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swissmargOops, I did it again!
This time it's an interview between Benedict Cumberbatch and Peter Travers, music critic for The Rolling Stone magazine, broadcast on America's ABC, I think on May 18, 2012. The original interview can be seen here.
TRAVERS: All right people, you have just seen a scene from Sherlock, which is in its second season on PBS's Masterpiece Mystery. And Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Sherlock – brilliantly, I have to say – is here to prove that he's just as brilliant when he's not playing Sherlock.
CUMBERBATCH: (laughs) Oh God! No, well I've lost already.
TRAVERS: Yes, do it, okay, I'm just leaving it to you.
CUMBERBATCH: I can't- (laughs)
TRAVERS: Did you have any moment of hesitation when you were offered this?
CUMBERBATCH: Oh huge! I mean, not when I was offered it, because by then I'd read the script, but when I first heard of the idea, I think both Martin Freeman and I both kind of flinched, and the idea of reinventing something which is so iconic and so untouchably brilliant in its original form was sort of distasteful, and smacked of a cash cow or some kind of horrible, cultural kind of cannibalism, pop eating itself if you will, and I just- I really shied away from it. I was also a little bit nervous about the idea of stepping into the limelight. I'm realising that by playing an iconic figure, I think it's the seventy-fifth or -sixth incarnation, mine, so, you know, well- well-trodden footsteps.
TRAVERS: Really?
CUMBERBATCH: Yeah, a lot of, a lot of actors have had
TRAVERS: So, I only knew of Basil Rathbone back in-
CUMBERBATCH: And Jeremy Brett, you must know-
TRAVERS: Jeremy Brett, yes-
CUMBERBATCH: Robert Stevens and, I mean it just goes on and on-
TRAVERS: And this guy Robert Downey Jr.'s done it
CUMBERBATCH: Yeah, that kind of, yeah, he-
TRAVERS: (laughs)
CUMBERBATCH: I hope he does well, he's got a lot of promise. I- You know, I kind of went into it with lots of trepidation, but then I read the scripts and just completely fell in love with it.
TRAVERS: There's something about the voice, the tenor of it, that-
CUMBERBATCH: I think, well, I mean I went back to the original books, someone said how did you prepare for the role, I read, I read the books because I knew that was exactly what had driven Mark and Steven for this daring idea, and we had a lot to establish that was our own, to tailor and author, and yet at the same time I had to bring – in my mind, I had to bring an element of otherworldliness, or at least othertimeliness to him, and ... coming from a posh boarding school, looking the way I do, I mean I've done some period dramas, you know, I think the fit was very good, and I think that was what Mark and Steven wanted to use me for initially, and then I read for them and they were like, 'Oh, good, our instincts were right', and it was- it's been a marriage of bliss ever since, yeah, which is fantastic-
TRAVERS: I mean, I don't know that Robert Downey wrote you a nasty note and said, 'How dare you, this is my property'-
CUMBERBATCH: No, apparently, I mean because I got to know Jude Law quite well because of working with his best friend Jonny Lee Miller on Frankenstein-
TRAVERS: Mm-hm.
CUMBERBATCH: -and he was- they, they both really like it but sort of through gritted teeth, you know.
TRAVERS: (laughs)
CUMBERBATCH: I mean and I love their films. I think they're fantastic, they're great fun and it's- They're very different takes, theirs is a sort of modern- not modern; an action thriller take on the original period, and ours is a reverse, a polar reverse in many ways of what they're doing. So they can both exist in the same time and not tread on each other's toes, and I'm thrilled for that and I'm sn-
TRAVERS: Well I don't think that Basil Rathbone or anyone that was doing it in the beginning had anything like the first episode of season two with you and the dominatrix.
CUMBERBATCH: True.
TRAVERS: I mean that was-
CUMBERBATCH: True. (laughs) True. Yeah, there is a, yeah. We have a little bit more freedom.
TRAVERS: How did you want to put yourself forward as this character?
CUMBERBATCH: I would say, well first of all the deduction scenes are the big kind of walls I go, wow, okay, that's a good two and a half pages, and incredibly complex, plot exposition, but, you know, sharpened and polished into this entire narrative, and um... so I set about work on those quite early on, I look at the action scenes as well, I also think about, you know, the interaction and the growth of the character, and the arc, and where the relationships are developing, and um... I just can't- I just get itchy to do it, to be honest. I mean it's- They're very ... They're just really enticing scripts. You just want to get on and get playing, really. And I mean, Martin and I text each other. They often arrive as we're doing the first one we get the second, and then the third-
TRAVERS: Martin who is playing John Watson-
CUMBERBATCH: Yes.
