Benedict Cumberbatch needs to improve his banjo skills

Benedict Cumberbatch is a diligent researcher into the lives of his characters, both fictional and non-fictional. At first glance, the story of Greville Wynne, the character Cumberbatch plays in his most recent film, The Courier, had a lot of potential. But there was a problem. A real-life businessman recruited by MI6 during the Cold War as a go-between for Soviet asset Oleg Penkovsky, the late Wynne had left behind two books detailing his exploits. Unfortunately, he was a compulsive liar. Much of what Wynne described was wrong or simply could not have happened. The Courier therefore had to be a Hollywood biopic that relied less on its source material to try to get to the truth. (When it comes to espionage, it turns out no one can be trusted.)

So what's the best way to meet the man?

"It's weird," says Cumberbatch. "Things come out of nowhere that lead you to understand a character."

With Greville Wynne it was his tie.

"I said, 'This tie is in all his pictures. It's what he's wearing to court, it's what he's wearing when he gets out of jail, it's what he's wearing before he got involved in this whole thing.' I looked it up. It was a tie. of the University of Nottingham Engineering Club. He was never part of any Club. It's a uniform. He's projecting a personality. It's an act. A bit of a show."

Cumberbatch has been busy. He currently has four films pending release. Two for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home, and two others where his penchant for research came in especially handy. For The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, about an eccentric Edwardian artist whose paintings of big-eyed cats playing cards, washing dishes, etc., brought him a large audience but little money, he enlisted the help of art dealer Wain for a long time, Chris Beetles.

"He did a lot of the paintings you see in the movie," says Cumberbatch. "That's me doing it even though I can't do it with two hands [Wain was ambidextrous and painted with both hands simultaneously]. But I don't know if anyone can. I really could. It wasn't just a party trick."

But he really had a job in The Power of the Dog, a pretty mind-blowing Western that is the first film in thirteen years from one of the world's great directors, Jane Campion (The Piano, Bright Star). Cumberbatch plays Phil Burbank, a braggart ranch owner in early 20th-century Montana who torments the wife of his younger brother, George. According to Thomas Savage's 1967 novel, the elder Burbank is "a keen reader, a taxidermist, an expert in the braiding of rawhide and horsehair, a chess problem solver, a blacksmith, and a metal worker." , a collector of arrowheads (which he even makes himself more skillfully than any Indian), a banjo player, a good writer, a haystack builder, a great talker."

Cumberbatch was cool with horseback riding, as he did it in the 2011 movie War Horse. "He loved it," he says. "It's wonderful to ride again." ("Although," he adds, "it was a western, so it's a different style.")

Only the braiding, the rope, the hardware, the leather treatment, the stacking of the hay, the whistling, the felling of trees and the banjo remained. The power of the dog leaves no doubt that he came to dominate them all. Before filming began, he was already fit, and went to a hardware store in the South Island - New Zealand standing in for the 1920s American West - to hammer a horseshoe and give it to Campion as a good luck present.

In the book, adapted by Campion herself, Burbank doesn't just make towers out of hay, "carving the huge beams with adze and brush." He also carves "those little chairs no more than an inch high Sheraton or Adam style." These chairs play a small but important role in the story, so Cumberbatch made a set of them too.

For reasons buried deep in his past and because he's part of an image he needs to project, Phil Burbank rarely washes himself. So Cumberbatch followed his example.

"I wanted that layer of scent on me. I wanted people in the room to know what I smelled like. But it was hard. It wasn't just rehearsals. I was out eating and meeting Jane's friends and stuff. I was a little embarrassed." by the housekeeper, in the place where he lived".

He stayed in character the entire time, with the ominous Montana accent intact.

"If someone forgot, the first day, and called me Benedict, I wouldn't budge," he says.

There were also many cigarettes to be smoked, "perfectly rolled with one hand," according to Savage's text.

"That was very hard," he says. "The unfiltered rollies, just one shot after another. I got nicotine poisoning three times. When you have to smoke a lot, it's really horrible."

But with all this, as the saying goes, you can always improve.

"I really wanted to become world class on the banjo," says Cumberbatch. "And I'm not at all. I'm very far away."

Benedict Cumberbatch arrives promptly on a July morning to be photographed for this article. He is standing in the garden in a windbreaker and sneakers talking on the phone.

