Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Benedict Cumberbatch

Episode Date: December 2, 2018

Oscar-nominated actor Benedict Cumberbatch has inspired a worldwide phenomenon known as “Cumbermania,” but long before his army of fans began to sweep the globe, Cumberbatch was a successful stage actor in the UK. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown” Willie Geist chats with British actor about his rise to fame, from his on-screen breakthrough in “Sherlock” to his latest, more family-friendly role as “The Grinch,” and the reputation he has built as one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another edition of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thank you so much, as always, for clicking and being with us this week. My guest is one of the best and I think most interesting actors in all of Hollywood, Benedict Cumberbatch. He and I got together over what else, some morning tea, the British star going over his career that's spanned so many iconic characters, both fictional and real life. His big break came as Sherlock Holmes and the BBC series, won him an Emmy here in the United States and really spurred his popularity both here in the U.S. and around the world.

It also gave birth to a phenomenon known as Cumbermania. We'll get into that and his crazy fans. Some of the other roles you might know, he played Stephen Hawking. He played Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, and of course World War II Codebreaker Alan Turing. That performance earned him a breakthrough Oscar nomination in 2015. More recently this year, getting a lot of critical acclaim for his role as Patrick Melrose, a title character in that Showtime series, a guy with a very dark past. His latest project, though, completely different than all that heavy stuff. He plays the Grinch in the new animated version of the Dr. Seuss classic. He tells me all about why he decided to take on that part and how he puts his own new spin on a role that's been around for a long time.

A fun conversation with a really smart guy, Benedict Cumberbatch, right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thank you for doing this, Benedict. My pleasure. I love it to meet you. We've got the tea. Got the tea. An English gentleman like yourself. Of course.

Although it's kind of in a mug, which is a bit kind of like a mug. It is a shit. You prefer a saucer. A saucer. A little cup to my pinky. Yeah, this feels like it should have a cup of morning gel in it. There you go. There you go.

Reference. But yeah, it feels more coffee, but it's a nice ginger tea. Next, for the next, we'll have this tea service. Come out for it. You've earned it. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Go on. Perhaps by the elephant in the room, I should say the chinchilla or

the ferret in the room, which is your mustache. What do we got here? Viewers want to know. It's just, you know, usual mangrove. No, I'm doing a role, so this is going to be short and sweet, thank God. It gets in the way of food hygiene and kissing people you love, let's put it like that. It's just not pleasant for them. So now no temptation to keep it.

No, God, no. I mean, it happens to be Movember and great if people are inspired to do this for that reason, but it's actually for a role. I mean, it's very rare that actors can choose what kind of look they are carrying, because it's our nature to be other people. So this is Greville Wynne, who you may remember, not because of your age, but just because you're an informed guy.

He was an English businessman, Welsh-born but English trading in Eastern Europe, and he was tapped by MI6 to go into Russia during the Cold War around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. And he was the contact and then the courier for a while of one of our highest ranking defective sources there, Pankowski, who is high up in the KKJ, but disaffected because they found out his father was a white Russian so he was having his career

stagnated and he didn't like as a lover of the motherland rather than Soviet Russia he hated what Krishchev was doing and started to file all this information all this documentation of missile plans and basically information that Kennedy then used against Krischoff to avert nuclear war in World War in World War III at that moment in our history so yeah so another light romantic comedy for you yeah I mean lots of jokes It's just fun stuff. Well, I have to say, there are moments, I think, at the beginning of the film where it is quite comedic because this guy is so out of his depth.

He's not an agent. He's not trading, you know, he's trained in tradecraft. And he's, yeah, it's not comic, but it's kind of like he doesn't expect what he's asked to do at all to come to him. And then he gets good at it, and then he gets caught. And then it, yeah, then it turns into pretty full on tragedy. Well, let's talk about your current character. Yeah.

The Grinch. No mustache. And he's all green. He's all green all the time. I go complementary colors, orange green, orange green. Given the kind of. roles you play like the one you just described when someone called you up and said they want you to play the grinch this great iconic dr seuss character what you think i thought fantastic what an unobvious choice which is always a lure for me and then i thought oh but is it so i read the book and thought no no this is great this is an all-american iconic character from the seuss universe and i met with them and i gave them a little pitch of what idea the voice should be and they were that's great but we love your voice and i was just like well i think that's very nice but what do you mean for the role. I was like, what, you wanted to be, you wanted to be English?