TRAVERS: -and who is-
CUMBERBATCH: -doing that little radio play, The Hobbit, yeah, a BBC Four drama somewhere, I don't know.
TRAVERS: (laughs)
CUMBERBATCH: Yeah, he's amazing.
TRAVERS: What is wrong with Sherlock Holmes? Does he have Asperger's? Is he – What is it, how do you approach it?
CUMBERBATCH: Here's the thing, I mean I think he's basically- He didn't start this way. He wan- I mean obviously he's brilliant, he was obviously a bit of a prodigy at school and an outsider because of that, and I think what happened is through dint of that isolating experience, he started to hone these very concentrated skills, and they require certain cutoffs, and I think ideally what he's trying to fashion himself into because he has possibly been hurt, because he does possibly have a heart, is someone who is robotic almost in his logical capacity to deal with people and problems like a machine, and what this series is about and the gestation of his character and the relationship with Watson that very much humanises and grounds him is his growth from this sort of impervious, almost superhero level of intelligence acquired through dint of hard work but still almost unreal. He protects that to a point whereby he can't anymore, he has to- And his guard's let down by his feelings, the fact that he's revealed to be human, so we see virtually a humanisation of him I guess. And I don't know, I think that's his biggest problem, is wanting to be more than human and escape the frailties of being human but while at the same time being human.
SHERLOCK: Don't mention the unsolved ones.
JOHN: People want to know you're human.
SHERLOCK: Why?
JOHN: Cause they're interested.
SHERLOCK: No they're not. Why are they?
CUMBERBATCH: And I think he's got a sort of- He's got a God complex in a way, he wants to be something above a mere mortal.
TRAVERS: Have you picked up any of that, Benedict, by just playing him?
CUMBERBATCH: Though your imagination works overtime, so you could be on a train coming back from Lo- Cardiff to London and I'll be kind of looking at the guy opposite and I'll look at the indent on his wedding ring finger or I'll look at a slight smudge on his shirt, I'll see the small bit of mud on his shoe and I'll think about the little hair on the sort of bottom of his rolled-up trouser leg- Why is that trouser leg rolled up and the other one's tucked into his socks? Someone got dressed in a hurry. So you start to build imaginative pictures, but as he often has, you know you get into terrible trouble when you try to bring that into reality and there are these amazing people who are criminal pathologists-
TRAVERS: Because he tends to come right out-
CUMBERBATCH: - who I understand actually do this on a daily basis, so I don't want as an actor sort of slipping into the shoes of someone much better than me. I don't want it and let's not try to pretend to do it in real life, you get into all sorts of trouble but yeah, it's a tempting thing to try, definitely. It's a wonderful skill and what's brilliant about him as an icon for kids and one of the main things I wanted to come with the first series was that people would go back to the books and they did, the sales rocketed and it was a happy summer for the Sherlock estate, which I was thrilled about.
TRAVERS: Before you can think about what you're going to sing for me-
CUMBERBATCH: Right.
TRAVERS: I'm just asking for a snippet, a musical snippet, that will identify the inner Benedict Cumberbatch to the world that's out there now listening.
CUMBERBATCH: Okay.
TRAVERS: There's no pressure on this.
CUMBERBATCH: Okay.
TRAVERS: Mm-hm.
CUMBERBATCH: (sings:)
Come with me
and you'll be
in a world of pure imagination
That's as much as I'm going to sing.
TRAVERS: That's it.
CUMBERBATCH: (laughs)
TRAVERS: Well that's Willy Wonka! It's- It's- That was fine.
CUMBERBATCH: That's all right. Is that all right?
TRAVERS: And you've given us all- It is.
CUMBERBATCH: I can't- I mean I'm in New York, I should do a big show-stopping number, I can't- You know, I mean, God there's U2 numbers floating around in my head
TRAVERS: Quite ambitious though to do that, I don't think I would have taken you into-
CUMBERBATCH: Are you not going to. Okay, okay, all right well then I'll just-
TRAVERS: I feel bad now, maybe you have
CUMBERBATCH: Do you know what, I'll make a promise, I'll do that next time.
TRAVERS: Okay.
CUMBERBATCH: I'll do that when I come to talk about Trek
TRAVERS: When you come back for The Hobbit and/or Star Trek, it will all happen.
CUMBERBATCH: I will give you my best Bono. (laughs) That sounds rude.
TRAVERS: I'm going to hold you to that.
CUMBERBATCH: I'll give you my best Bono.
TRAVERS: Thank you.
CUMBERBATCH: Very nice to be here.
TRAVERS: Thank you.
