Benedict Cumberbatch Character Quotations

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

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.

[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.

If I'm playing someone who's smart, suddenly every character I've played is smart. If I'm playing a bad guy, every character is a bad guy. I suppose it's that thing where people want to see a through-line to understand you. I mean, you know, I have played pretty ordinary people too.

I'm always playing characters with intellects profoundly superior to mine. That's great fun, even though it's as much a fantasy for me as for the people watching me.

[Role of Dr.Strange] gives me an excuse as an actor to be learning with my character, which is something you can do authentically - I'm not a martial arts expert, I'm certainly no sorcerer, so all these things, the movement of the body, the physicality, the changes he goes through mentally and physically, obviously we're not shooting in sequence, but it's a great part.

I've gone up two suit sizes. The character I'm playing, he's strong, I can say that much. I've changed my physique a bit, so that requires eating like a foie gras goose, well beyond your appetite. Providing I don't feel too ill, I then work out two hours a day with a phenomenal trainer. It's the LA way.

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.

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.

I had to imagine myself into certain aspects of [Julian Assange] character for our version of events. That involved extrapolating based on clues in his biography, his public persona, photographs, and other accounts of him by people who encountered him during that extraordinary period from 2007 to 2010 that we charted in the film [The Fifth Estate ]. So, it involved a lot of research but, sadly, no contact with the man himself.

I always get self-conscious about what I look like in a film, but less so if I'm a character very far removed from who I am. Then I just worry about the performance, and that's equally an odd experience.