Quotes by Benedict Cumberbatch

When are you ever settled enough to have kids?

The armoury of having any academic education does not necessarily set you up for being a good or better actor.

I was always performing, doing silly voices. The teachers realized I could go one of two ways: be creative or destructive.

I think the characters are supposed to be an open book, blank canvas.

Even though my parents experiences were different from mine. I wasn't a child actor brat; I didn't travel with them in the circuit. But I got a look into their world, so I did know what I was getting into, to an extent. And they are a constant source of grounding.

I am shortsighted. I need glasses for watching movies or concerts. It's not a hipster affectation; I do have poor eyesight. This is how ridiculous my life is: I've had the test for contact lenses, but I haven't found a half-day where I can go to the optician.

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.

Maybe it's just getting older, but I don't want to miss things.

It still makes me giggle that I'm paid to act.

It does get strange when you realize people will hang around for hours to get a glimpse of you doing scenes outside.

Sherlock Holmes is on the side of the angels, but don't think he's one of them. He uses similar means, but it seems to be for a better purpose, one would hope.

Season 4 of Sherlock Holmes will be myopically dark. You're talking about the end of the universe darkness. You can't see in front of you and would walk into everything dark.

There are things that are a given, that you've already established, and obviously, visually, certain iconic things that can't be completely removed, like a certain hat or a certain coat in my case.

Honestly, it's very satisfying, and I'm very, very happy about how successful the last few years have been... It's great for the people who supported me early on to see the success I'm enjoying now.

It's very easy to be cynical about any kind of interference in things that are beyond our skill set.

Being on set is quite difficult, because it's so big and you've got to try and relax, which isn't easy when you know you're in a massive film. I was terrified for quite a long time.

Scott Derrickson breathes humour into a character with a very strong identity in the '60s and '70s, that psychedelia era of Eastern mysticism meeting the West.

I'm not an overnight success. I've been doing it for 12 years. It's been lovely and varied so far.

I've been broody since I was 12, but I can't just get anyone pregnant. It has got to be the right person.

Being someone who is of our sensual reality, Stephen Strange has a lifestyle, he has a sexuality, he's materialistic.

There's no shame in stealing -- any actor who says he doesn't is lying. You steal from everything.

I think anyone who works in medicine has superpowers.

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.

I think playing any iconic role when you're stepping into big shoes, into the shadow of people who have come before you and you can't process that.

Even in cerebral roles that are seemingly intelligent and nothing else, I think it's so important to wrap your characterization in a physical form as well.

Sherlock being the most prevalent, and they've been really good fun.

You can perfect genius because genius is not perfection. On his level and his practice and his methodology, it's almost inhuman. So, that's been a fantastic arc to play, and boy does it go somewhere in this series.

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.

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

I genuinely don't know Julian Assange well. To authenticate an opinion, I really would have to meet him.

I'd love to meet Julian Assange, and time permitting, and his will permitting, I'm sure it will happen at some point. Even though he's been very critical of the film The Fifth Estate, he's been very polite about me and my work, and I feel the same way about him.

Kevin Feige said to me: I don't think we've ever put an actor through quite as much as this, physically and mentally. I'll wear that as a badge of honour. It was endless.

For brain surgeons it's particularly difficult to deal with failure. It was fascinating to learn about that whole world.

If you can't jump on board when the ride's going past that's it, it usually goes by, so the hugest compliment they paid me was to come back to me. It motivated me to try to fulfill their faith.

Doctor Strange is a really rich character. It's an easy thing to have a good old meal every day. It's great. Yeah, I'm excited.

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.

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.

I can't stop traffic on Fifth Avenue, not unless I walk in front of an oncoming cab.

I think I'm a very good driver. Apparently, the cause of road rage -- as with most anger -- is some kind of superiority complex, which, god knows, cars foster.

We should have a conversation when we hang up.

I know he Julian Assange is a man of fierce determination, and now living under the strain of house arrest in the Ecuadorean embassy as a political exile, as he calls himself.

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.

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

I'm sort of focused on my long-term goal of carving out a career that's for life, rather than being a flash in the pan.

