English actor Benedict Cumberbatch has portrayed a superhero in several dangerous roles, but it turns out that he has been in a real life-threatening circumstance before.
The ‘Doctor Strange’ star said in an interview with Variety this week that in 2004, while filming the BBC miniseries ‘To the Ends of the Earth’, he was in South Africa with some friends when their tyre blew out on the side of the road. They were robbed and kidnapped by six men. Before the men eventually ran away, Cumberbatch and his friends were restrained and forced to sit like executioners.
According to Cumberbatch, the event “gave me a sense of time, but not necessarily a good one. I still struggle with the impatience I felt from living a less typical life.”
He also talked about how the terrifying experience made him want to do more extreme activities to boost his adrenaline.
According to him, “The near-death stuff turbo-fueled all that. I realised that I could die at any time. I took a lot of risks, including jumping out of aeroplanes.
“But at that time, I didn’t have any dependents outside of my parents. Adding to his wife and three sons, he said, “Now that’s changed, and that sobers you. Looking over the edge has helped me become at ease with what’s underneath. And I’ve come to terms with the fact that that is the conclusion of our narrative.”
In other parts of the conversation, Cumberbatch discussed his acting skills and indirectly alluded to some of his terrible previous experiences when he talked about how he learnt to cry on command from his Marvel Cinematic Universe co-star Tom Holland.
“There is that approach, but assuming you can force it is a mistake. He referred to Holland’s method, which uses the diaphragm to breathe while adjusting the muscles utilised for laughing, as a “dead end.”
“To react to the present, you must truly place your mind somewhere. And it can involve using your imagination or your life narrative as inspiration.
“It’s more difficult when you’re young. I have a little life experience because I am 48 years old. Cumberbatch added, “I have gone through some of the worst and some of the best; I have lost, I have suffered.”
