Benedict Cumberbatch Goes Undercover on the Internet

Hey, I'm Benedict Cumberbatch.

I'm going undercover on the internet.

[gentle music]

It's actually me.

[keyboard clicking]

First up, Twitter.

Do you think the Doctor Strange hand movements

for spells were choreographed

or was it just Benedict Cumberbatch improvising.

No, some thought went into them.

I think we're kind of done

with the kind of circular movement.

We'll see that evolving, I think, in the next installment.

But no, the hand movements, in general,

the biggest spells, that was really carefully choreographed

and it was Julian, who's this amazing tutter,

which is the word for kind of like the breakdancing

of hand movement.

He's an expert in creating incredible shapes

and illusions out of seemingly impossible conjunctions

of knuckles and fingers and hands and wrists.

And then, well see you know, he'd give me something

that was impossible, and then I'd say,

Look, I'm an actor, and we'd break it down

into Cumber-chunks so that I could actually do it

and it looked reasonably good and like I had some possession

of what I was supposed to be doing.

Next question.

What's your favorite part about being on set

with the Avengers.

My favorite part about being on set with the Avengers

is the camaraderie and the companionship.

It's just a fun place to be.

It's hard work, the long hours,

but you spend a lot of time in isolation getting ready

and prepping, putting the costume on,

and the makeup can take a long time.

And then you're there and you're on the field

and you're doing what you're doing

with an amazing bunch of actors, frankly.

So it's kind of inspiring to look around.

And then, once you've got over being star-struck,

it's just a really fun day at the office,

as you can imagine.

Long, but fun.

Ryan Fuller wants to know:

Ha ha, have you ever seen Benedict Cumberbatch

try to say penguin?

There, you see?

You just did.

Bernadine Bowman Murray, that's a name,

says: Benedict Cumberbatch, The Current War,

as opposed to The Current War, looks interesting,

but why are so many US citizens being portrayed by Brits?

Maybe that's just perception.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Thomas Edison.

I don't know.

I think we get to share quite a lot of traffic

in that department, my friend, Bernadine.

You know, Meryl Streep gets to play Margaret Thatcher.

I don't know, listen, acting's a job

and you get to be a lot of things other than yourself.

And, not blowing my own trumpet,

but you just have to be good at it,

and if you are good at it and you get trusted

to do something like playing an American icon like Edison.

You work very hard to honor the trust

and faith that people have in you,

so I don't know if it's just Brits.

I mean, I think Australians as well.

There're lots of other-than-American actors

playing American roles,

but I do think the traffic goes both ways,

and that's a very healthy state of affairs culturally.

We can't and shouldn't all be typecast

or stick to our own nationalities either.

Do you think Robert Downey Jr.

and Benedict Cumberbatch ever share Sherlock Holmes stories

or fight over who the best, we certainly don't fight

over who the best Sherlock is.

No, we're really lucky.

We've worked in these two franchises

playing iconic characters.

And, you know, Jonny Lee Miller's also a friend,

and it's interesting.

I've yet to have a real discussion with Robert about that,

or Jonny, really.

I mean, yeah.

We've said how funny it is

that we get to play these characters,

and here we are doing something together

in a completely different world, different characters.

That's a very dull answer, isn't it?

I should've said, Yeah, we do, and I'm the best.

Bye-bye.

IMDB, fount of misinformation.

Okay, so my five trademarks

are apparently that I've got a deep baritone voice,

piercing blue-green eyes, sharp cheekbones,

often portrays posh, upper-class figures.

Alan Turing wasn't necessarily upper-class.

Doctor Strange is very privileged and very smart,

but not necessarily upper-class.

He's more the class of money, I guess, in this country.

Yeah, I don't know.

American posh people, just people who aren't upper-class.

I like to mix it up.

It also says usually plays highly-intelligent

and gifted characters.

Yeah, I got an odd face.

Maybe that's why I get to pretend to be smart,

but I'm playing a character coming up

called Greville Wynne in a film called Ironbark

who is a working class salesman

who works his way up the greasy class pole

to being a middle class salesman

and married into someone from the upper classes,

but still, he was basically a salesman for industrial goods

and ended up being a conduit for MI6

during the Cold War and making friends

with the highest ranking Soviet official

ever to turn informant, Oleg Penkovsky in Russia.

And he was a very ordinary man doing an extraordinary thing,

so take that, IMDB.