Even by his remarkably productive standards, he's been busy.

"People will write books about this one day," he says. "How the hell did he manage to make movies with everything that was going on in the world." Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was shot almost entirely in a shuttered Surrey studio off the A30.

"They had the gold standard in testing and tracing," he says. "They tested us every other day and temperature tests every day when we arrived. If you had a cold or a cough or felt sick, they were very attentive to it. But the work environment was quite grim compared to the norm, everyone "Everyone was isolated and masked. It was hard work. But you could see how lucky we were. Over five hundred team members came back and all tested negative by Christmas. The dedication was admirable."

The Power of the Dog began filming in New Zealand in January 2020. Production was then put on hiatus until June.

"We didn't turn on the TV every day or check our phones for the news. It wasn't a growing concern," he says. "Then when we got to Auckland, it was like, 'Oh. It's not just that it's not crazy here. It's actually crazy everywhere you have to go, to get home.'"

Another complication was that Cumberbatch was traveling with two octogenarians in tow: his parents.

"[The coronavirus] was coming and going and coming and Boris Johnson kept saying [Johnson's voice] 'I'm hugging everybody, I'm kissing everybody, I'm licking doorknobs. Oh no, I'm not. - now I'm in a hazmat suit.' You could see it was going to hit the UK really hard because of ineptitude. So, I just said, 'You stay here.' I couldn't let them go."

Cumberbatch gets involved in the photos, suggesting montages, noticing when the sunlight has changed, checking to see if a certain watch wouldn't look better with a different top.

"When you're on the red carpet and they're like, 'Me! Me! Me! That's horrible," he says. "This is a little more creative."

Afterwards he settles down with a chocolate brownie and a ginger beer, news that will undoubtedly shake the corner of the internet dedicated to whether or not Benedict Cumberbatch is vegan. (In fact, there seems to be a corner of the Internet dedicated to all things Benedict Cumberbatch.)

"I was for about 18 months," he confirms. "I applaud people who are vegan and I enjoyed my journey with it, but [non-vegan food] crept back into my life."

What worries him most now is sustainability. The suits he wears in these photos have been chosen, for the most part, with his environmental footprint in mind, with his input.

"Unsustainable practices...there's another way to do it," he says. "You can think of a solution and actually do something, instead of freaking out over the problem."

Cumberbatch is a doer. His friend Keira Knightley once said that she never takes the easy way out.

He laughs. "Pushing that boulder up the hill. I mean... I like a challenge," he says.

Why does he think it is so?

"I really like my job. When I work, I want to work hard. It has to be worth leaving my family [his wife, theater director Sophie Hunter and their three children] and my house to do it. For them... Oh this sounds weird, but I guess to validate that I'm not there. And if I can come out with a new skill and call it work, lucky you know? That saves me a few night classes or, you know, the time I spend. don't have".

Still, there is a difference between wanting to learn a new skill and wanting to become world class on the banjo.

"But on the shooting side it's very, very good," he says. "It's like feeding an actor, as Marlon Brando used to say. You constantly drain his nervous energy. Admittedly, he was a bit antisocial, but you know, it doesn't matter. I don't need to be gossiping around the coffee pot every shoot."

In 72 hours he will fly to Los Angeles to reshoot Spider-Man: No Way Home for two weeks.

"I think my main motivation is that I really like it," he says. "And I like the idea that he can get better at it."

It's hard to imagine anyone watching The Power of the Dog disagreeing with that. It's exceptional in every way, not just because of Cumberbatch, but also because of Jesse Plemons as George Burbank, Kirsten Dunst as Rose, the woman he marries, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Peter, his son. The look, sound and feel are amazing. You can hear every squeak of leather, feel the prairie wind as the melodrama intensifies.

"I spent a lot of time trying to work out the language," says Jane Campion. "How were we going to photograph it, frame it. And have a rule of absolute economy. For example, try to keep those shots for as long as possible and try not to frivolize them. Or have frills that weren't necessary."

The book on which the film is based is not widely known, selling "no more than a few thousand copies" upon its release, notes Annie Proulx in the afterword to a 2oo1 reissue. But in Burbank appears, according to her, "one of the most evil characters in American literature."

