Benedict Cumberbatch famous quotes

Pull the hair on my head the wrong way, and I would be on my knees begging for mercy. I have very sensitive follicles.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Hair #Would Be #Knees

I try to work hard. I'm really proud of what I get to do as a living. I still pinch myself. But I also know it's a craft, and I can get better at it and learn every time I do it. So I try to work hard no matter what the task is.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Hard Work #Get Better #Trying

[on Martin Freeman playing Bilbo Baggins] It was great. I got to hang out with him, and I kept a straight face for a bit and then I started giggling because I know Martin, I don't know Bilbo. For Martin to be sitting there playing Bilbo is amazing. He's going to be amazing, he's going to be fantastic in this film.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Sitting #Faces #Film

When auditioning, I try to imagine that I'm the only person that they [directors] are seeing that day because it can be overwhelming, in the same sense that it could be overwhelming if you try to fulfil everyone's expectations rather than the people closest to you in the creative process, be it your director, or fellow actors and the writers. So, that's kind of it - I try to trick myself into believing that no one has ever gone there before.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Believe #People #Expectations

The further you get away from yourself, the more challenging it is. Not to be in your comfort zone is great fun.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Fun #Challenges #Comfort

You have to sometimes just run with the problem rather than trying to solve it with hi-tech wizardry and lots of planning.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Running #Trying #Wizardry

I always seem to be cast as slightly wan, ethereal, troubled intellectuals or physically ambivalent bad lovers. But I'm here to tell you I'm quite the opposite in real life. In fact I'm a f**king fantastic lover.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Kings #Real #Opposites

I always get self-conscious about what I look like in a film, but less so if I'm a character very far removed from who I am. Then I just worry about the performance, and that's equally an odd experience.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Character #Self #Who I Am

Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame. I'm also a great believer in treating others as you would like to be treated.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Journey #Treating Others #Enjoy

What makes a good animated movie is being able to balance adult and knowing in-jokes and also just out and out funny things that make all people laugh. The idea that it's actually something that will appeal to a family, that's the trick.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Funny Things #Ideas #Knowing

Do I like being thought of as attractive? I don’t know anyone on Earth who doesn’t, but I do find it funny. I look in a mirror and I see all the faults I’ve lived with for 35 years and yet people go kind of nuts for certain things about me. It’s not me being humble. I just think it’s weird.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Humble #Thinking #Years

Animations are really powerful - it's not just entertainment, it's a very cunning way to get good ideas across.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Powerful #Ideas #Way

You come into this world as you leave it, on your own. It's made me want to live a life slightly less ordinary.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Ordinary #World #Want

[While voicing cartoons] you have to lose your sanity and inhibitions and any kind of dignity and just throw yourself around a bit.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Cartoon #Dignity #Kind

My mum and dad had worked incredibly hard to afford me an education.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Dad #Mum #Mum And Dad

I play enough other mad people, as well and some sane people, to vary the palette of what's scrabbling around in my head and soul to bring to the floor, as a storyteller.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Play #People #Mad

I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Book #Reading #Alive

The first time we did cavalry charge I was so breathless with excitement I nearly fell off the horse. I actually saw stars in front of my eyes and thought I was going to faint. The second time I had a bit more control but was still giddy with excitement. And the third time I was an emotional wreck. I had to really try hard not to cry.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Horse #Stars #Eye

One of the fears of having too much work is not having time to observe. And once you get recognised, there is nowhere for you to look any more. You can't sit on a night bus and watch it all happen.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Night #Watches #Looks

I've been very lucky at what's happened in my career to date, but playing something as far from me as possible is an ambition of mine - anything from a mutated baddy in a comic book action thriller, to a detective. If anything, I'd like Gary Oldman's career: he's the perfect example of it. I've love to have a really broad sweep of characters - to be able to do something edgy, surprising and unfashionable.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Book #Ambition #Character

[on BBC's Sherlock] It's a rare challenge, both for the audience and an actor, to take part in something with this level of intelligence and wit. You have to really enjoy it. It's a form of mental and physical gymnastics.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Gymnastics #Challenges #Actors

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.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Regret #Would Be #Lucky

I had the privilege of being able to choose, or at least have the opportunity to work at, being anything but an actor.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Opportunity #Actors #Able

I have actual acting scars.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Acting #Scar

Cumberbatch - it sounds like a fart in a bath, doesn't it? What a fluffy old name. I can never say it on a Monday morning. When I became an actor, Mum wasn't keen on me keeping it.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Monday #Morning #Names

We all want to escape our circumstances, don't we? Especially if you are an actor.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Actors #Want #Circumstances

Looking for happiness is a sure way to sadness, I think. You have to take each moment as it comes.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Sadness #Thinking #Way

I keep myself amused and others confused
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Confused

Thus, a vision of the whole gradually grew for me that was nourished by the various experiences and realizations I had encountered along my theological path. I rejoiced to be able to say something of my own, something new and yet completely within the faith of the Church. The feeling of aquiring a theological vision that was ever more clearly my own was the most wonderful experience of those years.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Years #Feelings #Vision

