Top 120 Benedict Cumberbatch Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

52. “We all want to escape our circumstances, don’t we? Especially if you are an actor.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

53. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

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

— Benedict Cumberbatch

55. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

56. “I just increasingly enjoy the quiet moments when I can be on my own with my friends and family, or with a book, having a live experience. That’s really what I crave, and I always have done.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

57. “Lines are very difficult to learn.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

58. “The more charming person is the person who admits the other person is more charming.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

59. “I’m still very sensitive and wary of people recognising me The only thing that really annoys me is people trying to surreptitiously take a photo on their phone without asking. I feel it’s cowardly and a bit pathetic. Just ask me if you really want me to have a photograph with you.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

60. “I struggle to learn by rote. I’ve had meltdowns on set. Which is embarrassing and shameful.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

61. “I don’t live beyond my means. I enjoy luxury and I enjoy the privilege of it, when I can afford it, and I’m in the situation where it’s been given to me, but I’m very conscious of what is wasteful.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

62. “People’s hands fascinate me. It’s tempting to look at a businessman’s left hand and see if there’s an indentation from a missing wedding ring. Or maybe there’s a tan line and the skin is pressed down where’s he’s worked a ring off his finger.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

63. “There’s no shame in stealing – any actor who says he doesn’t is lying. You steal from everything.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

64. “One of the best things about being an actor is that it’s a meritocracy.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

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

— Benedict Cumberbatch

66. “Metaphorically speaking, it’s easy to bump into one another on the journey from A to B and not even notice. People should take time to notice, enjoy and help each other.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

67. “I wasn’t born into land or titles, or new money, or an oil rig.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

68. “I’m not an overnight success. I’ve been doing it for 12 years. It’s been lovely and varied so far.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

69. “Any privacy in public is a hard thing to negotiate.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

70. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

71. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

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

— Benedict Cumberbatch

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

— Benedict Cumberbatch

74. “One of the fears of having too much work is not having time to observe. And once you get recognised, there is nowhere for you to look any more. You can’t sit on a night bus and watch it all happen.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

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

— Benedict Cumberbatch

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

— Benedict Cumberbatch

77. “I think with any characterization there’s a point where you empathize, no matter how much of a deviance his or her actions may be from your understanding of humanity.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

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

— Benedict Cumberbatch

79. “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?”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

80. “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.’”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

81. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

82. “It’s always important to have the blessing.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

83. “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.’”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

84. “I haven’t done period dramas back-to-back, or really anything back-to-back. You get asked to do what you’re most recently famed for, so I’m careful of not repeating myself.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

85. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

86. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

87. “Do awards change careers? Well, I haven’t heard of many stories where that’s the case. It’s a fun excuse to meet colleagues and celebrate people who’ve done well that year in certain people’s eyes, and it’s nothing more than that.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

88. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

89. “It’s difficult because nothing’s preordained by plan and you can’t control it. That’s one of those joys and thrills and nerve-racking realities of being an actor. A lot has to do with luck, no matter what your talent or contribution can be.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

90. “I was brought up in a world of privilege.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

91. “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.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

92. “It still makes me giggle that I’m paid to act.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

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

— Benedict Cumberbatch

94. “When are you ever settled enough to have kids?”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

95. “I was thrilled with how the first series of ‘Sherlock’ was received. It was such great fun to film, which makes it so rewarding when something you enjoy is so well received.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

96. “My own grandfathers were a submarine commander and a ‘desert rats’ tank operator in the Second World War.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

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

— Benedict Cumberbatch

98. “It’s great for the people who supported me early on to see the success I’m enjoying.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

99. “Animations are really powerful – it’s not just entertainment, it’s a very cunning way to get good ideas across.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch

100. “I like to think that we’re revolving on this planet and revolving through the galaxy. I love having context that’s so much bigger than I can fathom. It’s fantastic to realise how insignificant you are.”

— Benedict Cumberbatch