"The book kept haunting me," says Campion. "And if something haunts you I think you have to let nature happen. I felt like this had to be done."

As for his leading lady: "We pushed each other. He was a great collaborator with great expectations and ideals. And the practical skills? My God...he was stunning."

I ask Cumberbatch if he's ever signed up for a job and thought, "I'm going to get it."

"Yes," he says, immediately. "I'm going to do it tonight."

He's referring to Letters Live, an event where famous (and some non-famous) names read thought-provoking historical letters, a mix of the serious and the silly, the profane and the political. The public never knows what they are going to find, as the celebrity bingo aspect is part of the appeal. Ian McKellen reading Roald Dahl, Gillian Anderson reading Jackie Kennedy, etc. Cumberbatch has been a regular since the first show in a theater in 2013 and his producer, SunnyMarch, now has a hand in the setup. (He has also produced The Courier and The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, among others.)

"I haven't really practiced," he says.

Tonight, he reads a letter written by a dying miner to his wife in a 1902 mining disaster, the worst in Tennessee history, with the miner's 14-year-old son at his side. Then one from a resident calling for his ban on British Columbia's Empress Hotel to be lifted, three faces of increasingly outlandish excuses that had gone viral in 2018. Four lines from Hunter S Thompson to a literary agent who rejection. And a letter from Nick Cave in response to someone named Cynthia, asking for advice on grief. Cave's son, Arthur, died in 2015. "I feel my son's presence, everywhere, but he may not be there," he writes. "I hear him talking to me, being my father, guiding me, even though he may not be there."

I then find Cumberbatch at the bar with his wife, some of the other performers, and friends. He says that he was overwhelmed by the first letter, the meaning of which only became apparent when he read it aloud.

"I couldn't help it," he says. "I hadn't realized about his son. I told him I hadn't practiced. So the joy of doing the Hotel Empress thing..."

Then there was Nick Cave. Cumberbatch is a formidable impersonator, but Cave's card was the only one he chose to perform in his own voice.

"I do a pretty good Nick Cave, I was so tempted to do it..." he says. "But I thought 'I can't'. It's too big a presence."

Cave has pictures of Louis Wain on the walls of his Brighton house. He also has a cameo appearance in The Electrical Life... playing HG Wells.

"It's a bit of a Nick Cave festival," says Cumberbatch. "Nick Cave is a master, he really is."

A conversation about how to play real people.

Of the many compelling characters Cumberbatch has played - Sherlock Holmes, Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, World War I Colonel Mackenzie, Hamlet, Frankenstein, Peter Guillam from The Mole - the only one who is real and still alive is Dominic Cummings. I wonder if that changed his focus.

It immediately points out my mistake.

"Patrick Melrose is still alive," he says. "Billy Bulger, I think, is dead. Julian Assange is still alive... you know, Khan is on the ice, so that's open for debate..."

(For the record, William 'Billy' Bulger, the American lawyer he played in 2015's Black Mass: Strictly Criminal, is 87 years old and still alive at the time of this writing. Patrick Melrose, whom he played in the sublime 2018, is based on the semi-autobiographical novels by 61-year-old and still active Edward St Aubyn Khan Noonien Singh, whom he portrayed in the 2013 film Star Trek: Into Darkness, is a genetically augmented superhuman in the 23rd century, who is put into cryogenic sleep by the crew of the USS Enterprise. It has me on edge.)

Still, does he understand what I mean?

"I get your point...in a way. But don't think I've only played historical characters."

It's hard to gauge if he's actually quite up.

"What is the nature of the question? I don't think it's a very strong thesis."

I really wanted to ask about Cummings, I mean. that having seen again

Brexit: An Uncivil War, the 2019 TV drama about the Vote Leave campaign, in light of its recent revelations and accusations, struck me as even more eerily apt. What has he made of all this?

“I tease James [Graham, the screenwriter] with every headline that comes up, you know?” he says. "And I say, 'We're on to the fifth sequel now.' It's been extraordinary to see a character who was fairly unknown in the back room of the corridors of power come to the fore in such an extraordinary way. I don't want to judge him publicly."

But he met Cummings for the part. He must have watched his "revenge" with special interest...

