Benedict Cumberbatch is among the one percent of people in the world who have an INFJ personality type, based on Legacy Press’s results. It truly explains why he is unique.
There is a subtle sense of self-protectiveness within The Imitation Game star. He is sometimes seen talking about his wife, three young sons and politics but otherwise, he tries to stay as reticent as possible. During his interviews, which he initially treated as a “therapy session”, he shepherds the conversation to less complicated matters.
Cumberbatch talks about the Sundance film
While having a long two-hour discussion with Variety, Benedict Cumberbatch opened up about his new film The Thing with Feathers. He explained it's a dark drama, a story of a struggling father trying to prevent his family from drifting apart after his wife died.
He felt awkward while talking about his acting intensity that he had to rely on while working for the film as he went on to say, “The Brit in me is a bit embarrassed about diving too deeply.” He expressed that it was a soul-wrenching experience as he was surprised at how he managed to pull off such profound grief on-screen.
He loves taking on bold and risky projects and was excited about The Thing with Feathers for that reason. Apart from being a superhero, he thinks he can grow more as an actor in projects like these, and Eric, a Netflix miniseries.
Stories like these, he believes, need to be told urgently and he tries his best to finance them. He feels that it is a part of art cinema that needs to be seen by the people, no matter how difficult the subject or niche is.
Benedict Cumberbatch annotated one time when Tom Holland, the Spider-Man hero, publicly acclaimed Doctor Strange celebrity for tutoring him to cry on command. There is no shortcut to accessing intense emotions, therefore Cumberbatch described why acting in Sundance film required an entire mechanism where breathing through the diaphragm and muscle manipulation come into work.
Cumberbatch spilled beans about Doctor Strange's future
One of the most iconic roles Cumberbatch has played is Doctor Strange. He is commonly known for his elite roles, just like Sherlock and this is why Doctor Strange is equally brilliant.
It was the role that gave the 48-year-old actor worldwide recognition, reaching the heights of fame as his merchandise was seen on sale. He confirmed that it was the role that he would keep playing till the Avengers keep confronting persistent perils but there is something else that, despite being discreet, he let it slip.
He revealed that Doctor Strange is taking a break and won’t be seen in the next 2026 Marvel sequel Avengers: Doomsday. He instantly exclaimed, “Is that a spoiler? F**k it!”
After that, he gave up on being secretive and further clarified that things changed when Jonathan Majors, who played the character of Kang, was convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend and was immediately fired in 2024. He was meant to play the antagonist in the next phase of the franchise.
Also, his character in the next Avengers projects did not align well with the story, Cumberbatch shared. He satisfied his fans by saying that they would see Doctor Strange “a lot” in Avengers: Secret Wars, hitting theatres in 2027.
He decided to stay clandestine about the role that he would play in Doctor Strange's third stand-alone project and did not disclose much about the character except that Doctor would be “quite central to where things might go”.
He praised Marvel for its collaboration though. He elucidated how Marvel kept on asking him about his ideas on Doctor Strange so that the character could evolve, they asked him about writing and directing tips and were open to any sort of discussions.
Cumberbatch was explicit about Doctor Strange's personality traits for being “complex, contradictory and a troubled human” whereas Cumberbatch and Marvel are thinking of “potent stuff to mess about with”.
Benedict Cumberbatch divulged about his stardom
Cumberbatch’s shining stardom came after the premier of Sherlock in 2010, the BBC series where he was a super detective, a bit of a maniac and visibly on the spectrum of being a sociopath. He did not think of himself as attractive at all.
He said, “I’m not Brad, I’m not Leonardo, I’m not a typical movie star”. He knew he couldn't be taken as a male ‘sex symbol’, which he found slightly and “weirdly navel-gazing”.
He came to know that people were rambling on how he was still attractive, which he possibly accredited to his brainiac role in Sherlock; extremely intelligent and breaking all the barriers for reinterpreting the legendary detective.
He shared that he is still exploring himself. All of the people who comment on social media who give love or hate comments cannot know him on the whole, he explicated. Some of them have their own judgements and “that’s theirs.” We cannot change them and that is why he's grown less sensitive to social media insanity.
He defended being called a “celebrity.” To him, it’s a “derogatory” term since it confines a person’s ability to be an ‘actor.’ It should be ‘celebrated’ instead, he enlightened.
Closing the conversation…
In the end, he recalled an incident when, in 2004, he went on a diving excursion with his friends when he was shooting for the BBC miniseries To the Ends of the Earth. He was robbed and abducted by six men. The incident changed him in different ways.
He feels that he is still dealing with impatience in life and cannot settle for “a life less ordinary”. He went out more for adrenaline-rushing sports like skydiving and other extreme activities.
However, this has now changed for him. He has become more sober, he said, because at that time, he had nothing to lose and no other dependant except his parents. Now after having a family, he has slowed down. He is done with his idea of “I could die any moment”, enjoyed the near-death stuff and is now settled with the notion of acceptance of things and “what lies beneath.”