DOCTOR STRANGE
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH is magic as Marvel’s new movie superhero
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH IS the go-to guy to play intellectually brilliant, emotionally cold, slightly sociopathic characters. Marvel Comics superhero Doctor Strange, an aloof, arrogant neurosurgeon who becomes a powerful sorcerer, is another of his cold-fish geniuses, a brainy brother under the skin to Sherlock Holmes and Alan Turing.
Those two were hardly people pleasers, but the haughty Strange is even more overbearing, until a gruesome car crash damages the nerves in his hands. His quest for a cure takes him to Kathmandu, where an enigmatic mystic known as the Ancient One (beguilingly played by a bald, androgynous Tilda Swinton) sets him on the road to redemption.
And the new sorcery skills he acquires, with help from the Ancient One’s chief lieutenants, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Wong, become crucial when nihilistic baddie Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) appears on the scene, threatening world destruction.
The ensuing adventure boasts truly dazzling visuals: cityscapes bend and fold as rival sorcerers reshape reality, conjuring up the origami dreamscapes of Christopher Nolan’s Inception and the mind-bending illusions of artist MC Escher. And when Strange ventures into different astral realms, his acid trip freak-out recalls the Star Gate sequence from 2001.
But it is Cumberbatch who makes the movie work. Sardonic and funny, he fits into the movie’s comic-book world surprisingly well. He manages Strange’s trademark Cloak of Levitation without looking camp and, when he’s casting spells, pulls off the occult mumbo-jumbo with equal panache. When it comes to acting magic, Cumberbatch really is a sorcerer. 2016, 12, 115min
WHEN TV&SATELLITE WEEK meets Benedict Cumberbatch at a Beverly Hills hotel, it’s easy to see why he was cast as Doctor Strange in Marvel’s superhero blockbuster.
Dressed in black, Cumberbatch is keen to discuss meditation and spirituality – just like his character Stephen Strange, a neuroscientist who seeks new meaning in his life when he loses the ability to use his hands in a car accident.
After taking a pilgrimage to Nepal, Stephen acquires magical abilities from a guru named the Ancient
One (Tilda Swinton).
He returns to the West reborn as the Sorcerer
Supreme to battle the formidable Kaecilius, played by Mads
Mikkelsen.
‘The film was a big draw to me because, like Stephen, I have travelled to the East to search for some kind of depth and meaning to life,’ reveals the 41-year-old.
EASTERN PROMISE
As a teenager, Cumberbatch lived in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in West Bengal, teaching the monks English, and he has since embraced the Buddhist philosophy.
‘I learned a lot more from the monks than they learned from me,’ he smiles. ‘I was fortunate to have my doors of understanding and perception opened a crack. So to revisit some of those things in Doctor Strange was a gift and a great memory as well.’
After a year in the Tibetan monastery, Cumberbatch ditched plans to be a lawyer in favour of acting, becoming one of our biggest
stars in high-profile movies like The
Imitation Game and Star Trek: Into Darkness, plus Sherlock on TV. His busy schedule currently includes filming BBC drama
The Child in Time, based on Ian Mcewan’s prize-winning novel, along with playing US inventor Thomas Edison on the big screen in The Current War. He’s also set to reprise his Doctor Strange role in two more movies.
‘I’m very excited to carry the character forward,’ says the Londoner, who filmed Doctor
Strange shortly after becoming a father for the first time.
He married theatre director Sophie Hunter on Valentine’s
Day 2015 and son Christopher was born in June that year. A second son, Hal, was born earlier this year.
‘I have had a very rich couple of years,’ he says, ‘but I’ve worked incredibly hard. I’ve always done that throughout my life.’