And I was like, no. I'm the wrong guy. I'm the wrong guy. You know, the attraction was being something other. And I thought it'd be very odd to have an English Grinch in the middle of an all-American who universe, you know. So, and we sort of over four or five sessions kind of experimented with different versions of the, of the American Grinch that you now get and came up with who he is. I see, I heard you dip into your American accent even just there when you went into the movie studio. video. You're so easy in and out of it. Is it hard for you to do that? No, it makes me nervous about having dialect coach going, no, no, no, it's been, not being, bin. But, you know, you always, you, especially if you're delivering something that's such a staple of American culture seasonally at this time of year, you really want to get it right, obviously.

So, yeah, when it's under scrutiny like that, I get a bit nervous. So, yeah, just busting out in American accent, it always makes me get a bit like, right. You're good at it, you always pull it off. It's always interesting for me to see someone adopt a character that people, are familiar with and they have some impression of. Yeah. Because you want to keep the core and the integrity of that character. Absolutely. And that was the other thing.

But maybe bring something new to it. How did you approach it? Well, that was the other sort of prerequisite. I said, look, A, I think you have to be American and please tell me that we're sticking to the book, that there's much, if not all of the book, is in there, but then with an embellishment that makes it relevant to now. And they went, yep, that's what we want to do. And they are, and they have been. And even the wonderful rhyming schemes you get in that sort of ludicrous, but

universally brilliant metaphoric universe for children. It's very much, even if it's stuff that we've adapted for now, it's very much in that vein. Ferell's voice over his narration shows that. And I think some of the animation as well really harks back to the original. I haven't seen the whole of the... I've never seen the Jim Carrey movie and I didn't want to see it before this.

No, and I couldn't before this. It was 20 years ago, so I was early 20 year old. So it wasn't really... my kind of, I wasn't target audience age. I skip that Kerry, brilliance, but I'll definitely go back to it now. And then obviously Boris Karloff's, I think I'd seen images and clips of it, but unlike

in the States, it's not something played every season. But I do think there is one reference that's very kind of Nosferatu in it when the Grinch goes full psycho and decides to steal Christmas. Yes. And there's a lovely Boris Karloff reference there, I think, in the way they've animated it.

So it was just a process, I guess, of just looking at the original book and I'm realizing I couldn't be that kind of evil and mean and pointy and spiky for a whole film. And to remember that he really enjoys it. He loves being the Grinch. I mean, who wouldn't? He's got a... Max is the dog of all dogs, an incredible, you know, loyal friend.

Max, stop it. Max is a wonderful man servant. He's a fantastic barista. He makes the perfect flat white. He chooses your outfit. Wow. Keep you happy in a mountain. And just that's a good thing.

And it's a good thing. And it's a friend indeed. Completely. Beyond. Beyond. Yes. So, you know, there's lots to enjoy being the Grinch. It's only when Christmas gets three times bigger.

I'm just telling you, we're going to take my kids to see it. And I realize because I'm so familiar with the character, and such a part of American sort of holiday folklore and tradition, that they hadn't really experienced a new version of it or really experienced it at all. Yeah. They've seen clips of it and they're aware of the Grinch. So no responsibility then. That's right.

Exactly. It's fine. You're carrying the legacy. Yeah, it's fine. You and you alone. That is cool, though, to be able to introduce that? Really cool. Of course it does. Of course it does. And you know, I love that about what what I do in the following I have, you know, whether it's classical theater or whether it's

a staple classic of animation like The Grinch. Yeah, it's wonderful. And that whole double-edged sword of the bedrock or the kind of the grand material, I guess, of inspiration for a role like that is all there in the book. It's so beautiful. It's so sort of legendary. But at the same time, There is a bit of responsibility. But you just go into those kind of jobs, whether they're literary folklore characters and heroes already, or whether they're real-life characters who have a great standing.

And I can only do my version of it. And, yeah, the rest just is inspiration from the source material, really. I'm always interested to hear about the experience of doing these animated movies from any actor, particularly someone like you who's been classically trained and spent so many years on the stage, and it's so collaborative. And you're with the actors and the audience every night.

Yeah. What's it like to walk into a booth often alone? Yeah, always alone in this case. I mean, no, not even a max to work with. Yeah, yeah. So what is that like? It's strange, but kind of freeing. I mean, unlike motion capture where you kind of can move in an environment, however much it's not a bar, you're still, you know, in a space that then becomes a bar.