I want to do it all. I want to climb mountains, go through jungles, fight wars in space, get the girl, shoot the bad-guy full of lead, have all the zippy one liners, bulge muscles out of a singlet, drip sweat and blood on screen, all of that.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Girl #War #Fighting

When you start getting jobs, and see your mates from drama school, you don't really want to talk about it, because you have this innate sense of guilt that it's not fair that others aren't doing exactly what you're doing. I do have that.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Jobs #Drama #School

When you're a kid, 'Star Trek' is a slower burn. It's funny, it's entertaining, but it also has a maturity about it - which is its universal appeal, I think.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Stars #Kids #Maturity

Being in front of an audience makes me feel alive. Being with friends makes me feel alive. I’ve done some crazy stuff in my time and yet I can feel infinitely alive curled up on a sofa reading a book. So, what makes me feel alive? I guess it’s realizing I am part of the world around me.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Crazy #Book #Reading

I'm not loyal to one genre. I want to mix it up.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Loyal #Want #Genre

Because reading is one of the joys of life, and once you begin, you can't stop, and you've got so many stories to look forward to.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Reading #Joy #Looks

I've said for quite a long time I'd like him to have a different haircut. I quite like my hair being short. You know, we've been away two years, let's ***** around with his outfit, let's ***** around with his haircut, let's do something different.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Years #Two #Hair

I ate healthily, but there was no snacking, no drinking, no bread, no sugar, no smoking. Afterwards I had a pork belly roast.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Drinking #Smoking #Sugar

Someone will always hate what I say. There’s always going to be somebody spitting blood about my wooden-faced, toffee-named, crappy acting.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Hate #Blood #Acting

I was the boy that turned a girlfriend into the most celebrated lesbian on television. I got so much stick for that.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Girlfriend #Boys #Television

I'm a high-functioning sociopath, do your research.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Research #Sociopath

I suppose my bodily proportions are quite flattering. I'm ripped, doing something I wouldn't normally do with my body, or having done to it, involving Watson,
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Done #Body #Proportion

Fame is a weird one. You need to distance yourself from it. People see a value in you that you don't see yourself.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Distance #People #Needs

Look at you lot, you're all so vacant, is it nice not being me it must be so relaxing.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Nice #Looks #Being Me

I was brought up in a world of privilege.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#World #Privilege

I'm always keen to use my body in my work, so I'm looking forward to the motion capture for Smaug. Both Gollum and King Kong were primates, whereas I'm playing a serpent, so it'll be interesting - I'll have to tie my legs together, possibly, or else they'll be kind of splayed out to the side as a reptile's should be.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Kings #Ties #Interesting

I'm aware of the power of looks. I've wanted to play roles that have gone to much better-looking people and you just think 'Oh well, that's the pin up guy's an actor like my friend James Mcavoy, who's gorgeous on screen. I'm not that. But at least I don't have to worry about taking precious care of my face because it's my commodity. That's a great freedom. I'm not afraid of being heinous for the sake of a part
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Thinking #Play #Worry

I remember very clearly someone saying, 'Don't shake hands with the cactus,' and I thought, 'Well, why not? What could possibly go wrong?' Shaking hands is a friendly gesture.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Hands #Friendly #Gestures

I'm not very geeky. I'm quite homespun. I would say I'm more modern rustic than gadget-orientated. I like woollen things and log fires and whiskey
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Fire #Gadgets #Whiskey

I actually do mind having a photo taken because it's one o'clock in the morning and I'm off my face.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Morning #Taken #Mind

Not that i had a big arse but even that was toned.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Arses #Bigs

I like to think that we’re revolving on this planet and revolving through the galaxy. I love having context that’s so much bigger than I can fathom. It’s fantastic to realise how insignificant you are.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Thinking #Fantastic #Bigger

We have a lot more unlikely heroes now. It’s not just the guy with guns—it’s the guy with brains.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Hero #Gun #Guy

I'm still very sensitive and wary of people recognising me The only thing that really annoys me is people trying to surreptitiously take a photo on their phone without asking. I feel it's cowardly and a bit pathetic. Just ask me if you really want me to have a photograph with you.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Phones #People #Trying

I can’t stop traffic on Fifth Avenue, not unless I walk in front of an oncoming cab.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Fifth Avenue #Traffic #Walks

I've turned up to costume parties in the wrong costume. I've made social faux pas a plenty. I've put one foot in front of the other and fallen over.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Party #Feet #Costumes

Lines are very difficult to learn.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Lines #Difficult

Our daily lives are so mundane, we get taken over by what is immediately in front of us and we don't see beyond that.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Taken #Daily Life #Mundane

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.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Beautiful #New York #Crazy

My own grandfathers were a submarine commander and a 'desert rats' tank operator in the Second World War.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#War #Grandfather #Tanks

Live a life less ordinary.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Ordinary

Landing the role of Stephen Hawking was the most positively surprising thing that has happened to me.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Roles #Landing #Surprising

I did a lot of acting at school and university, then I went to drama school. It was quite a normal route.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#Drama #School #Acting

I drive a motorbike, so there is the whiff of the grim reaper round every corner, especially in London.
-- Benedict Cumberbatch

#London #Grim Reaper #Motorbike