TOTAL FILM INTERVIEW
EVERYTHING WE DO AS ACTORS IS ILLUSION… THAT IS TURNED UP TO 11 ON A MOVIE LIKE DOCTOR STRANGE
Benedict Cumberbatch talks Thomas Edison in an electrifying chat.
Whether he’s playing a master of mystic arts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate, Benedict Cumberbatch is no stranger to roles that challenge him and test his limits. Total Film meets the English actor to look back at his cinematic history – and discuss his electric role as inventor Thomas Edison in The Current War.
When Benedict Cumberbatch sits down to talk to Total Film inside the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, he immediately issues an apology. “Forgive me,” he laments. “I am incredibly, incredibly hungover. It’s not often that you get to open a film as big as Avengers. I just wanted to warn you in case I’m incoherent.”
Cumberbatch is far from incoherent, of course. Despite his hangover, the Harroweducated actor never rambles when he talks. His language is erudite and intellectual. His answers are thoughtful and prosaic. And a night of epic celebrations with his A-list collaborators on yet another Avengers movie won’t stop him from doing press the following morning. Now a key player in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Doctor Strange, the blockbusting behemoth Avengers: Endgame is the fourth screen outing for the Sorcerer Supreme (including a cameo in Thor: Ragnarok) and there’s talk of a Doctor Strange sequel. But it’s not all about the big screen for Cumberbatch, who constantly shifts between TV and movie projects.
“I think a lot of film stars are doing, or have done, great work in television,” he explains. “Just look at Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon in Big Little Lies. In some ways, there’s an intimacy to television that I love, although I also love the big splashy stages of iconic roles in huge films like Avengers. I know that I’m very, very, very lucky that I get to explore these different areas.”
Dressed in a blue shirt and dark blazer, Cumberbatch looks far from hungover. He takes a sip of warm tea before he continues. “Acting to me has never been a status thing. I’ve landed a couple of very iconic roles, which has given me a status to what I do, but I’m not interested in doing things just for the sake of doing them.”
Since 2017, Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch CBE has tackled four television projects (The Child In Time, Patrick Melrose, Brexit: The Uncivil War and Good Omens) alongside six movie releases (his MCU offerings plus The Grinch, Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle and the upcoming The Current War). And it’s clear that he has no plans to stick to either format in the future.
Cumberbatch beams on the topic of his latest release, The Current War, especially when discussing his co-stars, Michael Shannon and Nicholas Hoult. “I was very excited when I heard about these two being cast in the movie,” he admits. “I think Michael is one of the great heavyweights of our time. He’s the real deal. And I was also very excited to work with Nick. I got the giggles pretty quickly because he’s very, very funny. I had a great time working with these two.”
The Current War is a historical drama about the battle between Thomas Edison (played by Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) in the race to light up America – and the world – in the 19th Century by taking control of how electricity would shape the future. An initial release date was secured in 2017, but the Weinstein movie was temporarily shelved after the sexual abuse scandal rocked Hollywood. After Entertainment Films secured the UK rights, The Current War is finally hitting cinemas.
You’ve tackled a number of historical and biographical characters, including Alan Turing in The Imitation Game and now Thomas Edison in The Current War.
Are you drawn to real characters rather than fictional roles?
I didn’t know much about Edison when I signed on to this role, so that wasn’t the draw for me. The draw was the script and the human dilemma I saw in the piece; not the idea of playing a titanic cultural figure. If you do that, it can be terrifying. If people have detailed expectations or a very strong stance on a character, then I think you can really become unstuck, but that happens in fiction as well. I’ve played a number of fictional characters – whether in the comic-book world or in Sherlock or whatever – and you’re treading on hallowed ground for a lot of fans that were there way before you started meddling with the material. In that sense, you can’t be inhibited. You respect it, but you have to bring yourself to the work rather than everybody else’s preconceived idea of what it should be.
What research did you tackle for the role of Thomas Edison?
I read various books and biographies of Edison. And the more I read, the more I realised there’s a very varied reception, as well as a very varied understanding and appreciation of the man. A lot of what he achieved in his life was a furthering or a progression of other people’s ideas, as well as his own unique and original ideas. For example, I thought he invented the light bulb and I didn’t realise it was his development of someone else’s ideas. I discovered a lot as I went along because I really was in the dark – not to pun the phrase – in the beginning.
