street roots
8
Jan. 31,2014
Benedict
Cumberbatc
He shot to stardom
playing Sherlock
Holmes, but lately he’s
all over the silver
screen, including last
sum m er’s blockbuster
‘Star Trek: Into
Darkness, ’ portraying
Julian Assange in ‘The
Fifth Estate, ’ and a
starring turn in
‘12 Years a Slave. ’
P H O T O B Y S T E P H A N IE B ER G ER
BY ADRIAN LOBB
a hell of a lot of running recently. It’s
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
because I’m playing Alan Turing, who, as
herlock lives! And judging by viewing
well as being an absolute genius, was a very
figures in excess of 10 million and
good marathon runner. It’s great, though. I
Twitter going wild to the tune of
love i t Yep, I’m playing yet another brainy
260,000 tweets per hour during the episode
guy.
“The Empty Hearse” on New Year’s Day,
the return of Benedict Cumberbatch’s
A. L.: And is this role stretching ypur mind
lanky sociopathic detective will remain | |
as well as your body?
highlight of 2014.
For the 37-year-old actor, it marks the
B. C.: Yes, like you wouldn’t believe! As
start of a big, big year. At Charlotte Street
well as running pretty much all the time,
Hotel in central London midway through
I’m carrying around thé môst ridiculous
filming the series finale, he looks more like
selection of books at the moment. But it’s ;
a. wealthy holidaymaker than one of the
great, and I’m learning,so much. I’m loving g
planet’s busiest actors. He bounds in,
it. I hope the plates keep spinning, so that I
wearing a crisp white T-shirt, smart blue
can keep finding these interesting roles and
shorts and blue cloth cap, singing and
carve out a little niche for myself in the film
loosely dancing to the music coming out of
world. And, you know, keep the work varied.
a pair of massive headphones...
I would love to get hack on the stage.
S
Adrian Lobb: How are you today,
Benedict?
A. L.: So Sherlock returned on New Year’s
Day. This season is about fleshing him out?
Benedict Cumberbatch: I’m actually
feeling it a bit this morning. I’ve been doing
B. C.: There is a lot more'backstory.
There are a lot more scenes where you
find out why he is the way he is. The first
conversation I ever had with Steven Moffat
about Sherlock was asking: “How did this
happen?” His response was: “What do you
mean, he’s just brilliant” But someone isn’t
just brilliant, there is something that has
happened. I didn’t want Sherlock being
easily labeled as
being either on
the spectrum of
"1 kn o w Stow h a ckf 1 am to be
Asperger’s or
paid to be In a position to have
autism.
a voice, do my work and also
The reality of
those problems
fast the fact that it's really good
and difficulties is
fnn. Ton owe society a little hit
very different in
for that."
each individual
case. It would
have been lazy for
us to just say: “Oh, that is what he is,” So
that is examined a lot more in this series.
After two years away, he is rusty about
human relationships, especially with his
best friend and with London. And it takes
time for him to get back on his game. Will
See CUMBERBATCH, p a g e 9