In the world of animation, you just stand at the microphone, and you have to get on well with your director. And in this case, Scott and I, thank God, we're a great pairing. And I adore the man. and it was a great collaboration, always really good fun, and we had to sort of tear ourselves away from having a good time every time you met up, because it's done in two-month installments of four to six-hour sessions, and then it's dropped, and I was doing other things and life, and then back into the Grinch session.

But to see him and catch up was always a big pleasure. It's kind of his job to illuminate and kind of take me through what the animators are doing or planning to do, and what the environment's going to be like and the action of the piece and how the characters in that are going to respond. to what I'm doing. But you're still shooting in the dark. And even sometimes he'll pitch it from the animator's point of view,

but they'll change it. And we go back to rework it. So it's a great to and throwing. And it's, for this character, being isolated is good. I mean, he lives a lot of his time on his own anyway. So right. But yeah, I never got to work with Angela. Lansbury, Rashida Jones, Keenan.

I mean, it's just, it's, yeah, it's painful when I look at I cast this, I didn't work with any. I've interviewed people for animated movies. I say, what was it like to work with this person? And said, not only did I not work with that person, I've never remember. met that person.

It's crazy. I mean, at least I've met Keenan. We did a couple of moments on SNL. Right. I hosted that, which was great fun. And then it's got to be amazing for the reveal because you don't quite have a visual idea of what it is because you're in a dark room with a microphone. What's it like to see it up on the screen? It's magic.

It's absolute magic. And I kind of wanted to have a final pass. I don't know how rare this is or how normal a practice, but I really push for the idea of seeing a little bit of it to know if I can embellish or correct or just better what they had or what they wanted to use. And so I did see a bit then, but then I saw the whole thing in its completion and it's just mind-blowing. And I think the other thing about doing something over such a long time span of two years is obviously in that time, technology is just, it's just galloping away at such a pace. Advancements happen so lightning quick and they've gone through five series of iPhones in two years.

You know what I mean? So they apply all of that to the technology they're using to. animate with and so it is it will be the most beautiful animated film you've ever seen I can say that because it's just it's bang on the edge of you know the cutting-edge science of how they make these things an animated holiday movie runs slightly in contrast to your other current role true Patrick Melrose true slightly different slightly different I would suggest I wouldn't yeah there's definitely yeah there's a there's a parental warning on that one I was

talking to somebody when I came over and I said I was gonna interview this oh I love Patrick Melrose so I would love to know yeah how he stays in that character was such a darkness to him all the time? It was, it's hard to put an adjective on it because it's not, it's nothing compared to the real experience. And I can't say it was enjoyable because that makes it sounds, I don't know, yeah, it just sounds like I'm sort of taking it too lightly, but it was an extraordinary place to be. Let's put it like that.

And I think whether it's acting under the influence of varying amounts of stimulants that have control over his psychology or physiology at any point. You know, it's the most sober and most healthy I've ever been on a shoot. Because you have to repeat that countlessly. And that's something you have to be very aware and alert and coordinated to do. And then to carry that seed of damage and trauma all the time. You know, I think the saving grace was his wit and his humanity. And deeply, quietly, but massively impressively, heroic.

outcome, a man who manages to move from being a victim to being a survivor by, you know, standing up, speaking truth to power. And, you know, in the age we're going through now, quite an inspirational story. And, you know, that carried a hell of a lot of responsibility, and not least for those who've suffered sexual or mental abuse, but also those who've suffered addiction. And the author himself, who's, you know, a very thinly veiled alter ego is Patrick Marrow. So a lot of what the character goes through, Edwards and Aubin went through too, and he's become a dear, dear friend, which is one of the greatest riches of that whole experience. I'm thinking as I'm listening to you describe the experience. I had a conversation like this

not long ago with John Hamm talking about Don Draper. Right. And we were, I was that sort of asked him a similar question. He said, yeah, look, it's a bummer to be a guy who's bummed out all the time. You know, it is. You don't like immediately step back into your life. Do you feel that way about Patrick as well? No, I had to separate. I try and do that 180 degree turn quite quickly. And it actually, I think in the instance of this, I mean, Don's, I think, got a much more sort of steady trajectory into dark depression and getting lost. And this guy, it's so accelerated, but also because of the tonal shifts in the piece, it moved from deep tragedy to hilarity within the space of a sentence sometimes.

