DID YOU KNOW? Benedict Cumberbatch

The 41-year-old has become a global star since playing Holmes in Sherlock, and is currently in Patrick Melrose (9pm, Sky Atlantic). Here are some facts you may not know about him…

After leaving school (Harrow), Cumberbatch spent half a year doing odd jobs, then went to India to teach English to Tibetan Buddhist monks for five months. ‘It was so high up, you would open your window, and the clouds were like dry ice rolling across your desk.’ In 2004, while filming To The Ends Of The

Earth in South Africa, Cumberbatch was carjacked along with co-star Denise Black and another friend. The actor thought the end was nigh, but talked his way out of it. The experience had a profound effect on his approach to life. ‘It taught me that you come into this world as you leave it, on your own… It’s made me want to live a life slightly less ordinary.’ He does an uncanny impression of Alan Rickman, to the extent that he impersonated Rickman’s Harry Potter character (Severus Snape) for an episode of The Simpsons.

He also does a good Sean Connery, Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, Graham Norton, Tom Hiddleston, Michael Caine and many more. Cumberbatch has a condition called heterochromia, which gives his eyes different colouring. Others with it include Jane Seymour and Christopher Walken.

His first stage performance was as a ‘very bossy’ Joseph in his school Nativity. ‘Apparently, I pushed Mary offstage because she was taking too long.’