He experienced a terrifying carjacking in South Africa

while filming To the Ends of the Earth in 2005.

He wrote about the experience in an article

for The Prince of Wales' Trust,

for which he is an ambassador.

True.

True, true, true.

About how music can inspire you

and a particular piece that Radiohead did

came on by accident whilst we were being driven off-road

by three guys coming to raid the car for what it was worth,

tie us up, and psychologically kind of torture us

and give us a pretty rough ride.

Thank God, not too much violence.

I was put in the boot of a car

and my hands tied behind my back and gun put to my head

and that was a sparky night in a very big country.

Famous for my Alan Rickman impressions.

Yes, God rest his soul.

Sometimes as an actor, you're looking for the infinite.

Oh, did I really say this?

This is gonna be awful.

I hate IMDB.

If you can hold that, if you can remember that in the chaos,

it will anchor you and give you grace and ease.

I don't know.

I must've been tired, stoned, or jet-lagged,

or all of those things. [chuckles]

If you can remember that in the chaos.

What chaos?

Chaos of fame?

I mean, you don't look for the infinite in fame.

I don't know, I really don't know

where the context to this was or even if I said it,

and trust me, the amount of shit

I'm credited with saying I haven't said is unbelievable.

[keyboard clicks] [soft piano music]

Reddit.

What are the best names

you've heard for Benedict Cumberbatch?

I've heard 'em all, sweetheart.

I've heard 'em all.

Goodbye.

Reddit, if Keanu Reeves and Benedict Cumberbatch

were in a movie, what would the plot be?

[chuckles] I don't know.

I don't know.

That we were friends and kicked ass.

I don't know.

[soft piano music] [keyboard clicks]

Wikipedia.

He subscribes to Buddhist philosophy

and has expressed affinity for meditation and mindfulness.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

Cumberbatch did not achieve international recognition

until the first series of Sherlock in 2010.

He has since been called the thinking woman's crumpet.

Hmm.

Yeah, it was very weird, that sudden moment,

and it was, it's odd, it's the first time

I've really experienced the live nature

of a recorded broadcast.

It was just bizarre, like the internet reaction.

I didn't really know what Twitter was until that night.

I didn't know that there was this sort of space

for a live reaction from an audience.

It was kind of freaky.

This just blew up in that moment to the point

that I thought we were gonna walk out the door

and have like press outside hanging out of helicopters

and flashbulbs going off in hedgerows

because it was so loud.

And yet, I just walked down this slightly wet, empty street.

Normal life continued.

It's great that series got so much love

and our work was rewarded

and we got to do so much other things as artists.

That freedom is great, but the cost of that is fame,

and that's a weird, unruly beast.

In September 2016, appeared on stage

with Pink Floyd member David Gilmour

during one of the musicican's shows in London

held at the Royal Albert Hall.

He sang lead vocals on Comfortably Numb,

singing the verse section originally sung by Roger Waters.

I'm proud because I had literally,

I survived to tell you that that is true.

I thought I was gonna have a heart attack.

I was looking for guys and like floories

to literally know where my out was, medically,

because I was like, This it, that's it.

That sort of numb feeling, the shortness of breath,

my chest is tightening, I'm going to collapse.

I'd watched this entire concert

and it was a gift to any fan of Gilmour.

And then I waddle on.

People go, [chuckles] What?

Sherlock's gonna sing to us?

It was very, very weird, but then I got into it

and it was amazing.

But I literally thought I was gonna die before I went on,

so sorry, I wanted to take that one.

What is Quora?

Is it like a public forum where people answer?

Oh, I got you.

I think I do know this.

Is Benedict Cumberbatch

the best Sherlock Holmes of all time?

That's nice.

Which Benedict Cumberbatch character/role

do you like the best?

I don't do favorites, sorry.

You'll have to decide things, or Koorah should.

Why doesn't Benedict Cumberbatch

have any social media accounts.

Duh.

Because I'd be terrible.

It would take me too much time and I'd overdo it.

How many times did Benedict Cumberbatch

read Sherlock Holmes novels to get into character?

Pretty much every time we did a series,

anything that it touched on, I'd go back to the canon

and just kind of rootle around in it

and that's the best research you could possibly do

for an iconic role like that.

It's all there.

It's all there.

Watson recorded it all.

Thanks, internet, for questions.

Goodbye.

[soft piano music]

It's not really me.

It's a hologram.

Bye-bye.

Can't get off the chair.