So that aided in a way, the idea of being able to try and switch it on and off. also, you know, I had to age sort of 20-odd years as well. So it's a much faster trajectory through his life. But I think if you're sitting in that for season after season, as John Hamm did just superlative in that role, I mean, I was addicted to Madman. I thought it was an absolute masterpiece and his work especially.

And that must get you down. I think it must get you down. But this was a shorter, more severe and sharper shock, I guess. You never know how something's going to turn out. You think it shows great when you're shooting it. I thought you could say, never know how something's going to affect you. I probably should sit on the game. I'll let someone else handle that part of it.

You put on a great show. The scripts is great, but you don't know how people are going to react. How gratifying is it to have been celebrated in that role the way you have been? I mean, it's wonderful. It's such a validation for the whole creative team that was part of that. And another boon for us, myself and Adam Acklin, who were producing partners on it. We did it with our company, Sunny March, as well as Sky and Atlantic in the UK and Showtime here. with great, great collaborators, Michael Jackson and also the wonderful Horowitz, Rachel Horowitz.

So, yeah, across the board to see the way it was shot, the way it was styled, the way it was costumed and made up, and what the working day was like, and the extraordinary performances and the great direction for Edward Berger, and knowing that we brought that whole family together is doubly gratifying. And I think it carries its own, it's got its own life, which is phenomenal considering how special those books are. And that they can stand side by side as different ways of examining the same person, the same experience. And happiest of all, well, the thing that makes me happiest of all, I should say, is that Teddy's so thrilled with the results as well. Edward's at Albany author. So it means a lot because we, yeah, we really went for it.

And we made bold decisions and we were working with hallowed prose that's just some of the best in the 21st century, I think. And we did something with it, which we're really proud of. It seems to me you've been acting since you were a child. Since forever. I mean, yeah, I guess forever, right? If you're born to a pair of actors. Was there ever a chance you were going to be anything other than an actor? I know you dabbled in the law, perhaps.

I mean, I didn't even dabble in it. I can't even claim that much fame to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, you know. you know, pushing myself more sensible. Not even a dabble. I just, I kind of thought, what kind of grades would I have to get in what subjects? And there was a sort of, as they're off in art, schools at that certain crucial changing point, kind of, it's the word, business and like a kind of fair where people come and give you an idea

of what you'd have to achieve to be in that profession. Careers advice, that's the phrase I'm looking for. And this career advisor was like, okay, I'm advising you to turn back now. This was to everyone there who was interested in the Lord. Just turn about now. It's too competitive. It's oversubscribed. Really?

Parapathetic. You can't control when you have your holidays and what your income's going to be. You're only as good as your last case. I thought it's oversubscribed paraphram. This is ringing a lot of bells. This sounds a lot like what mom and dad say are the reasons why I shouldn't follow in their footsteps. Oh, they did tell you that. Don't follow in the footsteps?

Oh, God, yeah. Oh, really? Oh, really? Oh, interesting. They're very sensible acting parents who wanted their son to have an education to choose to do anything but acting. So it was very important for them that I had a shot. at that, whether it was being a teacher or a doctor or an architect or something, anything other than being an actor.

So what was their example and not their words that drove you to acting? You could tell they liked what they did. They loved what they did. And they were so good at it. And they're so loved for who they are within their profession. They had such a good time. The feeling of a work family outside of our family was really palpable. I was an only child, but I felt there was this, I wasn't exactly born aside the trunk,

but there was a slight caravan gypsy feel to this thing of the moving circus and whether it was tours of plays or going to see them on locations and even standing, not even, but I mean my goodness as a child can you imagine standing the wings of a West End show and watching a mum going,

having a little side chat with the co-star and then sort of going through what looks like the worst kind of flats held by weights and this alarm and then this door opens and this kind of blast of heat and faces in the dark and laughter And it's just kind of magical.

The transformation, just stepping over that threshold and then she was someone else. So that and just their professionalism. And I saw Dad in a production noises off a great Michael Frame Fars. I've seen Mum in countless productions on screen and on stage that just inspired me. And I think, I really want to have a go at this. I want to be part of that.

So what do they say now? The boy who they told not to become an actor is one of the best known and respected actors in the world. Well, thank goodness because otherwise they'd be furious, you know. But thank you. They're very proud, of course. They're parents and they're thrilled. They're thrilled for what's going on, which is very exciting.