"They are controversial figures around very complex issues and yes, I have my own opinions. But I think it's much more important that other people express those things than I do. I don't have any vision beyond the moments when I try to get something out in clear of them in a representation. I am not the expert in this".

There is, I suggest, another famous name still alive that he has played this year. Morrissey on The Simpsons.

"That wasn't Morrissey!"

In the episode Panic on the Streets of Springfield, Lisa falls in love with the depressed English singer Quilloughby and his group The Snuffs, authors of "Hamburger Homicide", "How Late Is Then?" and "Everyone Is Horrid Except Me (And Possibly You)". Later, she attends a music festival and discovers that the good-looking singer has become an overweight fan.

He sounds a lot like him, and he sings a lot like him.

"Oh thanks," she says. "I take that as a compliment because I love how he sings and sounds."

Morrissey was less enthusiastic. His rep released a lengthy statement, saying, among other things, that The Simpsons had taken "a turn for the worse," showing the singer with his belly hanging out of his shirt ("when he's never looked that way in no time in his career") was hurtful and wondered, regarding Cumberbatch "Could it be that he has enough dough to accept mistreating another artist so harshly?", saying that he should "speak up". "Does he even have enough balls to do that?"

"No comment," says Cumberbatch, probably for the better.

Having viewed or re-viewed a sizeable, though still incomplete, sample of his work for clues, context, and connections (21 papers), I'm afraid the most insightful observation I can make is that Benedict Cumberbatch is quite simply a wonderful actor.

There was a time when even he had to acknowledge that he was being victimized by "playing slightly genderless intellectuals and sociopaths," as he told the Radio Times in 2011. But that's no longer true, if he ever was. It was.

In 12 Years a Slave there is a plantation owner named George Ford with Cumberbatch's face and body, but the voice, posture and movement are of a completely different person. In Atonement there is a child molester named Paul Marshall, someone the movie credits insist is Cumberbatch, but I'm afraid there must have been some terrible mix-up. In the YouTube comments under the trailer for The Fifth Estate, his film about Julian Assange (still alive, 50 years old!), the verdict is unanimous.

"As an Australian I have to say that Benedict's accent in this film is an extraordinary achievement. Not even the highest rated actors can pull it off like he can"

"For a British guy, he pulls off the Aussie accent superbly"

"His accent of his is soooo good omg"

More disconcerting still, it's not that Cumberbatch has a particularly forgettable face, as all those "sexy otter" memes and Sid-The-Sloth-from-Ice-Age jokes suggest. But the only time you think "Oh, there's that Sherlock guy" is when you're watching Sherlock.

"He's uniquely chameleon," says Dominic Cooke, who directed Cumberbatch in The Courier and in the 2016 BBC production of Richard III. "It's possible to physically transform, and he takes on a completely different physical space and appearance. He did two [theater] shows in the space of a couple of years, Frankenstein [directed by Danny Boyle, 2011, where Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller met boldly alternated as Frankenstein/the creature], which was like a modern dance piece, he was naked for the first 20 minutes, darting around the stage, the other was a Terence Rattigan play [After the Dance, 2010, directed by Thea Sharrock] in which he was very upright and 'gripped,' and I said, 'I can't imagine another actor on the planet who can do those two things as well as you have.'"

"He has such a strong imagination, like a child's," says Claire Foy, who has played Cumberbatch's wife on screen twice, once in the 2011 drama Wreckers and once in The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. "There's an element in him that is so willing to walk on a stage and see what happens. And that's really rare. I'm not like that with acting, and it's amazing to be around him. The thing I'm most proud of is watching him be Patrick Melrose. Because that was his whole idea [another SunnyMarch production]. Just to see him "go". To see him loosen up and not have to be a conventional leading man. It's amazing to see an actor do what he wants to do. He can be small, he can be big and pompous. It can be all the colors of the rainbow."

"Watch him in Black Mass, playing Johnny Depp's brother," says Edward Berger, who directed Patrick Melrose and will be working with Cumberbatch again next year on a Netflix miniseries about 39 Steps. "It's a much smaller role [than Depp's]. But the deep voice, the way he acts... He'll never give you a boring performance, and that's part of the secret. How can I stand out? How can I do that the public remembers the scene?

