Girl who broke Cumberbatch’s heart to wed Sherlock actor
SHe is the woman who broke Benedict Cumberbatch’s heart — and now she’s engaged to a more handsome Sherlock Holmes actor, nine years his junior.
I can reveal Olivia Poulet, 37-year-old star of The Thick Of It, has found lasting love with Laurence Dobiesz (inset), 30, who appeared in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes film A Game of Shadows as an Austrian maitré d’.
TV Sherlock star Cumberbatch dated Poulet (pictured together, right) for ten years until 2011, but their relationship is said to have cooled after he said he wanted children. Though the split was, at the time, said to be ‘amicable’, close friends claimed last night it was Olivia who called time on Cumberbatch.
Poulet met Cumberbatch at the University of Manchester, where both studied drama, and they later shared a home in Hampstead, North London. Benedict told of his wish to be a dad in 2010: ‘I have been broody for five years,’ he said. ‘The big question is “When?” I think I’d like it before I’m 35 . . . I would love to have the ability to juggle a career and have a young child.’
Following their separation, the Old Harrovian actor went on to star in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Colin Firth, and his film career took off.
Poulet was born in Putney, SouthWest London, into a high-achieving family. Her mother is a judge and her, brother, Jamie, a neuroscientist. Two years ago, she disclosed she was dating another actor (‘I seem to have a taste for them’) whom she declined to name.
Cumberbatch married 37-year-old theatre director Sophie Hunter in February this year, and she gave birth to their son in June. After her split with Cumberbatch, Poulet was never keen to talk about her ex. ‘We are absolutely grand and adore each other, but it’s just difficult if every interview is about me going out with Benedict,’ she said.