This time it's an interview between Benedict Cumberbatch and Peter Travers, music critic for The Rolling Stone magazine, broadcast on America's ABC, I think on May 18, 2012. The original interview can be seen here.
TRAVERS: All right people, you have just seen a scene from Sherlock, which is in its second season on PBS's Masterpiece Mystery. And Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Sherlock – brilliantly, I have to say – is here to prove that he's just as brilliant when he's not playing Sherlock.
CUMBERBATCH: (laughs) Oh God! No, well I've lost already.
TRAVERS: Yes, do it, okay, I'm just leaving it to you.
CUMBERBATCH: I can't- (laughs)
TRAVERS: Did you have any moment of hesitation when you were offered this?
CUMBERBATCH: Oh huge! I mean, not when I was offered it, because by then I'd read the script, but when I first heard of the idea, I think both Martin Freeman and I both kind of flinched, and the idea of reinventing something which is so iconic and so untouchably brilliant in its original form was sort of distasteful, and smacked of a cash cow or some kind of horrible, cultural kind of cannibalism, pop eating itself if you will, and I just- I really shied away from it. I was also a little bit nervous about the idea of stepping into the limelight. I'm realising that by playing an iconic figure, I think it's the seventy-fifth or -sixth incarnation, mine, so, you know, well- well-trodden footsteps.
TRAVERS: Really?
CUMBERBATCH: Yeah, a lot of, a lot of actors have had
TRAVERS: So, I only knew of Basil Rathbone back in-
CUMBERBATCH: And Jeremy Brett, you must know-
TRAVERS: Jeremy Brett, yes-
CUMBERBATCH: Robert Stevens and, I mean it just goes on and on-
TRAVERS: And this guy Robert Downey Jr.'s done it
CUMBERBATCH: Yeah, that kind of, yeah, he-
TRAVERS: (laughs)
CUMBERBATCH: I hope he does well, he's got a lot of promise. I- You know, I kind of went into it with lots of trepidation, but then I read the scripts and just completely fell in love with it.
TRAVERS: There's something about the voice, the tenor of it, that-
CUMBERBATCH: I think, well, I mean I went back to the original books, someone said how did you prepare for the role, I read, I read the books because I knew that was exactly what had driven Mark and Steven for this daring idea, and we had a lot to establish that was our own, to tailor and author, and yet at the same time I had to bring – in my mind, I had to bring an element of otherworldliness, or at least othertimeliness to him, and ... coming from a posh boarding school, looking the way I do, I mean I've done some period dramas, you know, I think the fit was very good, and I think that was what Mark and Steven wanted to use me for initially, and then I read for them and they were like, 'Oh, good, our instincts were right', and it was- it's been a marriage of bliss ever since, yeah, which is fantastic-
TRAVERS: I mean, I don't know that Robert Downey wrote you a nasty note and said, 'How dare you, this is my property'-
CUMBERBATCH: No, apparently, I mean because I got to know Jude Law quite well because of working with his best friend Jonny Lee Miller on Frankenstein-
TRAVERS: Mm-hm.
CUMBERBATCH: -and he was- they, they both really like it but sort of through gritted teeth, you know.
TRAVERS: (laughs)
CUMBERBATCH: I mean and I love their films. I think they're fantastic, they're great fun and it's- They're very different takes, theirs is a sort of modern- not modern; an action thriller take on the original period, and ours is a reverse, a polar reverse in many ways of what they're doing. So they can both exist in the same time and not tread on each other's toes, and I'm thrilled for that and I'm sn-
TRAVERS: Well I don't think that Basil Rathbone or anyone that was doing it in the beginning had anything like the first episode of season two with you and the dominatrix.
CUMBERBATCH: True.
TRAVERS: I mean that was-
CUMBERBATCH: True. (laughs) True. Yeah, there is a, yeah. We have a little bit more freedom.
TRAVERS: How did you want to put yourself forward as this character?
CUMBERBATCH: I would say, well first of all the deduction scenes are the big kind of walls I go, wow, okay, that's a good two and a half pages, and incredibly complex, plot exposition, but, you know, sharpened and polished into this entire narrative, and um... so I set about work on those quite early on, I look at the action scenes as well, I also think about, you know, the interaction and the growth of the character, and the arc, and where the relationships are developing, and um... I just can't- I just get itchy to do it, to be honest. I mean it's- They're very ... They're just really enticing scripts. You just want to get on and get playing, really. And I mean, Martin and I text each other. They often arrive as we're doing the first one we get the second, and then the third-
TRAVERS: Martin who is playing John Watson-
CUMBERBATCH: Yes.