"Every actor has the process of him," says Will Sharpe, director of The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. "When we rehearsed, he was super understanding. He questioned every step, every shoulder turn, every pencil stroke. But on the set, he leaves it at the door. He becomes more instinctive, but he has all the knowledge there."

Before playing Dominic Cummings, Cumberbatch went to his house for dinner. Cummings' wife, Spectator reporter Mary Wakefield, wrote about it.

"He was kind, curious, but he hadn't come to judge Dom. He had come to become him," she said.

He made a vegan cake (he had heard a rumour). When Cumberbatch arrived, he refused alcohol on the grounds that he didn't really drink and struck "what I imagine is a very Cumberbatchian pose": legs under him, head up, leaning forward. Two hours later he was reclining with a glass of red wine, "just like Dom."

"At 1 a.m. it was a reflection of his subject. Both of them reclining, each with an arm behind their head."

Later, she showed his two-year-old son a photo of Cumberbatch on the Brexit set.

"Dada", he is reported to have said. "That's Dada, mom."

Cumberbatch made his public debut in the Daily Mirror, with the title "Wanda's Little Wonder", when he was four days old. His parents, Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton, are actors. His mother acted in West End farces, in the 1970s television classics The Saint and The Likely Lads, and in plays by John Osborne and Fay Weldon. Dad was a regular at the Royal Court in London and appeared on dozens of well-known television shows, from Cold Comfort Farm to Foyle's War.

Most recently they appeared together, as Sherlock's parents, in Sherlock.

I ask Cumberbatch what he was like when he was young.

"At what age?"

Whatever comes to mind.

"He was very curious. He was very talkative. A bit eccentric, I think. An old soul, as one of my teachers described it to me. He had a lot of energy. He was an only child, so he hated conflict."

Is that an only child thing?

"Yeah, it happens all the time at home now. Not if you're an only child. You're not used to resistance. You kind of avoid it. I still don't like conflict."

The school, he says, fixed it.

"I was lucky enough to be in an environment [public school] that focused him on crafts and acting and music and rugby and other sports. Instead of saying, 'This is a problem child, we have to do something with him.' I think I felt desperately insecure for all sorts of reasons and tried to make up for it. I was petrified of what other people thought of me."

That's why people become actors.

"There are many reasons. My parents were, and I loved to see it."

I ask them if the famous faces on TV often went to his house.

"To some extent. But we were very, very, very rarely entertained. But, you know, they [her parents] were in and out of movie production companies, or shootings that were coming to an end. I remember the parties. But it wasn't like on Stella Street. I had the experience of my mother being recognized in the frozen pea section. That's what I thought fame was."

Your mother said that as a teenager you wrote letters home saying you were "happy."

"My parents said that! I think so, you know? I mean, there's a lot to examine in childhood, isn't there? I have to say, not to be too optimistic, that I had a really good time at my boarding school. It was like having a group of brothers. It was like that thing of, 'Oh, this is what family life can be.' Where are the women? And where is the world? I realized how strange the air I breathed was."

I ask him if he finds it difficult to act.

"I don't have anything to compare it to, so I don't know. I enjoy things that are challenging...so I wouldn't say it's hard. That's a very complicated question. The reality of how people get into acting and he's got a career in it, that's hard. It's a joy to do it. I think any actor would agree with that."

You seem to be working flat out.

"I'm kind of relaxed now, when I've always wanted to live a less ordinary life. A couple of dalliances with mortality made me say, 'I really want to use this short, insignificant moment to do something.'"

Cumberbatch refers to a time in South Africa in 2004, when he and two friends were stuffed into the trunk of a car and held at gunpoint. There was also an incident during his gap year at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, in which he nearly died of dehydration.

An armchair psychologist could find a link in this case.

"It's very 'armchair'. Anyone can draw it. Yes, absolutely. Time is precious and if you have something that threatens your time, you immediately see why."

"Fame is harder," he says. "Fame is much more difficult, I think."

At 9:00 p.m. on July 25, 2010, at the age of 34, Cumberbatch went from being a well-regarded actor playing "small parts in big movies" to literally becoming famous overnight. From the very first episode, Sherlock was a dizzying, worldwide success and Cumberbatch inspired a level of devotion that can be hard to fathom. From any point of view, he has handled it exceptionally well.

