![\"Benedict](\"https:\/\/cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/uploads\/1\/2023\/11\/Benedict-Cumberbatch-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credit: Alamy)<\/p>\n
Sat 30 August 2025 12:30, UK <\/p>\n
Up there with some of the most successful British actors of the last 20 years, alongside Tom Hardy, Christian Bale and Robert Pattinson, Benedict Cumberbatch<\/a> has neatly jumped, sometimes literally, from spy to superhero to Vulcan to the world\u2019s most famous detective. <\/p>\n You can also amusingly substitute any word for either of his two names, and people will still know who you\u2019re talking about. \u2018Benadryl Cabbagepatch\u2019, \u2018Butternut Crinklefries\u2019, \u2018Budapest Lumberjack\u2019: see? Works every time.<\/p>\n The Hammersmith-born actor experienced a meteoric rise to fame over 15 years that took him from the small screen BBC to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and from people thinking he looked a bit like a human otter to being voted the sexiest man alive.<\/p>\n Descended from all different kinds of British high society and distant royalty, Cumberbatch was undeniably a gifted young actor<\/a> who studied drama over many years before starting to attract considerable attention with his performances onstage in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n He played wheelchair-bound scientist Stephen Hawking in a TV biopic in 2004 and was nominated for an Olivier Award the following year, but showed he also had a decent sense of humour by appearing in two episodes of the ultra-prescient Charlie Brooker comedy Nathan Barley the same year.<\/p>\n Cumberbatch then spent the next five years or so taking on roles in TV series, small budget movies and in theatre before, in 2010, he was cast in the part that would change everything for him for good: the BBC\u2019s slick new version of Sherlock Holmes, created by Dr Who\u2019s Steven Moffat and The League of Gentlemen\u2019s Mark Gatiss.<\/p>\n Pairing Cumberbatch with UK\u2019s The Office\u2019s Martin Freeman as the long-suffering Dr Watson, Sherlock brought the legendary Baker Street detective into the modern age with onscreen graphics, fast cuts, twists and turns and a villain in Andrew Scott\u2019s Moriarty who was either great or incredibly irritating, depending on your point of view.<\/p>\n The first showing of the series, which would go on to win three Emmys, was on July 25th, 2010, and marked a significant hour for Cumberbatch that would prove pivotal. Not only was Sherlock an immediate sensation<\/a>, with millions live-tweeting how good they thought the show was, but at the end of the 60 minutes, a news development came that would signify a future role for the English actor.<\/p>\n WikiLeaks, the freedom of information website founded by Australian former hacker Julian Assange, released what would become known as the Afghan war diary, which alleged crimes by the US army during the war in Afghanistan over a five-year period.<\/p>\n It sparked years of the US and Swedish governments trying to put WikiLeaks\u2019 Editor in Chief behind bars for espionage, leading to Assange seeking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He remained there, albeit politically active, until 2019, when his asylum was revoked and he was sentenced to prison in HMS Belmarsh. He eventually took a plea deal and was allowed to return to Australia in 2024.<\/p>\n Cumberbatch was offered the role of playing Assange two years later in a movie called The Fifth Estate. He told the Guardian, regarding, \u201cI remember it really clearly. I had to go into the stairwell to try to get better reception. I heard them say, \u2018These people are really interested in offering you this part playing Julian Assange\u2019. There was a TV series idea kicking around at the time, and I thought that was it, so I said, \u2018Great. I didn\u2019t realise that series was going ahead\u2019. They said, \u2018No, it\u2019s DreamWorks\u2019. \u2018DreamWorks are doing a film about Julian Assange!?\u2019 \u2018Yeah, and they want you to do it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Cumberbatch was about to take his first step into the Hollywood big time with his role as Khan in JJ Abrams\u2019 Star Trek sequel Into Darkness, and when The Fifth Estate was released, it was to very mixed reviews, although Cumberbatch\u2019s performance brought praise.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t affect his prospects, though, as he picked up an Oscar nomination for his work in The Imitation Game the following year, and then made his Marvel debut in the well-reviewed Dr Strange in 2016. Since then, he\u2019s appeared in a raft of Avengers movies, plus he landed a second Oscar nomination for the bafflingly popular The Power of the Dog<\/a> in 2021.<\/p>\n This month, he is set to play the lead role in The Roses, a remake of the 1989 smash The War of the Roses starring Michael Douglas, and it looks like it\u2019s all a bed of roses for the man now. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: Alamy) Sat 30 August 2025 12:30, UK Up there with some of the most successful British actors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[5433,236,88,111,37569,77607],"class_list":["post-120958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-benedict-cumberbatch","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-politics","tag-sherlock-holmes","tag-us-army"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/The-Wonderful-Story-of-Henry-Sugar-2023-Wes-Anderson-Benedict-Cumberbatch-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1024x76.jpeg\")
<\/a>Benedict Cumberbatch in Wes Anderson film The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. (Credits: Far Out \/ Netflix)<\/p>\n