TRAVERS: -and who is-
CUMBERBATCH: -doing that little radio play, The Hobbit, yeah, a BBC Four drama somewhere, I don't know.
TRAVERS: (laughs)
CUMBERBATCH: Yeah, he's amazing.
TRAVERS: What is wrong with Sherlock Holmes? Does he have Asperger's? Is he – What is it, how do you approach it?
CUMBERBATCH: Here's the thing, I mean I think he's basically- He didn't start this way. He wan- I mean obviously he's brilliant, he was obviously a bit of a prodigy at school and an outsider because of that, and I think what happened is through dint of that isolating experience, he started to hone these very concentrated skills, and they require certain cutoffs, and I think ideally what he's trying to fashion himself into because he has possibly been hurt, because he does possibly have a heart, is someone who is robotic almost in his logical capacity to deal with people and problems like a machine, and what this series is about and the gestation of his character and the relationship with Watson that very much humanises and grounds him is his growth from this sort of impervious, almost superhero level of intelligence acquired through dint of hard work but still almost unreal. He protects that to a point whereby he can't anymore, he has to- And his guard's let down by his feelings, the fact that he's revealed to be human, so we see virtually a humanisation of him I guess. And I don't know, I think that's his biggest problem, is wanting to be more than human and escape the frailties of being human but while at the same time being human.
SHERLOCK: Don't mention the unsolved ones.
JOHN: People want to know you're human.
SHERLOCK: Why?
JOHN: Cause they're interested.
SHERLOCK: No they're not. Why are they?
CUMBERBATCH: And I think he's got a sort of- He's got a God complex in a way, he wants to be something above a mere mortal.
TRAVERS: Have you picked up any of that, Benedict, by just playing him?
CUMBERBATCH: Though your imagination works overtime, so you could be on a train coming back from Lo- Cardiff to London and I'll be kind of looking at the guy opposite and I'll look at the indent on his wedding ring finger or I'll look at a slight smudge on his shirt, I'll see the small bit of mud on his shoe and I'll think about the little hair on the sort of bottom of his rolled-up trouser leg- Why is that trouser leg rolled up and the other one's tucked into his socks? Someone got dressed in a hurry. So you start to build imaginative pictures, but as he often has, you know you get into terrible trouble when you try to bring that into reality and there are these amazing people who are criminal pathologists-
TRAVERS: Because he tends to come right out-
CUMBERBATCH: - who I understand actually do this on a daily basis, so I don't want as an actor sort of slipping into the shoes of someone much better than me. I don't want it and let's not try to pretend to do it in real life, you get into all sorts of trouble but yeah, it's a tempting thing to try, definitely. It's a wonderful skill and what's brilliant about him as an icon for kids and one of the main things I wanted to come with the first series was that people would go back to the books and they did, the sales rocketed and it was a happy summer for the Sherlock estate, which I was thrilled about.
TRAVERS: Before you can think about what you're going to sing for me-
CUMBERBATCH: Right.
TRAVERS: I'm just asking for a snippet, a musical snippet, that will identify the inner Benedict Cumberbatch to the world that's out there now listening.
CUMBERBATCH: Okay.
TRAVERS: There's no pressure on this.
CUMBERBATCH: Okay.
TRAVERS: Mm-hm.
CUMBERBATCH: (sings:)
Come with me
and you'll be
in a world of pure imagination
That's as much as I'm going to sing.
TRAVERS: That's it.
CUMBERBATCH: (laughs)
TRAVERS: Well that's Willy Wonka! It's- It's- That was fine.
CUMBERBATCH: That's all right. Is that all right?
TRAVERS: And you've given us all- It is.
CUMBERBATCH: I can't- I mean I'm in New York, I should do a big show-stopping number, I can't- You know, I mean, God there's U2 numbers floating around in my head
TRAVERS: Quite ambitious though to do that, I don't think I would have taken you into-
CUMBERBATCH: Are you not going to. Okay, okay, all right well then I'll just-
TRAVERS: I feel bad now, maybe you have
CUMBERBATCH: Do you know what, I'll make a promise, I'll do that next time.
TRAVERS: Okay.
CUMBERBATCH: I'll do that when I come to talk about Trek
TRAVERS: When you come back for The Hobbit and/or Star Trek, it will all happen.
CUMBERBATCH: I will give you my best Bono. (laughs) That sounds rude.
TRAVERS: I'm going to hold you to that.
CUMBERBATCH: I'll give you my best Bono.
TRAVERS: Thank you.
CUMBERBATCH: Very nice to be here.
TRAVERS: Thank you.
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Date: 2012-05-20 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-20 12:58 pm (UTC)