Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born on 19 July 1976 in Hammersmith, growing up as a UK citizen whose working language has always been English. His education took him through Harrow School and the University of Manchester before he trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, a path that prepared him for work across a notably wide range of performance disciplines.
Cumberbatch has worked as a film actor, television actor, stage actor, voice actor, and film producer, building a career that moves across multiple formats. That range has brought him recognition at some of the industry's most prominent award bodies: he received a Laurence Olivier Award for his stage work and a Primetime Emmy Award for his television performances. In 2014, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, a distinction that placed him in a select annual company drawn from across public life.
The following year, in 2015, Cumberbatch was appointed a CBE — an honour under the Order of the British Empire — putting his contributions to drama on formal national record. That appointment stands as a concrete marker of how his work across stage, screen, and voice performance has been received and formally acknowledged.
Quotes by Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Cumberbatch's insights on:
Someone will always hate what I say. There's always going to be somebody spitting blood about my wooden-faced, toffee-named, crappy acting.
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 never was obsessive about anything I watched when I was a kid, except maybe 'The A-Team' and 'Airwolf'... And I loved 'Knight Rider' and then later 'Baywatch.'
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.
It’s great for the people who supported me early on to see the success I’m enjoying.
Every job is incredibly different, and I love it because you’re picking up skill sets and experiences. It’s the university of life.
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.
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.’
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.