Was there a particular book that helped you form the character?
I found an extract from a diary from late in Edison’s life, which really helped. I think it’s out of print, but the production found a copy – and it illuminated a very human
core to this man. Edison talked very frankly about his dreams. He was very funny and he was very self-deprecating. He talked a lot about his diet and bowel movements, or lack thereof. He talked about his great love of literature and what he was buying. It’s these little keys that really help. In our story, we’re very much trying to look beyond the P.T. Barnum presentational Edison, though there are a couple of moments of that in the film. We want to explore the private man and what the machinations of that were, and the failures of that as well; and the neglect of his family that his obsession kind of brought about.
It can be argued that Edison was a crook who stole other people’s inventions, and yet your portrayal of the character is very sympathetic. How did you find the balance?
If you’re playing someone, I think it’s deadly to judge their character. You have to inhabit a character with a certain amount of understanding or empathy or sympathy; whatever you want to call it. And to fulfil that, it’s not about coming down in size. It’s not about journalistic headlines or black-and-white truth versus fiction – or good against evil. It’s much more complex than that. What we see is a man who had achieved a great deal from humble beginnings, who feels assailed in the world. I don’t think that ever left him. I don’t know where his need to succeed, to win and to have control started – but it is an ugly truth and yet it’s formed out of something that’s very human. I think there’s some degree of salvation in the sense that he admits he was wrong and he knows he was wrong, but he did then go on to overlord a lot of patent controls of certain inventions. He wanted to keep that fence very high. He wanted to keep those people out of his inventive garden, so to speak, rather than working together as George Westinghouse [played by Michael Shannon] proposes. “Why not do it together and have a bigger garden?” That’s what Westinghouse proposes. Of course, I think that’s the greater way – but who knows? We weren’t there.
Did fame affect Edison?
It was very interesting to examine the ideas of fame and how that can poison integrity. It was very interesting to examine how you can lose the ideal in the machinations of jealousy and other emotions, which are very, very human – and despite your best instincts not to do so. Those seem to be very human flaws, so I still have a great deal of sympathy for him, even if he didn’t go about it the right way. You can see how he made those wrong turns, if they are wrong. I leave it to other people to judge characters I play. I find it very hard not to be defensive. I am not trying to polish something here. I am not trying to make something nicer than it should be. But to examine a character fully, you can’t help but have some love for these people, however wrong their actions may turn out to be.
How do you handle fame?
What are my own ego and vanity issues? It’s weird. I feel like vanity is born out of insecurity. When you are exposed to the world a lot, when you have photographs being taken of you all the time, it’s not
if you’re playing someone, it’s deadly to judge their character
normal. You have a new level of selfconsciousness. But, I surround myself with friends and family who have known me for a lot longer than any of this extraordinary stuff that’s happening now, so they know how to keep me grounded. All I do is try and carve out enough time to spend with them to have an environment that’s normal. I think I am doing that.
Growing up, did you always want to be an actor?
Very much so, although I did want to be a barrister for about a year. That was when I was a teenager and about to choose my A-levels, so it was a good time to decide on a career path. But then I met an awful lot of people who put me off. I met an awful lot of lawyers in training who went, “If you’ve got another dream and you want to pursue it, choose that option.” The amount of effort I would have had to go to and the amount of rejection and the percentage of employment; all of the things that are the vagaries of being an actor apply to being a barrister, too. It all just made me think, “I’m in a really fortunate position where I can try to pursue my main dream and see if it works.” So that’s what I chose.
i remember seeing my mum on stage – it was unreal. i loved it
Your parents are both successful actors. How much did they steer you towards a career in the industry?
My mum and dad didn’t want me to go anywhere near it. The reality is this: I grew up with two working actors, so I know all of the highs and lows of acting. And because of that, they wanted to persuade me and afford me an education where I could choose to be anything but an actor. Not because they thought it was a bad rap, but because they thought they wanted better for their child – and they knew what the pitfalls were. However, I took that education and I threw it back in their face! [laughs] No, they are thrilled with the way it’s turned out for me. I live to make them proud.
What are your early memories of watching your parents at work?