And it's a key motivation for me to make them proud. So you've talked about a couple of sort of pivotal moments in your life. Yeah. When you were 19 in your gap year. Yeah. When you worked at the Tibetan monastery. Yep. What did you learn at 19 years old in that year that you still carry

with you today and that helped you through your career? A lot. That, you know, experiences come with every polarity involved. There's a lot of gray. It's not just, it was amazing. It's not just it was terrible and lonely and isolating. It's kind of the middle territory in all of those extremes. That from that religion in particular, the kind of calm, the patience, the love, the

humor, the focus. And I went on a retreat at the end. I observed as an English teacher, as a volunteering teacher. what they were doing daily and their practice, their ritual, their pujer prayers, their studies, and just their behavior, their countenance. I thought, I want to get a little bit more inside this. I want to have a go, you know. And so I went on a retreat at the end with another monastery, actually.

And for nearly two weeks, we had this meditational retreat, which is extraordinary. And stuff from that I still try to use. I still try to meditate most days or have a moment where I, you know, take on the breathing to sort of calm, myself. Helps if you're driving through Times Square as I did this while. I was like, ah, over-stimulation. It's a lot. But it keeps you in here in a crazy life. It kind of does. And also it's, it's good for picking things up and really focusing on them and then putting them, just compartmentalizing a little bit. Yeah, just trying to practice love and kindness, things we need most, as the Grinch says. At the end of the film, there we go. Tie it back in. Tie it back in. But, you know, it does. It does. It does.

They're very graceful, gracious, inspiring people to be amongst. And forgive me for bringing up a traumatic event, but you've talked about how much it impacted your life, which is the attempted kidnapping in South Africa, about a decade after you spent time in Tibet. Why was that so significant? Why was that so significant? It was a carjacking rather than kidnapping,

although I thought it might escalate into that or some kind of ransom situation. Yeah, because I was putting the boot of the car at one point. I thought, oh, here we go, I'll be taken off somewhere. And you're shooting a film at this time. We were shooting a TV series called to the ends the earth, based on the William Golding trilogy of seafaring nautical books, brilliant, brilliant novels

about this land-lobidly pain in the arse called Edmund Talbot in the 1800s. It's a beautiful read if anyone hasn't read it. And like a lot of Golding's worlds, it's an isolated society, at this time a board a ship in the 1800s, trying to get from Tilbury Docks to Australia, getting very lost over a year's voyage on the way. And so we were about two-thirds of the way through that, playing the lead, Edmund. And I was with two other friends, and it's as much documented as I want to go into all the details. But yeah, we got carjacked.

And it was, I think it's one of those experiences where I went through probably every fight or flight panic. This is the end, immediate reaction to things. And the other two were much calm and much more stoic and contained. And I was definitely the child in the situation, I think. And, but weirdly that meant that I could process it fast. I think it was hard for them afterwards. but I won't talk for them and I often feel a bit embarrassed at this coming up without them being here talking with them because it was very much a shared experience which was one of the most amazing things about it.

But it gave you a new look at life after work. Yeah, and some of that was good and some of that was bad. You know, in one sense, you know, the preciousness of life, the precarious nature of it. But instead of being protective, I sort of wanted to throw myself back into it and I kind of really, really went for it. And I thought, right, if I've been forced to look at my, what's the world, vulnerability, not vulnerability, but... Mortality. Mortality, that is the word, yeah. If I've been forced to look at my mortality, then I want to have a go at playing with that on my own terms. So I just became a bit of an adrenaline junkie for about, I don't know, a month and a half after that.

And during the shoot, we had a third of it less to do so. But after that, I then were travelling on my own around a bit of South Africa and then up to Namibu. and jumped out of airplanes, did parachute jumps and slept in open sand jues and rode in hot and everything. I could swine with sharks and silly things. Is that a cage, I believe? Correct. Yeah, no, with a cage. Oh, you had the cage? Yeah, we have the, you had, yeah, no, I can't claim that.

It wasn't that hardcore? No. I have done that since, but that was, yeah, that was different. Well, you say a month and a half, but it sounds like some of these activities have continued. A few, yeah, a few. I'm a little bit more careful now. I have some small dependent people. The motorbike is undercover somewhere. Oh, it is.