"I worked with him just before he did Sherlock and I remember thinking, 'My God, you're going to be very, very famous,'" says Claire Foy. "'This is going to change your life.' I always felt with Ben, 'That man could never walk into a room and be ordinary, an ordinary man in the room.' Because he seems so extraordinary. You look at him, wherever he is. So it was planned."

"Sherlock was essentially the perfect combination of actor and role," says Mark Gatiss, his co-creator and screenwriter. "Having stepped into a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, everything about Benedict, his age, his looks, his 'otherness,' marked him. We put together a huge list of possible Sherlocks but, in the end, we didn't see anyone else." than him."

History suggests that it was his repulsive turn in Atonement - a small role in a big movie, a good example of making the audience remember the scene - that landed Cumberbatch the role of the high-achieving sociopathic detective.

Gatiss says that's half true.

Steve Moffat and Sue Vertue [co-creator/writer and producer, respectively] had just seen Atonement when I texted them saying, "What about Benedict Cumberbatch?" He had worked with Ben on Starter for 10 [the 2006 film about College Challenge. Cumberbatch was playing the cocky team captain, Gatiss was Bamber Gascoigne] and I knew him a little bit. But Atonement made a big impression on all of us."

Gatiss says that every day he is asked if there will be more Sherlock.

I ask Cumberbatch if he would like to put a percentage chance.

"It wouldn't be fair to anyone else involved, I'm not going to go into that. No, no, no."

Go.

"Oh look, I keep saying never say never. You know, I really like that character... it's just, the circumstances have to be right and I think maybe it's too soon now to see him have another life. I think As wonderful as it is, it's had its moment so far. But that's not to say it won't have another iteration in the future."

So if the team recasts Sherlock and Dr. Watson, would you give him his blessing?

Here draw the line.

"It's not for me to comment on that," he says.

Director Dominic Cooke thinks Sherlock came at the right time for Cumberbatch. "He had been a very good actor for a long time and he was getting on. Emotionally, he was already mature when he came to the pressures of success. I think he enjoys it, he enjoys it more than many British actors. He works very carefully, like a star to the old one".

Cooke recalls the reception the couple attended after Richard III's burial at Leicester Cathedral in 2015, when the king's body was discovered under a car park. Cumberbatch read a poem commissioned by Carol Ann Duffy.

"It was like a nature documentary when they realized he was there - this burst of activity."

A trickle of requests for autographs and photos turned into an avalanche.

"Se volvió intenso, y lo hizo bastante, y luego simplemente dijo "Lo siento, no voy a hacer más porque voy a hablar con mi amigo". No se puso a la defensiva ni se estresó, y todo el mundo lo entendió. Me impresionó mucho".

Cumberbatch recuerda haber hecho Frankenstein en el National Theatre y haberse dado cuenta de que todas las noches había la misma gente en primera fila. Venían de China. Les preguntó cómo demonios podían permitirse el tiempo y el dinero. "Oh, no importa", dijeron. "Te queremos".

No vivo muy lejos de Cumberbatch, en el norte de Londres, ya veces lo veo salir a correr, o con su familia. Ya no está allí, pero durante mucho tiempo pensé que vivía en Shirlock Road, una coincidencia que me resultaba desproporcionadamente divertida (en realidad vivía una calle más allá).

Cuando se lo comento de pasada, me dice que no era el único.

"Mucha gente solía venir a posar allí, disfrazada. Yo decía: 'Creo que será mejor que me vaya por el otro lado. Antes de que me vean'".

Es una tarea de tontos tratar de poner el dedo en la llaga de por qué una persona es más popular que otra, por no hablar de tratar de evaluar la situación si realmente eres esa persona. Pero Cumberbatch es tan históricamente querido que le pregunto si se detiene a preguntarse por qué.

Su respuesta es notable por su peculiaridad y su longitud, y quizás por algo de lo que revela de cómo se ve a sí mismo, en comparación con cómo sospecho que otros podrían verlo. Esto es lo que dice.

"No. Me atrevería a decir que a veces es porque tengo muchas ganas de..."

Comienza de nuevo.

