Benedict Cumberbatch's life in pictures      

Birth Name

Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch

Nickname

Ben

Height

6' (1.83 m)

Trade Mark

Thinking woman's sex symbol

With his mop of curly red hair and oddly angular face, Benedict Cumberbatch hardly has the looks of a typical Hollwood sex symbol.

Yet a series of high-profile roles both on television and in the movies has earned him a growing legion of female admirers much to his own amazement.

“It’s new to me and I’m sure I’ll get used to it and find a way of dealing with it, but at the moment, it is quite odd.

“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. I just think it’s weird.”

Ambassador from Planet Sophistication

Benedict is the paragon of gentlemanly humility, honesty, and integrity. As an actor, his skills far surpass those of his peers. As a man, he never fails to be kind, gracious, and grateful for all the success he's had in his career. He chooses his work based on what he enjoys, not just a paycheck. Benedict Cumberbatch should serve as an example of how to pursue your passions and be successful while retaining your integrity as a person.

Bold, light blue eyes

He has a condition called heterochromia, the "groovy" mutation that his friend James McAvoy describes, there's a difference in coloration in his irises, each has a different combination of blue, green and gold.

Rich, deep, caramel, baritone voice

“He could read the hotel menu and it would sound good.” - says “Into Darkness” co-screenwriter Roberto Orci

Razor-sharp cheekbones

Usually plays highly-intelligent and gifted characters

He doesn't just act, he becomes his character, he embodies everything they stand for, every word they are meant to speak, he gives life to. We don't see Benedict when he is acting, we see the character he has become

Acclaimed performances of real-life figures

Famous for his Alan Rickman impressions

Family Background

His grandfather, Lt. Commander Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, was a decorated submarine officer of both World Wars and was a prominent figure of London's high-society at the time.

Benedict Cumberbatch's life story: 1976

Benedict was born in London on 19 July, 1976 at the Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in West London, weighing nine pounds and 2 ounces. Mum and dad Wanda Ventham, well known actress of television, and her husband Tim Carlton an actor, show off their newborn baby son.

Personal Quote

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.’

’I am very flattered. I have also become a verb as in "I have cumberbatched the UK audience" apparently. Who knows, by the end of the year I might become a swear word too! It's crazy and fun and very flattering.’

[on initially using his father's stage name "Carlton"] „When I started, I just assumed I couldn't be called Benedict Cumberbatch... but then, one day, I told someone in the business what I was really called and they said, "That's great, that's something you can use to stand out."

1980s

Benedict Cumberbatch's parents aren't wealthy but he was educated at two independent schools payed by his grandmother. Brambletye School in West Sussex where one of his first ever acting roles was playing Titania, Queen of the Fairies in the Shakespeare play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" when he was 13. ‘Being at an all-boys boarding school it was a bit embarrassing. Luckily I was in the rugby team, so I was macho at the same time!’ He got one of his earliest reviews. It says, "Cumberbatch's 'Bottom' will be long remembered".

1990s

The other is Harrow in northwest London, one of the oldest, most-respected and expensive all-male boarding schools in the UK, where he began performing as an actor. He's surrounded by the sons of princes, peers and millionaires.
‘Some were super-rich and went off on their holidays to Aspen. I’d go and see my grandmother in Brighton,’ says Benedict. Painted oil canvases while he was studying at Harrow.

Benedict Cumberbatch's parents warn him off acting.

‘They kept saying: “Look at how out of control our lifestyle is, how money’s a huge ebb and flow,"' says Benedict.

After leaving school, during his gap year, before studying Drama in Manchester University he teaches English at a Tibetan monastery for a year and considers becoming a barrister. But his heart is still set on acting, so he studies drama at the University of Manchester. After graduating, obtained an MA in Classical Acting for Professional Theatre at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), United Kingdom's oldest drama school.

1990s

At university, Benedict Cumberbatch meets his long-term girlfriend, actress Olivia Poulet.

She's best known for starring in The Thick Of It.

1990s

When Benedict Cumberbatch's parents see him on stage, they finally back his acting dream.

‘My dad said: “I think you could do better at this than I’ve ever done.” We were both crying,’ he recalls.

At first he decides to take his father’s stage name Carlton.

‘I assumed I couldn’t be called Benedict Cumberbatch. It sounds like a fart in a bath, doesn’t it?’ he admits.

But in the end he decides that the name will help him stand out.

2004

After a year at drama school in London, Benedict Cumberbatch is in demand.

Met wheelchair-bound physicist Professor Stephen Hawking twice before filming Hawking in 2004 to prepare for the role. The BBC drama earns him a BAFTA Best Actor nomination. He then subsequently provided the voice of the physicist in 'Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking' in 2010 and 'Stephen Hawking's Grand Design' in 2012 which both aired in Discovery Channel.