I never really got obsessed about one thing for long. I was a bit of a butterfly and a magpie.

I'd shift disciplines, whether it was musical instruments or sports or whatever, and it's the same with that.

I feel like I'm away for much of my own life.

Writing in French is one of my ambitions. I'd like to be able to dream one day in French. Italian and French are the two languages that I'd like to know.

Any irrational fears?no, i'm quite a rationalist. i'm not superstitious, i think life is too full of natural wonders and logical complexities to worry about illogical things.

Doctors and nurses do crazy hours and keep an ideal afloat through the love and care that they have for their craft and their patients and the institution of the NHS. We should be very proud of it.

Anyone who works in the NHS has superpowers. It's a miracle, it is magic.

That's something I have to work on: to separate what really matters, to conserve energy by not worrying about what other people think.

I have an appetite for the normal in my life, as well as the abnormal.

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

This is an odd profession, and sometimes people get jealous, but I haven't really experienced any of that. Everyone's been really happy for me, which is really, really great.

Actor is an odd profession, and sometimes people get jealous, but I haven't really experienced any of that. Everyone's been really happy for me, which is really, really great.

It'd be really nice to wake up looking like, I don't know, Jake Gyllenhaal and think Let's try this on for a day and see how it feels.

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

I just increasingly enjoy the quiet moments when I can be on my own with my friends and family, or with a book, having a live experience. That's really what I crave, and I always have done.

Even the cerebral characters I play seem to have physical quirks. They're all physically inhabited, for lack off a better expression. For instance, Sherlock Holmes has very particular physical gestures which are drawn out in such detail.

Doctor Strange is selfish but he's still saving lives.

There are moments when, like all of us, you get a bit self-conscious and you'd rather not be living any of your day in public. Those are the awkward times, but you've got to have fun with it.

There's still nearly the same amount of slavery, if not more, in the world today, as there was at the height of the slave trade.

Doctor Strange is slightly more specialised than Spider-Man or Superman or Batman, but he's very loved by people who know him.

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

I tend to have a cup of tea, try to stop worrying about what I did wrong, cool down and will the audience back in as soon as possible.

I had a very sparse comic upbringing -- not because I was being whipped into reading Chekhov and Dickens, but I read Asterix on holidays when I was a kid, and Tin Tin was featured, I remember, for a few years.

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.

Sometimes when you do fight scenes you think, Oh, I'll be hit in the face, because people get carried away with their vanity and want to look too cool to care, but we were all really careful with each other.

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

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

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

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.

We look at science as the ultimate answer for everything yet we are really messy organisms and when the two collide in the upper echelons of medicine you think science will prevail but it's not always that way.

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.

There's another weight of us being in the public eye, which is this presumption that, because your work and your promotion work is very public, your private life should be, too.

I've been reading the books. It's the origination, it's the primary source. You should always go back to the books.

Those are more universal things than some of the characters I play, who are slightly sociopathic. I keep reminding people I can do ordinary.

I'm very excited about all the offers and interest and support pouring in through crowd-funding, and about having a lovely gap coming up when I'll finally be able to sit down with books and scripts and talk to my partners about how we take the company forward.

Every job is incredibly different, and I love it because you're picking up skill sets and experiences. It's the university of life.

An inflated sense of self-importance? Absolutely, but I think it comes from Doctor Strange need to control things and that's what happens to all surgeons, I think. There's a huge degree of uncertainty and bafflement.

I understand from those who adore him, he Julian Assange has a great sense of humor which rarely gets an airing because he's dealing with such serious issues.

It's difficult because nothing's preordained by plan and you can't control it. That's one of those joys and thrills and nerve-racking realities of being an actor. A lot has to do with luck, no matter what your talent or contribution can be.

I'm interested in art for all. I don't want it to be only the sons and daughters of Tory MPs who get to see my plays.

I'd love to do a noir. I think Steve McQueen is so cool. But a classic film is a classic film, and perhaps the fantasy of being those characters should be left alone. You're treading on very thin ice.

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