Interview: Benedict Cumberbatch, actor

Published on Sunday 20 June 2010 12:22

Benedict Cumberbatch tells Siobhan Synnot why reprising the role of Sherlock Holmes and appearing in Spielberg's next movie more than make up for missing out on Madonna's new film

WHAT would we do without Benedict Cumberbatch, stalwart pal, boozy

philanderer and gentleman detective? These are just some of many roles

the 34-year-old actor has been juggling in recent months. When I track him down in London he's a birl of activity, offering words of reassurance and a kiss to a departing friend, sorting out his bike so he can hop off to the National Theatre for his evening performance of Terence Rattigan's After The Dance, and recovering from a horseriding

lesson in Watford.

Horseriding? It's for a movie, he admits, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. "I don't know if I'll get into trouble for saying this, but I'm in Steven Spielberg's next film, War Horse. I can't quite believe I'm doing it." Based on Michael Morpurgo's children's novel about a boy whose beloved horse is sent to the trenches of the First World War, the project has been the subject of secrecy for months. Even seeing the script was a cloak-and-dagger affair for Cumberbatch, involving hush-hush locations and confidentiality agreements signed in triplicate, but in the end his discretion paid off.

"It's the standard actors' joke – 'What are you doing after this?' 'Oh, if Spielberg doesn't call then I'm going to go on holiday.' But a week after I'd said that, I got the call to say I had the job. It's one of those moments you never forget – I just fell off my chair. Which is not a good start to the horseriding."

When filming begins next month, Cumberbatch is to lead furious cavalry charges across the western front as Captain Stewart. Since it's the first time he's been on a horse in three years, he is understandably apprehensive. "I saw the storyboards today and nearly shat myself," he says. "Some extremely good horsemanship is going to be required, and I'm hoping they won't be relying entirely on me."

In a few years, Cumberbatch has become an actor we can depend on. Since his breakthrough performance as the scientist Stephen Hawking in the 2004 BBC drama Hawking, he has been effectively creepy as the family friend in Atonement, sketched a wily Pitt the Younger in Amazing Grace and was nominated for a Bafta last month for the TV drama Small Island. Witty and wry, Cumberbatch is a popular figure amongst actors and directors.

"He's fun to be around," says James McAvoy, who worked with Cumberbatch on Starter for Ten and Atonement. "And he's probably one of the actors I've worked with who I admire, not just for what he does but also how he goes about it."

Hattie Dalton's Third Star, which closes the Edinburgh International Film Festival next weekend, is the kind of deceptively familiar material that Cumberbatch relishes. Terminally ill, his character has summoned three of his closest friends for a life-changing final trip together with the intention of setting their lives straight. However his friends also have some things they'd like to get off their chest and the film twists into something funnier and more unpredictable than a simple plot summary might suggest. "I think it explores sides of friendship that are often neglected," says Cumberbatch. "The streaks of competitiveness, support, love, irritation and trust are all here. But I also liked the idea that being robbed of your life too early doesn't give you the right to tell others how to live."

Cumberbatch researched his character's disease by meeting members of the Sarcoma Society, but the movie also had personal resonances for the actor, because Dr Roger Poulet, father of Cumberbatch's long-term girlfriend Olivia, had been given a terminal diagnosis four years earlier.

"It was a remarkable thing," says Cumberbatch. "I was someone to whom he could speak and be emotionally very open to without fear of upsetting his family. He didn't want to atone and he had no fears about what he'd left behind for his family, but he would talk about wanting people to understand him. So along with Olivia and her brother James, he composed this extraordinary Desert Island Discs memorial for himself. Listening to it after the funeral, hearing his voice again and laughing at his jokes was utterly odd and profound. He managed to create this extraordinary memory of himself that was utterly true to who he was. And literally, we'd just buried Olivia's father when the script for Third Star arrived so I completely connected with it as soon as I read it."

Regrettably, Cumberbatch's commitment to After The Dance overlaps with the Edinburgh premiere of Third Star. "Genuinely, I'm gutted," he says. "I love Edinburgh and it's such a cracking festival. From when I was a student at Manchester I've always wanted to come up and just watch films. Having our film there is a real honour."

Cumberbatch's Edinburgh connection extends to his next scheduled appearance as a rebooted and suited version of the well-loved hero invented by Picardy Place's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Three 90-minute adventures commissioned by the BBC are finally set to air in September, but this is not a traditional Sherlock Holmes, the twist being that Cumberbatch and co-star Martin Freeman employ their deductive perspicacity in 2010 London. Yet some details from Conan Doyle's books remain – Holmes and Watson are flatmates at the same address, Moriarty is out in the streets of London doing dreadful deeds and Cumberbatch spent months learning to play violin.

This Holmes is also more physical than the Holmes of fond memory – a character detail that Cumberbatch says many Doyle fans forget. "Holmes was a good shot and a martial arts expert," he says. "and although he's very much of the thinking school rather than an action school, he is also supposed to be an athlete – which I enjoyed quite a bit."

Unlike Robert Downey Jr in Guy Ritchie's hyperbolic movie last Christmas, however, Cumberbatch has not been filmed oiled and half-naked, engaged in bare-knuckle fist fights.

"When the film came out, I did feel very threatened by its success," he says. "My friends were saying, 'It's really good!' And I went to see it, and Robert Downey Jr is amazing. They've crammed it into a Warner Brothers type action role, which is terrific in its way, but I must admit I was horribly, schoolboyishly relieved when the press gave it a bit of a kicking."

Ritchie's homoerotic Hollywood version of Holmes is now in the early stages of a sequel, but Cumberbatch is sanguine. "Really, he's the most played fictional character, so who am I to be precious about it?" he says. "I don't think we're in competition with it. The interest helps us, and we have great writers and this modern context. This Holmes is great – it's rip-roaringly funny, and yet utterly loyal to the spirit of the slightly bipolar, intellectual superhero."

Oddly enough, Cumberbatch recently caught the eye of Guy Ritchie's formidable ex-wife, who invited him to her London home to discuss playing Edward VIII in her directorial feature debut W.E. "I'd whizzed round on my bike and thought we were going to have a read through and a chat, but she wanted a full-on dress rehearsal," he recalls. "So I ended up in a suit and tie with Madonna operating the camera herself. We walked around the room trying to do the scene, with her going, 'This shot's not working, I don't know why.'"

In the end, his chance to play Bertie for the Queen of Pop fell through because of War Horse's shooting schedule, but Cumberbatch has no regrets. "She was really sweet, but if I was completely honest, it was the story of a man who was a reluctant king that intrigued me, rather than Madonna's direction," he says cheerfully. "Anyway – wait until you see Third Star and Sherlock Holmes!"

Third Star closes the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 26 June, screening at Cineworld at 9.30pm.edfilmfest.org.uk

&#149 This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday on 20 June.