"Soy fácil con la promoción de mis fallas, y que sólo estoy tratando de hacerlo y fallar mejor, en lo que sea. Principios de la vida. Trabajo de abogacía. Privacidad. Todo eso. No lo sé. Realmente no quiero decir estas cosas porque se convierte en una autoevaluación y suena como si estuviera dándome bombo. Pero trato de mantener un equilibrio de certeza en lo que soy. Y también una empatía por los demás, para intentar ser un ser humano abierto, supongo. Así que espero que todo el mundo se sorprenda y que todo el mundo, supongo, que es tan devoto... también la gente que es despectiva también, hay todo tipo de voces por ahí, cuando llegas al tipo de exposición que he tenido, y soy consciente de eso tanto como de la devoción - creo que la gente es leal a mí porque, y tal vez digo esto con buenas intenciones, trato de mejorar. Y como dicen en la vieja paráfrasis de Samuel Beckett, fracasar mejor".

En 2014 Cumberbatch se incorporó a Marvel como Doctor Extraño, Hechicero Supremo, principal protector de la Tierra contra las amenazas mágicas y místicas. Su amigo Tom Hiddleston había fichado tres años antes, en el papel de Loki, Dios de la Travesura -el archienemigo y hermano adoptivo de Thor-.

"No pidió consejo", dice Hiddleston. "¡Y no lo necesitaba! Ya había trabajado a gran escala en Star Trek: Into Darkness y Sherlock era un fenómeno mundial. A lo largo de los diez años que le conozco, lo que más destaca es su curiosidad ilimitada. Es muy consciente de que la vida es corta y preciosa, y su alcance proviene de la profundidad de su mundo interior -contenemos multitudes- y de su energía. Me encanta su Doctor Extraño, creo que es estupendo".

Le pregunto a Cumberbatch: ¿se acercó Marvel a él?

"Sí, sí lo hicieron".

¿Y qué tan rápido dijo que sí?

"En cierto modo tenía mis dudas al respecto, por el mero hecho de adentrarme en los cómics. Pensé: 'Este es un personaje muy anticuado y sexista'. Y está muy ligado a ese crossover, a esa especie de movimiento de ocultismo de Oriente y Occidente de los años sesenta y setenta."

Era un personaje pulp de la era de Vietnam. A Ken Kesey le gustaba.

"Sí, sí. Y entonces me vendieron el panorama general, en plan 'Oh no, no te preocupes, este será un personaje muy de su tiempo. Y, sí, tiene problemas de actitud... pero esto es lo que prevemos'".

Cumberbatch se reunió con el guionista y director Scott Derrickson, conocido por sus películas de terror enfermizo, y dijo que sí.

"Y entonces me di cuenta de que 'Oh, joder, no puedo hacerlo'", dice. "Prometí hacer Hamlet [en el Barbican]. Está todo preparado, el teatro está reservado, no puedo hacerlo cuando se quiere rodar".

Así que Marvel retrasó todo el rodaje seis meses, exprimiendo la postproducción asignada de un año en la mitad de ese tiempo.

"Coquetearon con un par de otras opciones, y luego volvieron y dijeron: 'No queremos que nadie más lo haga'".

Una de las cosas impresionantes de la larguísima lista de cosas impresionantes que ha conseguido Marvel Studios es que no sólo hace películas populares de personajes de cómic populares, sino que hace películas populares de personajes de cómic de los que nadie ha oído hablar. Es de suponer que hay fans de los cómics cuyo libro favorito es Guardianes de la Galaxia, concebido originalmente a finales de los años sesenta como un grupo de superguerrillas "que luchan contra los rusos y los chinos rojos que se han apoderado de los Estados Unidos y los han dividido", pero hay que suponer que son una minoría.

El Doctor Extraño no era exactamente Krypto el Perro Maravilla. Pero tampoco era Iron Man. (El sitio web Comic Vine sitúa a Strange en el número 37 de una lista de los 100 mejores superhéroes de Marvel. Treinta y seis puestos por debajo de Spiderman).

"Completamente", dice Cumberbatch. "Tengo el Segundo Álbum del Miedo con éste, como debería hacer cualquiera, porque el primero fue un éxito rotundo y se ha convertido en un personaje muy querido".

Piensa en esto.

