I think I've had very knee-jerk emotional reactions to things, and sometimes I've said things without thinking. Being overly emotional clouded my judgment.
I thought, well, why am I giving up on my primary dream to work doubly hard, to do something as an alternative to what it really still want to?
I like to think that we’re revolving on this planet and revolving through the galaxy. I love having context that’s so much bigger than I can fathom. It’s fantastic to realise how insignificant you are.
I have an appetite for the normal in my life, as well as the abnormal.
Metaphorically speaking, it's easy to bump into one another on the journey from A to B and not even notice. People should take time to notice, enjoy and help each other.
I remember very clearly someone saying, 'Don't shake hands with the cactus,' and I thought, 'Well, why not? What could possibly go wrong?' Shaking hands is a friendly gesture.
I'm sort of focused on my long-term goal of carving out a career that's for life, rather than being a flash in the pan.
Cumberbatch - it sounds like a fart in a bath, doesn't it? What a fluffy old name. I can never say it on a Monday morning. When I became an actor, Mum wasn't keen on me keeping it.
I love doing impersonations of people.
I think with any characterization there's a point where you empathize, no matter how much of a deviance his or her actions may be from your understanding of humanity.
Being in front of an audience makes me feel alive. Being with friends makes me feel alive. I’ve done some crazy stuff in my time and yet I can feel infinitely alive curled up on a sofa reading a book. So, what makes me feel alive? I guess it’s realizing I am part of the world around me.
Every job is incredibly different, and I love it because you're picking up skill sets and experiences. It's the university of life.
I just increasingly enjoy the quiet moments when I can be on my own with my friends and family, or with a book, having a live experience. That's really what I crave, and I always have done.
I think what I loved in cinema - and what I mean by cinema is not just films, but proper, classical cinema - are the extraordinary moments that can occur on screen. At the same time, I do feel that cinema and theater feed each other. I feel like you can do close-up on stage and you can do something very bold and highly characterized - and, dare I say, theatrical - on camera. I think the cameras and the viewpoints shift depending on the intensity and integrity of your intention and focus on that.
I've been very lucky at what's happened in my career to date, but playing something as far from me as possible is an ambition of mine - anything from a mutated baddy in a comic book action thriller, to a detective. If anything, I'd like Gary Oldman's career: he's the perfect example of it. I've love to have a really broad sweep of characters - to be able to do something edgy, surprising and unfashionable.
One of the best things about being an actor is that it's a meritocracy.
My first agent dissuaded me from calling myself 'Cumberbatch.' I had six months of not very productive time with her, so I changed agents. The new one said, 'Why aren't you using your family name? It's a real attention-grabber.' I worried, 'How much is it going to cost to put my name in lights?' But then I decided that's not my problem.
I'm not confident in social situations; just going up to someone in a bar and saying 'Hi' is going to be even more difficult because they won't know the real me. They will just know me as a fictional person I play on the screen.
I love the idea of playing something stupid or romantic. I'm not the smartest man in the room. I listen, and I learn, and I observe, but I'm always playing characters with intellects profoundly superior to mine. That's great fun, even though it's as much a fantasy for me as for the people watching me.
The awful lesson of history is that we too often ignore people, just because they're foreigners or different from us.
I drive a motorbike, so there is the whiff of the grim reaper round every corner, especially in London.
'Sherlock' fans are, by and large, an intelligent breed, so they've gone through my back catalogue and got what I've done, why and how I've done it. There is some obsessive behaviour, but I worry for them rather than me.
The number of people my age, younger now, a whole generation younger, who are fiercely bright, over-educated, under-employed and who are politicised and purposeless really upsets me. It's soul-destroying.
I always seem to be cast as slightly wan, ethereal, troubled intellectuals or physically ambivalent bad lovers. But I'm here to tell you I'm quite the opposite in real life. In fact I'm a f**king fantastic lover.
People's hands fascinate me. It's tempting to look at a businessman's left hand and see if there's an indentation from a missing wedding ring. Or maybe there's a tan line and the skin is pressed down where's he's worked a ring off his finger.