I was going to ask you what your wife, Sophie, thinks about all this. Yeah, there's not so much skydiving right now. Yeah, I'm not sure what the insurers of any film I do. That's true. But every night again, I sneak out to do something fun. But it's, yeah, it was definitely, having looked down the barrel of it, It was a very sharp reminder of my mortality and the gift of life as well as then sending me towards a place which made me a little bit more impatient and I guess that was the negative side of things. It was a very small event in a very big country.

So without being too navel-gazy about it, that gave a great perspective as well. And I left a big impression on you clearly. Yeah, it would anyone, I think. So around that time, too, is when you're doing hawking, the television program. Yes, a little bit before then. Yeah, just about, I guess, a year before that. And then six years after that comes Sherlock. Yeah.

People, when they talk about you and your career, they talk about the breakthrough moment. Yeah. Some people say, Hawking established you. I think so. This guy's good on television. You already established in the theater, of course. Exactly. But Sherlock, perhaps in America, was the coming out party.

And globally, I mean, it was crazy. It is still crazy. It just shocks me quite how far the reach of that program is and its success. And it's something we're all very proud of. and really didn't expect. And it's bizarre being in a show that grows like that. You know, we knew we were doing something right. I knew they were doing something right

when I read the script for the audition. I thought, this is very funny. And I really like him. I love the chemistry that they got between the two of them. It was sort of very adherent to the novel's original wit and brilliance, but also with this wonderful sort of twist of modernity, this tech savvy. fast talking, internet fast talking,

slightly on the spectrum, sociopathic, freak of nature, wonderful to play, really, really good fun, hard work, but, you know, and that was, it just exploded. And I thought at the time I was auditioning for, I thought, yeah, okay, this is a very popular character, and it will definitely have some resonance culturally because people will want to look at it

because it's Sherlock Holmes. Right. 76th version of it, but still, you know, they may be curious. So I thought this is a bit of a kind of all over into the spotlight moment. Yeah. I had no idea, neither did the rest of the team, that it would be quite such a big spotlight. That you'd be winning awards over here, the Golden Globe and the rest of it.

When you did it, do we, no, I didn't want to go. Well, they might have done. I can't remember, but we didn't. You didn't? Oh, okay. We didn't. No. It's like, burning intention.

No, I'm joking. Yeah, they dropped the goal. Not that. Not that grudge. No, not at all. You had, I mentioned Hawking. You established a friendship with Stephen. Yeah.

And I read somewhere after he passed away, you said, I will miss our margaritas. Yeah. I didn't know Stephen Hawking drank margaritas. Oh, that he was even allowed to. No, he did. He was really good company, which is sort of perverse,

considering how agonizing it was for him to communicate. But you just, it was a different rhythm. It was a different sort of interchange, but full of humor, full of warmth and mutual respect and utter adoration on my part. I mean, you know, the guy was so many things to so many people. You know, he was the most extraordinary physicist. He was the most extraordinary inspiration for, well, inventor of popular science, really, as a genre in publishing.

And to be able to communicate on such a global stage with advanced motor neurone disease, for an extraordinary stretch of time. It was also, I think, an inspiration for anyone going through that, although a hard one because he was the anomaly, he was the exception to the rule. And I think he, yeah, it may be false hope because of how long he lived with it. And yet he still managed to inspire everyone

from religious leaders to the guys and girls on the street, to people who were PhD physicists, to people who were lucky enough to meet him. and being his company. And, yeah, one of those nights was when we drank some margaritas after a Royal Society talk, which was marking a documentary I used to voice for him. So it would come in with his, you know, the famed IBM kind of Mid-Atlantic nine, Stephen Hugging, and then they were going to this, which I thought was a neat enough link

because I'd played him in earlier days. And there was Joyce. It just kept that creative and an actual link with him going. And Eddie Redmay is a dear friend as well. also it felt like a kind of, it was amazing what he did in the film and it felt like the right thing. And it was a lovely thing to them be able to share that with Eddie as well. That's so cool to hear. Most people will never, obviously have seen or even heard about that side of Stephen Hawkins.