"Son muy buenos para superar las expectativas, cuando las expectativas son bajas. Creo que siempre es más difícil superarlas cuando son altas. No digo que las hagan bajas. '¡Vamos a hacer Ant-Man!' Es sólo la forma en que hacen que estas cosas funcionen. Sobre el papel piensas '¿Es emocionante?' Están empezando a tomar más riesgos ahora, creo. Quiero decir, sus directores están muy atados al estilo de la casa. Pero, ya sabes, Taika Waititi, eran, como, '¿Estamos...? ¿Esto va a funcionar?' Y es jodidamente divertido, Thor: Ragnarok".

Ahora debes ser popular en las fiestas infantiles.

"No en el rango de edad al que voy".

¿No son un par de tus hijos la edad perfecta?

"Sí... si son conscientes de que soy el Doctor Extraño. Pero mi aspecto es bastante diferente al de él".

De hecho, ha aparecido como el Doctor Extraño en una fiesta infantil, en un sketch de Jimmy Kimmel Live. Kimmel reserva por error al hechicero como un mago, con resultados bastante divertidos.

"La única vez que lo he interpretado fuera del mundo [Marvel]", dice Cumberbatch. "[Los niños] realmente no sabían quién era yo. Y mis habilidades como el Hechicero Supremo no fueron realmente apreciadas por los niños pequeños con un alto nivel de azúcar".

El tráiler de Spider-Man: No Way Home, que da casi el mismo protagonismo a Spider-Man ya Doctor Extranño, fue visto 335,5 millones de veces en sus primeras 24 horas, un récord que le da derecho a ser la película más esperada de la historia. El anterior récord, ya superado con creces, lo tenía Vengadores: Endgame, que se convirtió en la película más taquillera de la historia.

Christian Bale, Tilda Swinton, Anthony Hopkins... es más difícil encontrar un actor de primer nivel que no haya hecho una película de superhéroes ahora. Pero cuando están en el plató con sus trajes, cuando los Vengadores están todos reunidos, ¿nunca empiezan a reírse?

"Todo el tiempo cuando estás haciendo esas películas son momentos de pellizco", dice Cumberbatch, estratégicamente incomprendido. "Nunca se me pasa el vértigo de trabajar frente a Spiderman. Es muy guay".

Así que nadie ha dicho '¡Somos hombres de mediana edad! Esto no es para lo que fuimos a Rada'?

"Sí, pero te metes en esto, y te comprometes con ello y es una tontería. Pero también es muy agradable y embriagador y debería celebrarse también y tratarse como lo que es, que es diversión".

Otra mañana, otra entrevista.

Cumberbatch se sienta en una silla para ser entrevistado por Hollywood Reporter (el eventual titular de portada de la revista: "La era de Cumberbatch") y se mira en el espejo, con su rostro ligeramente bronceado iluminado por las bombillas.

Ha regresado de Los Ángeles, de terminar Spider-Man: No Way Home y efervescente de entusiasmo actoral por Tom Holland.

"Me las arreglé para patinar y hacer surf, y pasé mucho tiempo con Tom Holland, que es absolutamente brillante. Es simplemente el mejor".

Cuando hablamos por primera vez, era la mañana siguiente a haber visto El poder del perro por primera vez. Ahora ha tenido tiempo para procesar sus pensamientos.

"Deja una marca indeleble", dice. "Cuando elaboras un personaje así y te adentras en tu psique, te hace preguntas a ambos. Y te hace sentir simpatía y reverencia por ese personaje. No era un monstruo. Era alguien que intentaba llevar una vida auténtica. Y quieres que el compromiso cumpla realmente con las expectativas del material, tanto para ti como para la gente que te empleó.

"Siempre he considerado mi carrera como una forma de educación superior", dice. "Es algo maravilloso poder hacerlo en nombre del trabajo".

Cumberbatch no es de los que guardan recuerdos de los platós: "Nunca me gusta ser un turista o un mirón de mi propio trabajo", dice.

Pero había algo que necesitaba retener de esta, para no dejar pasar la experiencia. Para consagrarla un poco. Así que ahora es el orgulloso propietario de un conjunto de diminutas sillas de madera al estilo de Adán, no más altas que una pulgada. Las que hizo él mismo, por supuesto.

El poder del perro se puede ver en cines y en Netflix. The Electrical Life of Louis Wain llegará a los cines el 1 de enero de 2022

Via: Esquire UK