I remember standing on the side of a stage and seeing my mum walk out there. I could see all of this light and laughter, and I could feel the heat coming off everybody who was having an incredible time watching the comedy she was performing. It was fascinating. It was like stepping through a wardrobe into Narnia. It was unreal. I loved it.
What are your earliest memories of movies?
I don’t remember the first film I saw. I really don’t. Sorry. I remember seeing my first Bond film, which was Octopussy. I remember that clearly because of the plane with the fold-up wings. That’s not my first film, but that’s an early memory of a film. I also remember watching E.T. and I remember going to see Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan and being really traumatised. I think I was a little bit too young for it, so my parents had to put me into therapy afterwards. It really upset me.
One of your recent roles is in Avengers:
Endgame. What did you make of the intense secrecy surrounding the scripts?
It was definitely intense. I’ve never been cattle prodded, but it would feel like there’s someone who would run really fast from the other end of the room and jolt me with a bovine dose of electricity had I said anything that gets near any of the details that matter.
There were so many incredible actors on the set of Endgame. Does it ever feel like a competition?
I never felt like we were in competition on set. To be honest, I never feel in competition with my peers. I feel very unnerved if I am ever around people who do feel that way. And it’s a very, very rare occurrence in my experience. On the set of Avengers, it’s a huge collective family. It’s an exciting thing to be part of.
During the film shoot for Avengers:
Endgame, Marvel shot an epic photo of the main stars of the MCU to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Did that experience feel like getting together for a huge family portrait?
Of course. It was like a large family gathering where there are some cousins in the corner and you think, “I don’t know who the fuck you are! I mean, I’ve had one conversation with you.” But they are all friends. There are some who I know very well, whether I’ve spent a lot of time with them on set – like Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland – and others I’ve just met on a press tour. I met Sebastian Stan a long time ago when he was doing the first Captain America in London. I also knew
Scarlett Johansson from work. The lovely thing about that day was the chance to broaden that circle.
How did it feel to be part of that 10th anniversary celebration?
It was incredible. It was also pretty moving, not least because of it being 10 years of peoples’ lives that they’ve put into these movies. There were some very, very high stakes and risks, but they have been bettering their output with every single film. There’s a marvellous reason for that: Kevin Feige. He is a masterful studio boss because he is a fan and he has true belief in the product that he’s making. He safeguards that with a continuity that links all of the films – but at the same time, he changes your experience when you watch all these movies. He expands enough to take you on a crazy journey in Thor and then take you on a completely different journey with Black Panther – and then into this huge canvas of the Avengers films. I think he’s great. He is the most extraordinary leader you could expect.
Looking back at the MCU, how would you describe your very first day on the set of
Avengers: Infinity War?
On my first day at work, it was very flattering to look around and see two icons: Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man. Robert is an extraordinary human being, so it was definitely nerve wracking to be stood there. However, everything quickly becomes normalised by the fact that you’re on a set trying to solve the problems of the working day together as colleagues. He’s very engaged and open with that. I adore the guy. He’s a great improvisor, too. He’s a great leading man who brings you in. He makes you feel comfortable going goatee-to-goatee with this egotistical narcissist who’s been around for 10 years, so that you’re not quaking in your English boots. Instead, you think, “Right, I’ve got to do this. Strange is going face-to-face with Stark and it’s going to work.”
You mention that Robert Downey Jr. is an expert improvisor. Was there much room for improvisation when you were working on the set of Sherlock with Martin Freeman?
No, there was not much room for improvisation there. We would always say, “I’d like to try this or that.” But that was about the minutiae and not improvisation. We signed up for a show with gloriously written scripts and it was a treat to read them, so you really don’t want to muck around with it.
You delved into comedy with a voice role on The Grinch in 2018. How would you describe that experience?
I jumped at the chance to voice the Grinch when it was offered to me. It’s such an iconic character and I love the Seussian universe. It wasn’t one on the bucket list for me, but I was blown away by the fact that they thought I was suitable to play the character. I didn’t think the Grinch was English, but as soon as we ironed that out and I read this new ‘imagining’ of the classic tale, I was completely on board. I was in, hook, line and sinker.
What did you make of the recording booth process?
