Weird day at the office
Benedict Cumberbatch crosses the last role off his bucket list by playing hedonist extraordinaire Patrick Melrose
HE is one of those actors who is so talented that fans find it hard to shake off the image of his onscreen roles from reality.The name Benedict Cumberbatch has become synonymous with characters such as Doctor Strange and iconic literary figures such as Sherlock Holmes.
But in his latest role for his passion project, we see him sans the red cape or the Sherlock cloak. He plays the titular character Patrick Melrose, in the ongoing five-part adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s critically acclaimed novel of the same name. It’s a project that is very close to Cumberbatch as he also serves as executive producer. The series takes viewers into a magnificent cycle, following Patrick Melrose’s roller coaster life of an abused, addicted, upper-class Englishman. Sounds complex, but that’s nothing Cumberbatch isn’t used to. A quick overview of Patrick Melrose; he is a professional gadabout and hedonist extraordinaire. Having been born with seemingly infinite funds at his disposal, his privileged upbringing has allowed him to live the glamourous life of jet-setting the globe, with one girlfriend after another.
His nasty heroin habit is tragically born from the need to distract himself from a deeply traumatic childhood, specifically stemming from his relationship with his monstrous father. But things take a different turn when Melrose gets news that his father had died.
RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME
The 42-year-old father-of-two might have reigned success with Marvel films and other titles such as The Imitation Game and 12
Years A Slave, but playing Patrick Melrose is one of his two bucket-list roles, along with Hamlet which he played on the London stage, back in 2015.
“I’m often asked what roles do I want to play and this and Hamlet were the only two sort of bucket-list roles I had and they’ve both come to pass,” he said.
“The last novel had been published in 2011 and that was the year I’d started to read the series. It’s an awful thing to say, considering how monstrous some of these people are, but I just felt that I had a slight lock-in to the world. I had a little understanding of that milieu — the brilliance but coldness of the cynicism and the irony.”
So how did he eventually manage to tick off his bucket list? In an Ask Me Anything on Reddit in 2013, Cumberbatch named Patrick Melrose as the literary character he would most want to play. That statement made its way onto Twitter, and grabbed the attention of Michael Jackson and Rachael Horovitz who acquired the rights to the novels. Soon after, they were in touch with Cumberbatch.
“I knew there’d be a broad bracket of actors who had also probably read the books and said, “Hmm, wouldn’t mind a
No one can be everyone’s Patrick Melrose
Benedict Cumberbatch
stab at that. I was just very, very lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I voiced my desire on a Reddit forum and I got a call!
“They wanted to meet up when I was in New York. We had breakfast and I was a little late and terrified as I was still rushing to re-read the final two novels the night before and morning of the meeting!
“I didn’t know they were only thinking about me for the role at that stage and so I was still nervous even when they were very clearly pitching their ideas about adapting these extraordinary books for television,” he said.
PRESSURE
It’s undeniable that Patrick Melrose has a dedicated fan base, so of course Cumberbatch felt some sort of pressure when playing the iconic literary figure. “It is a bit daunting. Every reader has their own cinema playing when reading fiction this good.
”No one can be everyone’s Patrick Melrose — although maybe with this new face technology they could stick other actors’ faces on my head to make that come about. Nicolas Cage as Patrick Melrose, perhaps?” he joked.
UNIVERSAL ISSUE
Even though the show revels in a luxurious setting coupled with Patrick’s privileged background, Cumberbatch said that Patrick’s problems are universal and is not subjected to a specific class in society.
“The type of person who struggles with addiction, the type of person who has experienced abuse, sadly ranges across all class divides and so there is a universality to this that I think will translate.
“They can have the most extraordinary ideas of ownership and property and what wealth is — but this story is about how the true wealth is love, and how true, pure, good, innocent love can win through. But boy, does it struggle to get there,” he said.
MANY HATS
Serving as the lead actor and executive producer was a little confusing for Cumberbatch. “Mainly I was more of a producer in prep and pre-production, helping whenever my acting prep allowed to assist with putting the production team together to the cast.
“Then you let everyone else take over, and by the time you start shooting there’s not that much producing you can or need to do.
“When I’m not busy as an actor, I do look into the producing and directing side of things — but seeing the amount of work that Edward Berger had directing all five episodes, right now is not a good time. I have two small children and acting in that part was quite enough,” he said.
Cumberbatch admitted it was indeed a difficult task to play a person who goes through so much pain in his life.
“Some of the scenes in the hotel room in the first episode titled Bad News are pretty tough. It’s like a one-man show when he starts trashing the hotel room — these schizoid voices come out and start dialoguing with one another, so I’m talking to myself.
“That was a weird day at the office, let’s put it that way. I’ve learnt over many occasions to leave the work on screen, go home in the car, turn on the radio and start to let go so that I walk in the door and it’s not: ‘How was your day?’”
If someone were to ask him that, he would reply with: “Well, I was looking at my dead dad, thinking of him raping me and then I injected cocaine into my left ankle and smashed up a hotel room before near-overdosing on heroin and waking up surrounded by blood, vomit and needles. You know, the norm!”
Surely playing a heavy role requires a great deal of preparation, so Cumberbatch worked with a husband and wife who previously had struggled with addiction themselves.
“They were incredibly candid, encouraging, and supportive throughout the whole creative process. Understanding the physical and psychological effects of these substances was vital, but the most important thing was to understand the drive behind the appetite and the addiction and the psychological need these destructive drugs create,” he said.
WHAT VIEWERS CAN EXEPCT
As many anticipated for this series to debut, Cumberbatch said that people would be in for a bit of an unexpected treat.
“I hope they’ll be really entertained by some extraordinary material rendered by some of our most loved actors, young and old, and shot in a novel and beautiful way. Visually it’s going to be very different from episode to episode and there’s the obvious originality of the screenplay. I hope people are going to want to read the books.
“The Patrick Melrose books are an extraordinary achievement in 21st-century literature. They’ll stand the test of time, so let’s hope our adaptation does.