Does Benedict Cumberbatch Know His Lines?

That's not one of my lines. Am I taking too long with this? Oh, I get to read it. Okay. Wow. Power reading. I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research. Sherlock Holmes. Circa God knows when now. Feels like ancient history, but that's a great line. I remember saying that as Sherlock. I'm not a psychopath. I'm Anderson. I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research. There's something about it held in its memory as it is. And it's so tantalizing. You know, you leave them or yourselves wanting more. There's always that itch to scratch. But I think it would have to be the superlative version of what we've already achieved. And I would like a script to read. Which was not the normal way of doing it, naturally enough. You know, Stephen and Martin. Trusted entities. And I was just only too glad to be fed by their script. But I think this has to be a little bit more like, if we're all going to do this together, let's have a read. It'll be recycled. Okay. Dormammu, I've come to bargain. Yeah, that's Doctor Strange, the first film. Dormammu. I've come to bargain. I can't remember how many times I said that in different set-ups. How many times I died. A lot was taken over by Digi Doubles. But I was in all sorts of rigs. It was the same space rig as Sandra Bullock in her acting as Welford. Putting up with that. It was unbelievably good fun for the first sort of couple of rides. And then it was just, it was really hard. Very odd strains on the body in a weird way. And I like that kind of work. I like the physical aspect of my work. But I think there was a bit of that involved on the same set. And just coming up and saying it again and again and again as he dies. Where's Dormammu out in this trap of repeated time? Next. Thank you. I specifically brought enough food to last until January. How much emotional eating have I been doing? That's really funny. Is this a cartoon? It's not The Grinch. It's The Grinch. How much emotional eating have I been doing? It's one of the chiefest things I get a thrill out of. Because I don't, you know. To do a voice character for kids who go, you're not The Grinch. And then go, I know just what it is. It's fun. It's just fun. They're going to go, ooh, it's creepy. It's all the same. Was it because, you know, I can't obviously be The Grinch. As opposed to being strange or any of the other more iconic ones they might know. But God, I had fun. I mean, it's a long process. But it's really good. And Chris and all that team are brilliant. They're just brilliant. They write really witty scripts. Scott, who directed me a lot of the time, was light on his feet. The sessions were fun. And the animation was just gorgeous. And, you know, it's another cut of that brilliant story that we all love and know from the Dr. Seuss canon. And I like it. Bring on another one. I love that. I am fire. I am death. I mean, I've had some quite good lines. I am fire. I am death. These are hard ones to forget, really. Smaug. I am death. That was just great. And we did a lot of variations on that. I don't remember doing that in the now very available YouTube video of me crawling around like a madman in a no-cap suit. I laid low the warriors of old and exhumed terror. But I do remember on the soundstage doing it a lot with Peter. We were kind of augmenting the voice and trying different vocoders and strains and effects with microphones and different temperatures and pacings and tonalities. And I just remember the sort of the quieter it was, the more terrifying it was as this shape of destruction swooped down silently through the room. Very cool, I'd have to say. This is not, I don't like this tossing. It's very, it's great. A man was made patient and the odds against, that's not right. A man was made patient by the odds against him. I think that's a quote of, is it Phil Burbank in Power of the Dog? And I say about, I forgot the character's name, which is essential to that part. Oh God, he's gone. Bronco Henry. A man was made by patience and the odds against him. I mean, I didn't remember it being that way unless I got it wrong on the day and that's what it is in the film, which is mortifying. And we all know I had trouble with the word penguin. His penguins. Yeah, I think I screwed up a line, either of Thomas Savage. I mean, I did put some of Savage back in, much to Jane's chagrin at the time, but then some of it made it, some of it ended up on the floor. I can't remember when that was in her original screenplay. Well, what kind of prep didn't I do? I mean, everything that he does in the book, I tried to do, whether it was ironmongery, taxidermy, which that was a very odd afternoon. Well, obviously horsemanship and wrangling and cowherding and also braiding. That was featured a lot, which is fine when you're not then doing dialogue and not looking and going, oh shit, don't think from this bit. I've done about five. Oh no, there's a knot. And you just keep going. Yeah, I mean, it was a really deep dive into kind of city slicker guy culture, cowboy camp. It was amazing. I spent some time in Montana with an incredible bunch of folk there. And we were all over the county as well, lots of different places. So we saw some really beautiful flat plains, the kinds that were grazed by thousands of buffalo back in the day. And then to mountainous stuff that was slightly nearer where Thomas Savage set the novel near his family home. Yeah, I'll recycle it towards you. Is there anything you would not do for your family? Yes. So that was Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness. Is there anything you would not do for your family? Is it sad that I remember these lines or these just these are very potent, these lines. Apart from the one that I think I mangled from Power of the Dog. Oh, that was fun. I mean, that was just a big moment for me. We just had a blast. I mean, J.J.'s sets are just a fun ground of entertainment and distraction and creativity and energy. He was so grateful. He was so encouraging. And I was a very little fish in a big pond. It was a big, scary movie to be on. The first kind of announcing me, OK, what is it? Come on back. You get whooped on set like it's the beginning of your