So it's nice of you to share it. You're not afraid to play real life character. You know, whether it's Julian Assange, obviously the imitation game. Do you seek those out? No. I mean, the only thing I seek out is some kind of originality every now and again. If people go, yeah, you're always playing brainy outside. I go, right, I've got to find some of your average Joe who lives next door who's pretty

just going about his day, doing his thing and something weird happens or something interesting. But no, they seek me out a little bit, but I try and keep a balance in my response to who and why and what I do. And it's, yeah, just trying to keep myself interested so that I surprise myself and hopefully the audience. If Sherlock put you on the map, I think it's fair to say the imitation game and the Academy Award nomination changed a lot for you. What did it do to your life personally? Not a lot personally, no. I think professionally it was, it's, you know, it's a Academy Award

nominee thing that's very nice and it's wonderful, it's wonderful and it's not to be treated lightly and I was thrilled to be there in such exalted company. I mean, incredible talent and yeah, to be on that stage being celebrated amongst those fellow nominees was an amazing thing. So it was a huge moment in my life. Personally, it's not something that carries. You know, I've got the certificate somewhere. It's just, it's just a very, very lovely memory now.

But it's forever, as you say, it is forever. It is forever. Yeah, yeah. And it's just, it's a spur to do good stuff, I guess, you know, to live up to that recognition. I've been impressed reading interviews with you over the last year or maybe more about how often

you've talked about what's happening in Hollywood right now, referencing your wife, who's a director herself, And talking about equal pay in Hollywood. And you went so far as to say men should turn down roles where their co-stars are not paid equally. God, did I say that? I'm going to get me into trouble. Well, I mean, you know, I think what's interesting now in general is we're going through a much more transparent period of everything, whether it's gender pay gaps, whether it's abuses of power.

And so it's a good time to talk about it. And I think that's what needs to happen amongst all of us as actors, just be really old and open about who's getting what. and also understanding why there is a there's a market driven need to some of this but a lot of it needs to change we need more equality it's not just it's the central two tenets of feminism you know to have a place at the table and to have equal pay so we need both we need great great roles for women in front and behind the camera as well and need to foster that from every every stage of development whether it's schooling and introductions to the industry, but also obviously exalted very narrow percentile of people who are lucky enough to work for a living as an actor or a producer or a director.

So from there on in, try and foster this culture that's changing towards equality. I think the only way to do that is just to be really open about it and talk. And I think what Mark Wahlberg did, for example, is on the money, no pun intended, but yeah, great gesture. Does Hollywood feel practically different to you than a did 12 months ago? I mean, I'm not, but I'm so not really part of that culture because I make most of my films, well, apart from maybe in Georgia, Atlanta with the Avengers in England.

And kind of, obviously I come over for meetings or work-related sort of things, whether it's promotion or ceremonies and things like that. But so I'm not really on the ground enough to be able to really feel the change culturally. I would hope so. I would hope so. But I'm not the best person to ask being a Brit who mainly lives in London. On the other end of the feminist spectrum, I'm going to ask you about one of your favorite topics, which is Cumbermania.

I thought you could say misogyny or something. No, no, no, no, Cumbermania. The other end of the spectrum of feminism. I say that because you've got a group of fans who identify themselves with a name I won't even ask you to say that. And I was embarrassed to sort of grace that. I mean, well before we reached this kind of good cultural shift in reappropriating certain things.

and I kind of, I was a bit hot under the collar about it, but it was all meant in good jest, and that, it was self-naming collective now. It wasn't, it wasn't something that had come about through something I'd said, so. That would be odd if you had pointed them and give him that name. Very odd.

Yeah, very odd. But I came up with some alternatives and a couple of stuff, like the collective, I think, is a new. Oh, the collective is good. Yeah, collective noun, obviously, so it's, yeah, come a collective. Is that bizarre for you, though, to know there's even such a thing as a tribe are making chocolate statues of you.

That's very bizarre. And then I'm like, OK, that's my image. Put some of that money that profits was charity, please. If you're going to make me into a chocolate bunny or a massive, yeah, kind of life-size melting thing in a shopping center, very bizarre. Yeah, so the weirdness never really goes away. You know, that's always going to be shocking. But yeah, it's just part of it.

It's a very high-class problems to have. You have a family, too, that someday soon will make great fun of you. all of this. There is that. Yeah. I've already got friends and family who do that already. So yeah, it's there on the pipeline. It's going to get worse. Thanks, man. Enjoy talking to. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

My thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch for spending some time with us. You can catch the Grinch in theaters now just in time for the holidays. My thanks as always to all of you for listening every week. Don't forget to click subscribe. If you haven't already, be sure to check out the library of extended conversations with all my Sunday

today guests. Don't forget to Tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.