complex Edwardian drama.” I ate myself into the role as best I could.’

Doing ‘The Hobbit’ must have meant an even greater transformation.
‘Playing Smaug in “The Hobbit”, weirdly, is very freeing, once you put the suit on with the sensors on. Playing a serpent twice the size of the Empire State Building, that breathes fire, and is 400 years old and lives on a pile of gold in a mountain, is difficult to bring any reality to. So you have to lose your shit on a carpeted floor that looks like it’s come out of a mundane government building, and imagine yourself into it.’

‘Parade's End’ starts Friday Auagust 24, 9pm, BBC2.
source: timeout.com

Benedict Cumberbatch in Hello TVNews

source: cumberbatchweb

Today’s exclusive Parades End still depicts Christopher (Benedict Cumberbatch) arriving at a party and witnessing Sylvia dancing with her lover. Sylvia tells him “You look like thunder…”

source: cumberbatchweb

Benedict & Gatiss on the set of Sherlock

source: everydaynerdblog

Benedict Cumberbatch on the set of Sherlock

source: levolumeduvent