turn in a sitcom on U.S. television. We worked in some amazing places, some amazing sets. And then we went to this really amazing, amazing location, the National Ignition Facility, which is where they're hoping to create nuclear fusion rather than fission. And the only byproduct of that is water. They convinced me before I got there that there was this neutron cream you had to dot on your face to protect against all the neutrons flying around in the air. And I'm like, I'm not sure. Really? You know, who am I to question science? I've played a few scientists, but I don't, you know, I'm not Stephen Hawking. So therefore, maybe it's some crazy American sort of, you know, insurance thing. This is all by way of, you know, excusing how stupid I am. I then went on set and had this cream on. And then there was a sign up and I had to read this notice to the whole crew about, you know, guys, you really have to do this neutron cream. And as I was reading it, I went, yeah. And if you've been wearing neutron cream, then you're an idiot. There's no such thing. And I was like, what? The whole crew had me. It was brilliant. Fling. Thank you. A machine is different from a person, hence they think differently. That's very true. Alan Turing. My God, we need him now. That was Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. A machine is different from a person, hence they think differently. It's just like a deep, deep, deep kind of connection of thinking, oh, I understand what you were or went through. And the pain of that at certain points in his story. You know, no acting was required. It just sort of thinking of him was enough. Maybe that's not good acting. I don't know. I've talked about this a bit. Maybe that's just witnessing something and feeling it historically as an abomination that it was, his chemical castration because of his sexuality. And if you just leave it alone and don't think, how does this story get most effectively told at this point? Something just happens. I think that's true of a lot of art, a lot of sport, a lot of anything where we're just doing it and it's coming through us. You're not really, you know, I got patted on the back for it a lot, but it's not really you. It's something else just coming through you. It's the power of the story or the character. And just letting yourself be open for that, I suppose, is the trick of the acting a bit. Thank you. All is done here. Wow, that's quite prosaic, isn't it? All is done here. Okay, you got me. I have no idea. All is done. We're done here. All is done here. I mean, I don't know. Am I stretching back into the mists of time? This is a little bit further away. Oh, oh, oh, all, all is done here. Zoolander 2. Sorry. That was post-imitation game, yeah. All is done here. I've had to apologize for that quite a lot. So it's a difficult one to talk about. I love that group of people and it was the chance to sort of be part of something that the first time around was iconic and I was a huge fan of. But it got complicated. It got misunderstood and I upset people and I respect that. So I probably wouldn't do that again now. What does this do? Shoot poison darts? Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, no. I know this. It's not Sherlock, is it? No. It's the kind of thing James Bond would say in Q's office, isn't it? Whilst looking at a straw or something. I don't know. Oh, oh, oh, I know. I know, I know. The imitation. Oh, no, the courier. The courier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What does this do? Shoot poison darts? I was with Rachel and Angus Sangs-Wright in a fruit store just having been propositioned to become this kind of mule for this guy Penkovsky, the highest-ranking Soviet official, to trade secrets or give away secrets during the Cold War because he thought that Russia was going in the wrong direction. And it's just he's trying to make funny out of a very sort of serious situation. It's a sort of joke that falls flat. Thank you. I got a truth to tell. My God, that's... I don't know. I've got a truth to tell. That's a pretty forthright line. Am I taking too long with this? It sounds like... And then I burst into song. Is this the film I'm about to do or...? It sounds American. OK. I'm going to need more of a clue. Oh, really? Really? I don't remember saying that. In August of Sage County. Really? I got a truth to tell. But all the truth in that is about my relation to my love. You know, I think it's just a cousin. OK. When do I say that? I'll have to watch this to find out when I... OK. We're in the endgame now. Well, yeah, but yeah, that's a big old Avengers line. We're in the endgame now. That's me at the end of Infinity War, I think. Oh, this is so boring watching people not know what everyone watching knows. Sorry, people watching who know. Yeah, I can't remember exactly when I said that, but I think it was the end of the first film and it was a sort of Easter egg for what the title of the follow-up film endgame is going to be. We are very small, but we are profoundly capable of very big things. Ah, Stephen Hawking. We are very, very small. But we are profoundly capable of very, very big things. That was a very big moment for me to get cast in that role. And I think like a lot of people I've played that I've had the fortune of knowing him for a short period of time, but a very intense and wonderful period. You know, to be brought close to people's lives like that, to have a friendship out of someone as extraordinary like that, to have a communication with them, to be able to convene with them, it's just, that's the cheapest thrill with that kind of stuff. That lasts well after the job, you know. And to be there at Westminster Abbey for his memorial was just incredible. Very, very special man. My last memory of him was getting drunk on margaritas and telling him at a time when no one else could tell him. He'd had about three, so he was a little in his cups. He said, I know where you live and you can't run away from me. It was a very bad taste joke. He grinned at it. I'm going to tell you a secret. I'm playing cards at Star Trek. About half an hour later I got this, you know, IBM voice going, very good. He was really excited about it. What a person to be associated with.