Personal Quote

On Stephen Hawking: "He's such a presence and you have to really know what you want to say to him or ask him because it takes such a huge, phenomenal effort for him to communicate with you. You think, 'I really don't want to waste this man's time'. I was myself rather than thinking, 'I'm a stupid actor; how on earth can I impress someone like this? I don't know what to say to make me feel worthy of playing this man.”

After that comes seafaring mini-series To The Ends Of The Earth.
‘I loved hurling myself round that boat on ropes, bits of rigging falling around me in flames and the contrast of filming the intimacy of a cabin scene,’ he says

2004

He experienced a terrifying carjacking in South Africa  while filming BBC drama To The Ends Of The Earth. He wrote about the experience in an article for The Prince's Trust. He's accosted by 6 armed carjackers and bundled into a car with a couple of co-stars. ‘I thought of home and how, despite being near other people, we all die utterly alone.’- he remembers. Benedict’s acting skills save him when his attackers shove him into the boot. He tells them he has a heart and brain problem and will die. ‘A dead Englishman in your car. Not good,' he warns.

2005

In 2005, he was nominated for a 'Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor' for playing 'Jørgen Tesman' in Henrik Ibesen's play entitled 'Hedda Gabler'.

Personal quote

„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.” (May 2005)

2006

In 2006, Benedict Cumberbatch stars alongside Dominic Cooper and James McAvoy in Starter For 10, the saga of a college entering University Challenge.

He knows he’s no poster boy.

‘My friend James is gorgeous on screen - I’m not,’ he says.

2008

Benedict Cumberbatch shares a sex scene with Scarlett Johansson in 2008's The Other Boleyn Girl, a tale of intrigue at the court of Henry VIII.

2010

Benedict Cumberbatch's career reaches a new level in 2010 when he clinches the lead in BBC show Sherlock. His character's warm relationship with Mrs. Hudson is influenced by Cumberbatch's own real-life relationship with Una Stubbs, as she is a good friend of his mother's and he considers her a mother figure. Lost a notable amount of weight for his role, his goal being to portray Holmes as a character with such high intelligence that it manifests itself in a physical, "mind-over-matter" sort of way.

Personal quote

[on his 'Sherlock Holmes' series] „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.”

[on "Sherlock" (2010) fan-fiction] „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. So that's as far as I'll hit about that one, but it's all there on the Web if you want to find it. I was amazed at the level of artistry; people have spent hours doing it. And there's some really weird cross breeding stuff that goes on. The news got out that I was playing Smaug in 'Hobbit' and suddenly there were lots of dragons with purple scarves flying around so it's crazy, it's crazy.”

2011

Benedict Cumberbatch stars in Danny Boyle's stage production Frankenstein at London's National Theatre. Good friends with Jonny Lee Miller, with whom he shared the central roles of Victor Frankenstein and his creature.' In 2012, he won a 'Laurence Olivier Award', 'London Evening Standard Award' & 'Critics' Circle Award' for his performance.

Some eager fans fly halfway across the world to see him after the show.

'It was 12 o'clock, I was tired and I was saying I've really got to get home but there are people going: "We've travelled all the way from South Korea!", says Benedict. 'It was incredible.’

2011

Became very good friends with Gary Oldman on the set of Tinker Tailor Solider Spy.
The movie is a Cold War tale of espionage in Budapest.

Personal quote

[on declining to reprise his much-acclaimed role in 'After the Dance' on Broadway] „I've never really made a head-over-heart decision like that before but there's a bit of momentum and I'd like to keep myself available for films”. (September 2011)

2012

Benedict Cumberbatch isn't short of company at Elton John’s 2012 Oscar bash as he cosies up to actress Lydia Hearst-Shaw
When asked: ‘What’s your biggest disappointment?’ Benedict replies: ‘Not being a dad by 32.’

2012

In 2012, Benedict Cumberbatch filmes scenes for the second Star Trek film with Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock.

Personal quote

[on his role in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)]” I don't really believe in good and evil. I don't really believe in heroes and villains. His reasons for what he does are quite profoundly persuasive. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and the fact that he's a shadow self of Kirk - same coin, different sides - is what makes him interesting to play.”

2012

Benedict Cumberbatch gets recognised on the street but he remains unstarry - riding a motorbike and buying clothes from vintage shops.
He’s attracted an army of doting fans and made geeky sexy.

On Twitter, more than 14,000 ‘Cumberbitches’ swoon over him.

He accidentally got dual voice roles in "The Simpsons when he visited Fox's studio for a completely unrelated appointment. He voiced the UK's Prime Minister (patterned from Hugh Grant's character in "Love, Actually") and did an Alan Rickman impression to voice Snape for the Special Valentine Episode that aired February 2013.

Personal quote

„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.” (May 2013)

2013