The training gave me the building blocks to get through it. A production of that scale, in a theater that big, you are going to struggle to keep your voice at first-run perfectness. All that work I did - the pull-ups and pushups - helped keep my body fit. Hamlet, the show, is a cardiovascular workout of about three hours, never mind the mental, soul-crushing element of it.
Benedict CumberbatchI really cannot get over the generosity of our Tibetian teacher. He said, "Don't punish yourself. You're going to be a student at a university in the north of England. You need to have your experiences and have your fun, and not judge yourself. Don't live in guilt and regret."
Benedict CumberbatchI've done a bit of live action before but the fight sequences, the wire work and the physical regime were taken to another level [ in Doctor Strange].
Benedict CumberbatchThe generation now below me were born into a world where if you're a kid with raw talent now, you can roll in and land a lead in a Scorsese film. You don't have to have prove yourself by working up the ranks, doing the classics, and getting the canon under your belt in the way the great Sirs and Dames of mom and dad's generation - the [Ben] Kingsleys and [Helen] Mirrens and [Anthony] Hopkinses and people of that ilk.
Benedict CumberbatchSometimes during a conversation with a journalist - where you are answering things you never normally talk about, not even with some of your closest friends - you end up being quite confessional, and you don't think about the amplification of that. No matter how fancy these journalists are, they have editors or political leanings behind their publications, which means that, basically, they're going to shape what you've said into an article they've already written. So you have to be really careful with your words.
Benedict CumberbatchI'm not one for doing the children's party version: "Hi, I'm a character in a movie and now I'm in reality!" I was doing the last shot of the film before reshoots outside their shop. I was starting my run into the frame and I thought, "You are literally ending where this began. The loop of serendipity's too much to not go in and acknowledge it." I just wanted to see the look on their faces.
Benedict Cumberbatch