Benedict Cumberbatch Quotes

I struggle to learn by rote. I've had meltdowns on set. Which is embarrassing and shameful.

Fame is a weird one. You need to distance yourself from it. People see a value in you that you don't see yourself.

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

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 keep myself amused and others confused

Upper class to me means you are either born into wealth or you're Royalty.

I'm quite sensitive to people noticing me. There are times when I'm relaxed, then others when it does make me self-conscious.

The more charming person is the person who admits the other person is more charming.

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.'

New York City is crazy and beautiful and really close to my heart, and I've always had dear friends here - family, actually, I would say.

Being a posh actor in England you cannot escape the class-typing from whatever side you look at it.

If you have an over-preoccupation with perception and trying to please people's expectations, then you can go mad.

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.

Enjoy the journey of life and not just the endgame.

Someone will always hate what I say. There's always going to be somebody spitting blood about my wooden-faced, toffee-named, crappy acting.

People always want to knock you when you're up.

We all want to escape our circumstances, don't we? Especially if you are an actor.

I'm not very geeky. I'm quite homespun. I would say I'm more modern rustic than gadget-orientated. I like woollen things and log fires and whiskey

Pull the hair on my head the wrong way, and I would be on my knees begging for mercy. I have very sensitive follicles.

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

Live a life less ordinary.

I was happy as an only child, but I've always wanted to be part of a bigger family.

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

I love theatre, and you learn too much as an actor and enjoy too much of it not to want to go back a lot.

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

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

Mystique is rare now, isn't it? There aren't that many enigmas in this modern world.

Mum did a lot of commercial theatre and farces in the 1980s and '90s to make sure the school bills were paid.

I did a lot of acting at school and university, then I went to drama school. It was quite a normal route.

It is a wonderful thing to get married young and become a father.

There's so much in the 21st century that is stymied by bureaucracy and mediocrity and committee.

I want to be able to play trailer-bound fatties in a Judd Apatow comedy.

I've realised now that the reality of children is you have to be in the right place with the right person.

I love doing impersonations of people.

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'm not loyal to one genre. I want to mix it up.

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

I actually do mind having a photo taken because it's one o'clock in the morning and I'm off my face.

It's great for the people who supported me early on to see the success I'm enjoying.

Any privacy in public is a hard thing to negotiate.

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

I'm really not Sherlock Holmes. I look a little bit like him and sound like him.

I thought, well, why am I giving up on my primary dream to work doubly hard, to do something as an alternative to what it really still want to?

I have actual acting scars.

Our daily lives are so mundane, we get taken over by what is immediately in front of us and we don't see beyond that.

I've always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem.

I was the boy that turned a girlfriend into the most celebrated lesbian on television. I got so much stick for that.

You come into this world as you leave it, on your own. It's made me want to live a life slightly less ordinary.

I'll always do 'Sherlock' - it's something I'm not going to give up on.

I'm a Prince of Wales Trust ambassador, so I'm all about giving youth an education, a voice and a chance to not take the wrong road.

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 wasn't born into land or titles, or new money, or an oil rig.

My own grandfathers were a submarine commander and a 'desert rats' tank operator in the Second World War.

Live Life Less Ordinary

When you freefall for 7,000 feet it doesn't feel like you're falling: it feels like you're floating, a bit like scuba diving.

My mum and dad had worked incredibly hard to afford me an education.

I realised quite early on that, although I wasn't trying to make a career speciality of it, I was playing slightly asexual, sociopathic intellectuals.

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

When are you ever settled enough to have kids?

I can feel infinitely alive curled up on the sofa reading a book.

If I'd had fame early on, I'd have been able to abuse it in the way that a young man should.

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.

The world of 'Sherlock Holmes' and the world that we live in now is big enough to take more than one interpretation.

I am a PR disaster because I talk too much.

All the backstories are there but not talked about.

I've been quite a late developer on the clothes front, but I've suddenly realised it is one of life's joys.

I drag a lot of stuff round with me that I don't need.

Conan Doyle is amazing in the way he has Watson describe Sherlock's posture, mood swings, his hand gestures, and so forth in the novels.

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

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

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

It's always important to have the blessing.

I wish my 15-year-old self had known about my allure to the opposite sex!

The further you get away from yourself, the more challenging it is. Not to be in your comfort zone is great fun.

Talking about class terrifies me. There is no way of winning.

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

I drive a motorbike, so there is the whiff of the grim reaper round every corner, especially in London.

I was brought up in a world of privilege.

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

Landing the role of Stephen Hawking was the most positively surprising thing that has happened to me.

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 had the privilege of being able to choose, or at least have the opportunity to work at, being anything but an actor.

When you see a good horseman, you're unable to tell where the instruction is coming from. It's like telepathy.

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

Maybe it's because I was an only child, but I've always wanted kids.

As an actor, you are aware of how a role can seep into your real life.

Lines are very difficult to learn.

One of the best things about being an actor is that it's a meritocracy.

Having your adolescence at an all-male boarding school is just crap.

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

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.