Voice work is very freeing. There’s a break of two months between each session, so there were many four to six-hour sessions over two years. In that sense, I dropped in and out of it while doing Patrick Melrose, Doctor Strange and a lot of other projects, such as Brexit: The Uncivil War. It’s a great way to work from that point of view because you can schedule a lot of other projects around it. With voice work, you are very static on a microphone. Maybe you have some artistic renditions of where the animation is going to go, but it’s very rarely to picture and you don’t act with any other actors. For The Grinch, the solo work was pretty helpful. It was really good fun, but it’s a little different to mo-cap work. With mo-cap, you are still imagining a lot but you move around a stage.
You dabbled in motion capture as the dragon Smaug in a number of Hobbit movies with Peter Jackson. How did you find that process?
That was very fun because you are completely free to make a complete fool of yourself and lose yourself in your imagination. The other actors had it much harder than me. They were working in costume on a greenscreen background, acting opposite ping-pong balls and marks of tape and pretending that’s their reality – and having to take into account camera moves, too. I was just throwing myself around a carpeted floor like a lunatic.
You also tackled greenscreen work in
Doctor Strange and the Avengers movies. How does a classically trained actor feel about competing with special effects?
I probably feel the same as Tom Hiddleston or Eddie Redmayne, or the older generation, like Anthony Hopkins, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. I am not the first. To be honest, there are a lot of realworld settings in Marvel movies. The scene on the Hong Kong street at the end of
Doctor Strange was real. Some of the sets created are epic. You can swing a camera 360 degrees and wherever it stops, you could use that frame in the final film.
What’s it like to work on an ambitious greenscreen scene?
When you’re shooting in a room that is blue or green from the floor to the ceiling, it’s disorientating and your sense of perspective is shot unless you can see a figure. If you are on your own, it is often confusing. But it’s all smoke and mirrors. Everything we do as actors is illusion. We are always employing imaginary circumstances and we are always trying to suspend our disbelief and playfully commit to something that isn’t real. I guess that is turned up to 11 on a movie like Doctor Strange. It is mind blowing. In many ways, you realise you are still the puppeteer rather than the puppet and what you do affects what the special effects artists then do around you. In that sense, it’s a very creative and collaborative process. It’s not just about running around in Spandex with reflectors on and losing your sense of what your craft is as an actor. It’s a new skill set to learn, but it’s really, really engaging and it’s really creative.
You’ve carved out a stellar career as a dramatic actor. Have you ever pursued a lighter role to experience a change in pace?
The only time in my career I have pursued a part for the need of doing something lighter was after playing the husband of Hedda Gabler [in the play Hedda Gabler] and watching my character’s wife blow her brains out every single night for six months. Seeing that happen on the stage was a little bit depressing by the end, so I decided to try out for a character called Patrick Watts in the movie Starter For 10. I remember [co-star] James McAvoy saying to me, “You are really going for this part, aren’t you?” And I was like, “Yeah, you would too if you had been stuck in a Norwegian melodrama for six months.”
Starter For 10 was one of your first movie roles. How would you describe the experience? I absolutely
loved it. I loved doing something lighter. I loved flexing a different muscle, but that’s the only time I really chased something for a change of scene. People often say, “Oh, you should do more comedy.” Well, I think I do a lot of things that have comedic strains. For example, Patrick Melrose is not too shabby in the comedy department. It’s pretty funny, but it’s not an out-and-out comedy. I also did a radio comedy called Cabin Pressure which was also great fun, so I do mix it up. I would love to do a full-on comedy at some point. Maybe a slacker comedy or a romantic comedy? Watch this space.
Apart from comedies, what other genres would you like to tackle?
I haven’t done a musical or a horror at this stage, but I’m not going to drop the bomb of a specific project or character that I’d like to [do] because I’m enjoying building projects from scratch rather than fishing for a particular role or direction.
Kevin feige is an extraordinary leader. masterful
Why horror and musicals?
Well, those are just two genres I haven’t done, so those are itches I’d like to scratch. It’s that simple. However, my appetites are often created by different things. I don’t always think about genres. At the moment, I am more interested in who I work with more than anything else. For me, it’s about directors. I do have a wish to work with the director Paul Thomas Anderson. I’m putting that out there. I’d love to work with him.
THE CURRENT WAR OPENS ON 26 JULY.