I'm not an overnight success. I've been doing it for 12 years. It's been lovely and varied so far.
Actor is an odd profession, and sometimes people get jealous, but I haven't really experienced any of that. Everyone's been really happy for me, which is really, really great.
I never really got obsessed about one thing for long. I was a bit of a butterfly and a magpie.
I've said for quite a long time I'd like him to have a different haircut. I quite like my hair being short. You know, we've been away two years, let's f*** around with his outfit, let's f*** around with his haircut, let's do something different.
I am very flattered. I have also become a verb as in "I have cumberbatched the UK audience" apparently. Who knows, by the end of the year I might become a swear word too! It's crazy and fun and very flattering.
[on BBC's Sherlock] It's a rare challenge, both for the audience and an actor, to take part in something with this level of intelligence and wit. You have to really enjoy it. It's a form of mental and physical gymnastics.
I ate healthily, but there was no snacking, no drinking, no bread, no sugar, no smoking. Afterwards I had a pork belly roast.
I'm aware of the power of looks. I've wanted to play roles that have gone to much better-looking people and you just think 'Oh well, that's the pin up guy's an actor like my friend James Mcavoy, who's gorgeous on screen. I'm not that. But at least I don't have to worry about taking precious care of my face because it's my commodity. That's a great freedom. I'm not afraid of being heinous for the sake of a part
My mum and dad had worked incredibly hard to afford me an education.
Even the cerebral characters I play seem to have physical quirks. They're all "physically inhabited," for lack off a better expression. For instance, Sherlock Holmes has very particular physical gestures which are drawn out in such detail.
I've realised now that the reality of children is you have to be in the right place with the right person.
When you see a good horseman, you're unable to tell where the instruction is coming from. It's like telepathy.
It's great for the people who supported me early on to see the success I'm enjoying.
Maybe it's just getting older, but I don't want to miss things.
I want to be better at staying connected.
Do I like being thought of as attractive? I don’t know anyone on Earth who doesn’t, but I do find it funny. I look in a mirror and I see all the faults I’ve lived with for 35 years and yet people go kind of nuts for certain things about me. It’s not me being humble. I just think it’s weird.
[Doctor Strange] is still quite cocky by the end of the film. No, I'd say the major curve for him is that he learns that it's not all about him, that there's a greater good. But what he thinks he was doing as a neurosurgeon, that was good because it benefitted people's health was really just a furtherment of his attempts to control death and control his own fate and other people's, but that's still driven by the ego.
Anyone who works in the NHS has superpowers. It's a miracle, it is magic.
When you freefall for 7,000 feet it doesn't feel like you're falling: it feels like you're floating, a bit like scuba diving.
Animations are really powerful - it's not just entertainment, it's a very cunning way to get good ideas across.
Lines are very difficult to learn.
I'd love to meet Julian [Assange], and time permitting, and his will permitting, I'm sure it will happen at some point. Even though he's been very critical of the film [The Fifth Estate], he's been very polite about me and my work, and I feel the same way about him.
Mads [Mikkelsen] and I have a really epic brawl - a week shoot, lots of rehearsal - and he was just delightful. He's a dancer and a gymnast so he knows how to plant the moves. He was always saying, "Are you okay?" When you've got that level of mutual consideration you form a family very quickly.
Marvel always make it fresh so you can give it your personal twist.
There are very specific demands, though, in television, and you notice the budget constrictions. It's the time constraint and a purse constraint more than anything else that you notice. But the ambition of the writing and, hopefully, the delivery of it gets better and better because we want to outdo ourselves to keep ahead of a very expectant and hungry public.
